Jean-Christophe “JC” Pepino is a French-born engineer turned editor and marketer who has spent over two decades embedded in Japan’s racing culture. Now based in Takatsuki, Osaka, he runs BAKAJON, a YouTube channel and platform tracing his own path through Japanese motorsport.
After first visiting Japan as a teenager and falling for its car culture, JC gradually built a life there — moving from technical editor at Autoworks to over a decade in marketing at Work Wheels, where he contributed to the launch of the 90s-inspired Equip 40.
In 2021, after years of documenting the scene for others, he shifted position and launched BAKAJON to test, drive, and record his own experience of Japanese tracks.
BADSEKI: You’ve been in Japan for quite some time now. Can you tell us how long it’s been, what you do here, and what you’re driving these days?
Jean-Christophe Pepino: So my name is Jean-Christophe, but everyone calls me J-C. I’m a French engineer and I’ve been in Japan for 17 years now. I live in Nara. I’ve spent most of my life in the car and in the motorsports industry, basically. When I’m not working, I’m spending time at the local racetracks driving fun cars. I wouldn’t say fast, but fun cars at least. And I document the journey on my YouTube channel called BAKAJON.
I was lucky enough to drive several different cars, different types of cars. And now I have a Mazda Indy Roadster and a Suzuki Alto for endurance racing, basically. But you know, fun cars, that’s what I like.
BADSEKI: How did you get started with cars? The very beginning, when you were a kid in France.
J.C.: I guess when you're young, you're always attracted by cars. I did some RC back in the day. I did plastic diecast as well. But I don’t think there was anything really serious. Just like any other boy, pretty much. My dad wasn’t into cars at all.
I think my first trip to Japan pretty much changed everything. I was 15 years old. I was playing basketball with a friend of mine, he was half Japanese, half French. He told me he was going to visit his grandparents in Japan and asked if I wanted to come with him. I didn’t know anything about Japan back then, to be honest.
We went for two weeks. It was back in Saitama. We spent all day skateboarding, playing basketball. That was what we were doing back then.
I remember the day we left. His dad’s friend drove us back to Narita Airport. I was half asleep in the back of the car and I remember hearing this roar coming from behind. I woke up and saw this fast car passing by. Four red taillights. I asked my friend’s dad, “What is that?” He replied that it was a Skyline GTR. I was shocked.
BADSEKI: Did it stick with you back in France?
J.C.: I grew up in Chamonix in the mountains. We didn’t have many sports cars back then. Even in France, you don’t have those kinds of noisy, fast cars. I was really shocked to see that car flying by, the speed and the sound. And I think that’s where my deep interest in cars started.
After we came back to France, I started researching the car. It was before Gran Turismo. It was the beginning of the internet. We didn’t even have magazines. French magazines wouldn’t know anything about the Skyline.
It was really hard to find information. I remember finding tiny pictures on the internet. I printed one at a friend’s place. It was thumbnail size and I kept it in my wallet. And I think that’s where it all started, my interest in cars and Japanese sports cars in particular.
BADSEKI: Was this the reason you wanted to move to Japan?
J.C.: During my first trip, I was shocked by the kindness of people. It was clean, and when you’re a kid it was just fun. I thought, okay, Japan is cool. I wanted to know more.
Four years later, my friend told me he was going back to Japan to visit his grandparents. We were 18 back then. I asked if I could come again and he said yes.
I had four years to study cars and learn more about Skylines. When I came back in 1999, the year they released the R34, I was spending all day looking for cars around. I got to know more about Japanese culture and Japanese people. That’s when I knew I wanted to spend more time here.
Four years later, I found a way to spend a year as an exchange student. I was 20 or 21. I spent a year in Sendai, in Tohoku. It was supposed to be a year. I had to go back to France. I worked a little bit, and the first chance I got, I moved back. It was 2005, I think. It was supposed to be a year, but I just stayed.
BADSEKI: You started driving in between, right? How was the transition from interest to racing?
J.C.: In France you can only drive when you turn 18. When I turned 18, I was lucky enough to get a sports car, a Mazda 323. I pretty much started mountain racing. That was the only thing in the Alps back then. I didn’t really have access to racetracks. It was just me and a couple of friends.
When I moved to Japan as a student, I knew I wouldn’t be sitting in university all day. I came here using that excuse to spend time with car guys. Halfway through the year, I didn’t quit officially, but I didn’t really go to classes. I spent most of my time at a car shop and garage.
One day, I saw an R34 parked in an alley. I bumped into the owner. My Japanese wasn’t good, but I told him I loved GTRs and they were my dream cars. He took me for a ride for 20–30 minutes. His car was tuned by PROVA. We kept in touch. Eventually I asked if I could hang around at a shop I liked. They said yes. I became part of the crew and spent most of my time there. I had stopped going to class by that time.
BADSEKI: Did you start studying engineering because of cars?
J.C.: No. I was always into mechanical things. I started doing mechanics on my own. I was already working on my car back in France. The Mazda Familia GTR I had was pretty modified. I designed a few parts myself because it’s a rare car and it was hard to get parts in France. For the intake and turbo piping, I would do stuff myself. So it wasn’t that I started engineering to get into cars. I was already into cars and mechanical things.
BADSEKI: Looking back at your career, from the garage days to Renault, the magazines and Work Wheels, how did things evolve?
J.C.: At the garage, they realized I wasn’t just some random foreigner passing by. I was there every day. I was serious about it. They started trusting me more. I would go to events, track days, meets. I became part of the crew.
Being around them changed everything. Before that, I was just driving in the mountains. There, I started understanding what real performance meant. Real setup. Real tuning. Real track driving. That’s when it became structured.
After spending so much time around Japanese cars and tuning culture, I had an opportunity to work with Renault in Japan. It wasn’t directly racing at first, it was more corporate. But it was still automotive and it was stable. In the garage, it’s passion, chaos, improvisation. In corporate, it’s structure, meetings, hierarchy. But I learned a lot about how companies function, how marketing works, how brands communicate.
I started writing and contributing to magazines. I was documenting builds, events, people. It felt natural because I was already inside the scene. And that’s pretty much when we started Auto Works. It was a magazine dedicated to Japanese sportscars. It gave me legitimacy and it allowed me to move back to Japan. I wasn’t just the foreign guy hanging around. I was someone documenting the culture, translating it, explaining it.
At first, I lived in Tokyo, but I don’t really like the city. I had a feeling that Kansai was the place, so I relocated to Osaka.
I did all sorts of jobs to keep the magazine going and to survive, basically. We really wanted it to work, but it came with financial strains. And right when I was ready to go back to France, I met people from Work Wheels. I worked with them on a couple of gigs and they offered me the opportunity to stay with a visa. So I joined as a photographer and had a position in marketing. I created all their social media and I did that for 11 years.
BADSEKI: Did you feel like you were moving away from driving?
J.C.: A little, yes. When you’re deep in corporate, you’re behind a desk and I knew I wanted to push more, to do more things. So I left and now I’m working for a French company, helping with their Japanese market. All along, I've been racing different kinds of cars, pretty much my whole life and especially in Japan. But racing got more serious these past few years for me.
BADSEKI: There’s almost a defined pathway in Japanese racing, from grassroots K-car series up to Super GT. How do you position yourself within that structure, and what is your long-term objective?
J.C.: A few years back, I would do training days or some time attack events or whatever. I did a couple of races with the Lotus I had, but it was always tricky. The car is expensive. I wanted to join a series. That was my goal. I wanted to prove that I'm good behind the wheel.
I started to look around, but with a small budget, of course, you don't have many choices. The only few choices that I could think about were the N1 series. The Honda N-ONE, the K-car. They do that in Suzuka mainly. Then you have the Vitz Yaris Cup. Then you can go for the Vita, but the Vita is a dedicated race car, so you have to use a trailer. It makes things more complicated and more expensive.
Then you have the BRZ86, which is expensive. But even the Vitz and Yaris, you wouldn't think they are expensive. The car is cheap to run, but they have this car inspection rule that has to respect road legal regulations. And when you race, every time you hit the car or break something, you have to fix it before the next race. That’s when things get really expensive.
For example, you get a crack on the windshield. You cannot get to the next race. You have to change the windshield before that. So even though the car doesn't break down, tires, brakes or whatever, it's okay. Every time you hit something, you have to replace it. That’s when it costs money.
Then you would go to Granz, which is a Vita. A bigger Vita. And then you have other series. And I would say that the first serious series you can get into is Super Taikyu, which is accessible even if you have a national B license, which I have. I don't have the money though. Super Taikyu is a mix between really good drivers and people with money. But it's accessible. There are a lot of classes. Then you could go to formula type. Formula Enjoy. And for Super GT I guess you need a special license.
BADSEKI: What keeps you in racing?
J.C.: I was looking for a series to join, and except the N1, that was reachable in terms of cost. But driving the K-car in Suzuka, I went to a couple of races and I was like, it doesn't look very exciting. I found the Roadster Cup. I bought an NB and entered the championship for two years. That was my way to get into door-to-door racing, with a series, with a number of races per year, with a championship and everything. That’s what I did for two years.
Even though that was fun, I felt alone driving. I was not alone, but I wanted my friends to join as well. Everyone has a different car. They couldn't get into the same series. You don’t have many races where you can mix cars and drive door to door. That’s when I decided to build this car. I was like, okay, if we cannot bring all our cars together and race together, I might as well build one car that we drive together.
I went for a K-car and built it with Complete Speed, the shop we are shooting at today. They have extensive experience with Suzuki K-cars and Suzuki Swifts. We use the car for endurance racing. We share the car for endurance racing. We do different series. Sometimes it's two, four, five hours. It really depends.
BADSEKI: Where do you think car culture and racing culture intersect? Does one feed the other?
J.C.: I think car culture wouldn't exist without racing. If you think about it, people love to drive cars. You drive cars for different reasons. Car enthusiasts are always inspired by what they see on the racetrack. The thrill of driving a car. The excitement. The engine. You get that from racing.
I believe it's especially true in Japan. Especially in Osaka, 15 or 20 years ago, when they had the Civic one-make series in Suzuka, people on the street would go crazy. They would get Civics. The infamous Kanjozoku would get Civics, paint them the same way that the guys did at Suzuka and drive them around the loop like pretending it was a racetrack. There you can really see the direct inspiration from racing.
Even nowadays, when you go to Stance events, you see people modifying cars the way they would do it on the racetrack. They use canards and wings. You don't need a wing on the street, but it comes from racing. So I would say car culture wouldn't exist without racing at all.
BADSEKI: Has car culture changed over the years?
J.C.: It’s expensive now. Back in France, I started drifting. That was my thing. I had an AE86. We had this tunnel between France and Italy and a steep climb to get there. The trucks would put stuff on the tarmac and it was very slippery. I would go with the 86 and drift all the way up. It was maybe 30 or 40 km/h.
When I moved to Japan, I started drifting again. All my friends in Sendai were into drifting. I got the Type M, the 32. We had Highlands, SS Park, Ebisu. It was easy. Cars were cheap. My friends at the shop would help me with maintenance. I had a tire shop next to my house. They would give me free used tires. I was drifting once or twice a month. I was struggling with money and still I was able to be there twice a month.
When I moved to Osaka, the culture was more toward grip racing. Most of the people I knew were into the Civic scene. That’s when I did the switch. I didn’t want to drift alone. That’s when things started to change. Cars were getting more expensive. Thirty years ago you could get a Civic or an S13 for free. Your senpai would give it to you and say, “Yeah, whatever, go have fun.”
Now, with the USA bringing cars out of Japan more and more, Gran Turismo, Fast and Furious, things got more expensive. Nowadays I don’t even know how people can drift anymore. Those S13 and S14 you could get for nothing. Now you can’t buy them anymore. Even M2s or Laurels. I remember a 33 Type S would be 3000 or 4000 bucks and ready to drift. Now you can’t buy those cars anymore.
BADSEKI: Do you think it’s harder to get into it now?
J.C.: At least on the amateur level, things getting more expensive changed the way people drive, race, drift. That’s the main thing. It was wilder back in the day as well. People were more violent on the track. They would crash into each other more often just because they wanted to. They would fight in the pits. You don’t see that anymore.
If you think about racing only, sim racing changed a lot of things as well. Experience is very important. Back then it would take decades to get real door-to-door racing experience unless you were at the track every single week. If you drive once a month or every two months, it would take decades to learn how to be good with people around you.
Nowadays with sim racing, you spend time online or behind your screen and you can get that in a few years, which is a good thing. But for old dudes like me, you feel irrelevant a little bit. This guy is 20 years old and he knows how to race better than I do.
BADSEKI Vol.0 All images shot by Rayan Nohra
Interviewer: Chris Rosales
Editor: Cyana–Djoher Hadjali
