This Grassroots JDM Car Show Made Northwest Arkansas Feel Like Tokyo

I'm from the Ozarks, about 10 miles north of the Missouri-Arkansas state line. As you can probably imagine, you're more likely to find a coal-rolling Cummins on the road than just about anything else. However, there's a booming JDM scene that has seriously grown since my high school days, and just last weekend, I attended a massive meet that not only filled up an entire 200-car parking garage but also overflowed to the streets of downtown Fayetteville. It was nuts, and it's called TougeCon.

I was fresh off a trip to Tokyo and Fuji Speedway, so I found it only fitting to continue the theme once I got back home. Now, let me remind you that this is not where you'd expect to find an R33 GT-R V-Spec, but that's what the crowd was ogling over when I first walked in. Then a guy with a controller in hand slid his RC drift car past me and my five-year-old son. This was way different from the car meets I grew up with.