Prior to my visit to Spoon, I had already been hearing about other journalist's attempt to interview this icon of Honda-tuning, Mr Ichishima Tatsuru. It seems that attempting to interview Ichishima is a rather daunting task ! One of my favourite story of such an attempt was a humorous and very entertaining article on the Spoon Racing Fit by BEST MOTORing INTERNATIONAL editor Taro Koki. Spoon president Tatsuru Ichishima is actually the kind of the guy who throws you off guard whenever you think you understand him he wrote. It scares me to imagine what it's like for non-Japanese-speaking folks to even have conversations with him. It's not rare for me to walk out of meetings with him and have no idea what went on for the last 90 minutes. And I'm fluent in Japanese! That's not very comforting considering that I don't know much japanese and that I am new in playing this journalist game !

Other journalist I talked to tells me how Ichishima seems to like to go off on a tangent away from the original focus of the interview and this often unsettles the journalist who is attempting to do the interview. During the interview, he tends to talk about all sorts of things which have nothing to do with the original interview itself ! I keep hearing. So I was really a bit shakey going into the Spoon visit and the Ichishima interview since I am so raw at this sort of thing ! Nevertheless, I decided to give it my best shot. Anyway I myself have very high regards for Spoon parts so at the very least, even if I don't get a good interview, I will at least get a chance to drool over the Spoon parts I am expecting to see during the visit.

The interview went off relatively normally with Mr Ichishima as expected wanting to know what TOV and TOVA was all about. Once he got to know that I represent the Honda & Acura enthusiasts - what he called the fanatical Honda fans, he seemed to come alive. Suddenly he told me how he is going to race a Spoon Accord Euro-R (Accord to Ichishima means Acura TSX to US readers and Accord Euro to Australian and New Zealand readers. The rest of Asia unfortunately do not get to enjoy this excellent model) and his next words were "come with me" and he guided me to his personal PC where he showed me an email - in japanese so I wasn't able to understand what it was - but with photos of a racing-prep Accord Euro-R donned in full Spoon Sports livery !

He then talked a bit about his philosophy of racing and then asked me to follow him to the next floor where he showed me the Spoon research lab, complete with machining tools of all kinds. He also showed me the many different parts Spoon are researching on. He then led to another floor which were full of mouth-watering cars that Spoon is working on. Throughout the tour, Ichishima-san kept asking me "why are you not taking photographs ?" - my new Fuji digital camera was kept dangling around my neck with the lens cap still on. I was confused! All the while I kept expecting to be led back to the original conference table so I would be able to get on with the official interview. I had expected the visit to be typical journalist type visit - rigidly structured, with the formal interview, then the polite brief tour of the facility etc. But here I was being shown things I didn't expect to be shown (and my heart was beating wildly from all the wonderfully wild things that were being shown to me) but with no visible sign of being allowed to do the structured interview. And I thought the japanese are very rigid and formal !

After the umpteenth time asking the question "why are you not taking any photographs ?" by Ichishima-san - it finally & suddenly struck me. Indeed, it suddenly became as clear as day and night. The real truth is it was not going to be the rigid, probably boring official journalist visit here. What is really the situation is that it was the enthusiast, i.e. me, trying to interview another enthusiast i.e. Ichishima Tatsuru ! Thus it is clear why many finds the task of interviewing Ichishima so chaotic. I think Ichishima was just being his normal self, a guy very excited and enthusiast about his work - and justifiably proud of his achievement (and he has acheived a lot) and just like any 'fanatical Honda fan' (his words), he just reacts on impulse, showing me everything and anything that jumps to his mind and which he thinks will interest me.

Having understood the true situation too quickly made my life very easy. I quickly decided to 'hang' the interview. When I attempt to 'interview' my readers, to feature their ride on TOVA for e.g., I too have always been quilty of side-tracking. The 'formal' interview quickly became an impulsive rant about the car and we often end up taking the car for some power test instead of getting on with the interview. In fact I often forgets to take photos and many a times have to arrange a second meeting for the photo session ! So it is natural that being probably one of the biggest Honda 'fanatical fan' on the face of this earth, Ichishima-san will be jumping randomly from area to area in my 'interview'. Realizing this, I quickly asked him to give me some time. Opportunity should never be wasted and since I am not sure I will come back to this way again, I took photos of everything I could see inside the 'garage', of course concentrating on the one famous car I was there to see in the first place, the Spoon Racing Fit.

So, from a tense visit, it quickly became a joyous one, with mind-boggling things greeting me everywhere. Never have I seen before so many S2000 and Type-Rs in a single location, and all cramped into 1 floor. This then is the true hard core enthusiast in his domain and I can seriously say that having seen this side of Ichishima and what he does, I now have every confidence in using Spoon parts for my modifications in the future. Now, if only they'll come a bit cheaper.... !