Since this is the first of the series, alot of the characters are introduced. The main character is Takumi Fujiwara, 18, and drives his dad's Toyota AE86. As many cars in the show has team logos, his car has a tofu shop logo on it. Thats because his dad owns one, and he makes delivers for him. Driving since a young age and with the Akina mountain as a training place, he becomes really fast and skilled. Many teams come to Akina to challenge its team, the Akina Speedstars. Takumi's first opponent is from the RedSuns team, Keisuko Takahashi, he drives a Mazda RX7 FD3S. He and his brother are well known and are the fastest in Akagi.Who do you think won, the AE86 with 150 hp or the RX7 with 340 hp? The RX7 right. Wrong. Takumi won. Kiesuke did take the early lead, but with every corner Takumi got closer, he had better a drifting technique. With this single win, he became well known. After that other teams wanted to verse him, to see who bet one of the best, Keisuke. The next challenger was Takeshi Nakazato from the team NightKids. He drove a Nissan Skyline GTR R32, a 395 hp car. But he also lost to Takumi, this made him even more famous. His third challenger is Shingo Shoji, who is also from the NightKids, he drives a Honda Civic EG6. This race was a different kind of race, Shingo made his opponents tape their right hand to the steering wheel. This wasn't a porblem for Shingo himself because his car was FF, but Takumi's was a FR, which is very dangerous. Since Takumi's main strategy was drifting, he would need to turn the wheel a lot compared to Shingo. But he took the challenge. He eventually got the hang of it and passed Shingo, which made him used nasty tricks like bumping Takumi's bumper. But Takumi won, and Shingo ended up crashing into the railings. His fourth challengers were these two girls in Usui, this is the first time he has raced outside of Akina. They are Mako and Sayuki, they were the fastest in Usui and call themselves impact blue, and they're girls! Mako is the the driver and Sayuki sits beside her and helps her out. They drive a blue SIL80, thats why they are Impact Blue. They also have a different racing style, instead of just racing head to head. One car is to lead off, then if the second car passes teh first one they win. Takumi chose to be behind, doing this he can watch Mako's driving and her style and drifting. Soon Takumi was tail gating them pretty close, this made Mako lose concentration. She started a 360 degree turn and stopped right in front of Takumi's speed AE86. He amazingly escaped and won. The last challenger of the 1st Stage is Ryosuke Takashi. He's Keisuke's brother and also drives a RX7 but a FC3S, he is said to be the best on the streets. Ryosuke never lost a match which made him a legend. At the beginning of the race Ryosuke followed Takumi, giving him pressure. This eventually made Takumi make mistakes, and let Ryosuke take the lead. But he has a special technique which uses the gutters, and caught up fast. Somehow near the end of the race, the RX7's tires lost grip and ended up losing to Takumi. This made him a legend, he beat the Ryosuke, the one who no one thought can be beaten. That ends the 1st Stage. Top  2nd Stage  Extra Stage  3rd Stage