Mai Takes the Wheel

From looks alone, you wouldn’t immediately associate Mai Ikuzawa with racing. She is petite and refined. And to state the obvious, women are few and far between in the pitlane. Mai moves around the paddock schmoozing the elites of the art and racing world while simultaneously complimenting fans who have just purchased the exclusive denim pit crew jacket emblazoned with the Team Ikuzawa lettering.  

Mai wears one herself with a matching pair of hightop red and white Nikes, Comme des Garçon Homme Plus Edition. 

We are at the annual Goodwood Revival, the ideal place for Mai, owner of Team Ikuzawa, to plant her flag. The three-day September festival, held on the Goodwood estate on the south coast of England, runs several circuit races in period themes for cars from 1948-1966, which is the era when the circuit was originally established. Mai and Daniel Arsham, the celebrated contemporary artist, have just revealed their bespoke livery on a 1964 Porsche 904, with a capsule collection to accompany it. And the car will race in one of the final showdowns on Sunday.

In the paddock, Mai is surrounded by Team Ikuzawa branding, intentionally identical to that of her father’s era, and meticulously expanded upon with new items. There’s a large garage floor mat printed in her family’s iconic red on a vast white background. Short, square noren (暖簾), or Japanese fabric dividers, hang from the roof trim of the double paddock. They are carefully printed and stitched. The left side panels read “Team Ikuzawa” in large letters and “Choice of Racing Enthusiasts” in smaller font. The phrase, in English, is the tagline Mai’s father Tetsu came up with in the early eighties. The right side panels, with the same font, read “Team Arsham,” then “Choice of Art Enthusiasts,” the iconic phrase adapted for this collaboration. The simple designs repeat everywhere and on everything. 

Over the hum of vintage car engines, Mai and I discuss her childhood spent on tracks around the world traveling with her father Tetsu Ikuzawa, one of the first Japanese racers to compete in Le Mans, and European grand prix racing. “I’d spend hours in this intense heat, in stinky, mildewed caravans, where the noise of the cars basically became your lullaby,” she says. History is repeating itself now, without the caravan. The Suzuka Circuit swapped for Goodwood.

Mai was too young to remember the height of her father’s career, but she was regaled with stories. Her father was racing in the Fuji Grand Champion Series the day she was born. “They announced my birth on the tannoys [British slang for a PA system] at the circuit after the race.” In Tetsu’s next race, Mai says he wrote ‘I love my daughter’ on his engine cover.

Until he turned 20, Mai’s father raced motorcycles. His first race behind the wheel of a car came in 1963 at the inaugural Japanese Grand Prix (which wouldn’t become an official part of the Formula 1 calendar until 1976). Despite spending a majority of his time competing overseas, Tetsu would continue to participate in the Japanese Grand Prix in coming years with a slew of successes, including a win in 1967, and a second place finish the following year. After retiring from racing, Tetsu went on to helm racing teams and Nissan Motorsports Europe, but was never quite able to break into Formula 1. Still, the 82-year-old’s status as a car racing trailblazer in Japan, and internationally, is iconic. 

In his racing years, Tetsu ran for the Porsche System Engineering works team, Stirling Moss’ Motor Racing Stables, and the Prince Motor Company (eventually acquired by Nissan in 1966), but his love affair with the German brand is as famous as his personal collection. Tetsu has a museum-like warehouse on the outskirts of Tokyo that once boasted 75 Porsche models alone. “It could be 65 by now,” says Mai. His collection also includes Formula 2 cars, motorcycles, mountain bikes, and countless memorabilia and photographs.

Mai is her father’s only child and stands to inherit them all. Her adolescence was filled with unusual turns, and perhaps some expected ones. “He always wanted a son who would carry on the legacy of a racer,” says Mai. Despite that sentiment, Tetsu took his daughter everywhere, to races and “even to spend holidays going to a car parts shop in California.” Mai recalls regularly joining her father as he rode laps with his friends, and Tetsu lifting her onto his bike. “He would probably do 2 laps [with me].”

As a kid she spent her pocket money karting, and eventually her salary getting to the track for race school, rally school, stunt school, and even drift school. Even as her career took her in a different direction, there seemed to be a constant pull to the track. As she puts it, “I am on my rookie season all my life.” 

Growing up ‘Ikuzawa’ meant all of life was a metaphor for the circuit. Her father stressed the unpredictability of racing and wanted her to be prepared, focusing on the importance of having a backup plan. Mai recalls him imploring her, “always a Plan B, always a new set of tires or an engine, a part.” But he also taught her to look beyond herself and care for her team, a concept which he held dear. He wanted her to “make sure that every team member is doing well, looked after, not alienated.” And perhaps most obviously for someone of racing stock, “my father always said, ‘if you're half a second late, it’s too late.’” 

Now it’s Mai’s turn. What started out with Mai reprinting her father’s 1980s era Team Ikuzawa t-shirts for her inner circle, has evolved into a full resurgence of Tetsu’s company. “The more I started telling this story and building the brand, [the more] I realized there was so much more opportunity there.” She has been able to field new opportunities for Team Ikuzawa and build on them. While developing the company, Mai is steadfast in honoring what her father created. She recognizes the talent that came before her, saying “he’s a genius, in terms of branding and racing pedigree.”

For years, Mai worked as the creative director of her own London-based consulting firm, specializing in collaborations with luxury, streetwear, automotive, and adrenaline sports brands. It was this collaboration with Daniel Arsham — debuting at Goodwood Revival with the support of The Duke of Richmond, while racing a 1964 Porsche 904 — that brought her full-circle with Porsche. “From my father to me,” says Mai. 

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Mai is trackside during Sunday’s Royal Automobile Club TT Celebration race as the Porsche 906, the car in which Tetsu won the 1967 Fuji Grand Prix, speeds past. 

At Goodwood, the Team Ikuzawa car is running in the Royal Automobile Club TT Celebration, the standout race of Revival, described as “a one-hour two-driver race for closed-cockpit GT cars and prototypes in the spirit of the RAC TT races held in 1963 and 1964.” In a moment of true serendipity, it was confirmed to Mai on Friday, that her father’s Porsche 906 — the car in which Tetsu won the 1967 Fuji Grand Prix (and which Mai drove at Goodwood’s 2023 Festival of Speed on the Hillclimb) — would be racing against her Team Ikuzawa liveried car. “So this is like a historical moment,” she says. “They’re like sister cars.” I reach to call it ‘a double Porsche moment.’ Not one to leave a branding opportunity on the table, Mai corrects me. “A double Ikuzawa moment.” Both the 904 and 906 have a 1.9-liter engine capacity, while, in contrast, two thirds of the competition have double that capacity or more. (For example, the vehicle that will go on to win the race — a 1964 TVR Griffith 400 — has a 4.7 liter engine.) So, for Team Ikuzawa, Sunday’s race isn’t about clocking the fastest time, it’s about making their presence known. 

On the bonnet of the white 906 with the Pepsi logo and yellow accents is Tetsu’s omamori (御守), or talisman, a significant sign of faith in Japanese culture. Mai recounts the story of how the crane became a revered symbol in her father’s legacy. In the early days of Tetsu’s career, a member of his team said he looked like a tsuru (鶴) — the Japanese word for the crane — with the red dot on his white helmet. He drew the red-crowned crane, a symbol of luck, on a postcard and placed it on the bonnet of his car. Tetsu went on to win the race that day. And moving forward, the crane became the secondary branding, and an iconic trademark of Mai’s father.

A keen eye will spot the same crane on the cover of Porsche’s Type 7 Volume Four, a copy of which is delicately displayed on top of one of the classic red Snap-on vintage-style rolling tool chests within Mai and Daniel’s paddock. Within the 404 pages of Porsche’s lifestyle annual are what Mai calls, “the most comprehensive history of [her] father ever written in a book.” It’s an exquisitely rendered monograph of sorts, designed by House Industries. Currently, you won’t find the crane in Mai’s iteration of the team. “I'm not at the moment developing it out of a kind of respect, because it's a lucky charm. I don't want to commercialize it,” she says. This sense of deference and respect resonates throughout all she does, a reflection of the weight of her father’s legacy from which she hesitates to deviate.