Makosa Matsuri 2026 - Finally back to Finland!

I had to sit 2025 out, but I finally went back to the Makosa Matsuri! Last time I was here was in 2024 where I went on the trip alone, with Wille picking me up at the airport in his Cressida, and I had an absolute blast. This time we had a crew of 6 cars and around 15 people taking a roadtrip together from Sweden to the track in the middle of Finland and we had one hell of a time on this memorable trip.

After a long ferry ride, a tow-car breaking down in the middle of the night on out way to the track we finally arrived at the Pesemäki track late Thursday night.
Friday was spent getting the cars diled, getting to know the track and enjoying the cars that the finnish grassroots cultured had to offer, and a great selection it was as usual.

Some faces / cars were familiar either from my last trip here or from people visiting our Vicious Delicious event in Sweden.

A rainy Friday, some Sandels, sauna and a steady breakfast later it was party time (track party, not sauna party).

One of the great features of the Pesämäki track is it’s size, and for the amount of drivers it can host simultaneously. And another is it’s combination of flowing turns and high speed corners.

Being out on the track, in the middle of the forest just enjoying the beautiful finnish nature together with tyresmoke and the sound of straight piped BMW’s is amazing, but the vibe in the pit is unbeatable.

Even tough the main theme of this event is “grassroots” drift style it still hosts a good variety of cars. Some are extra fun from our perspective as we rarely see them driven this way in Sweden, such as BMW compacts and W202’s.

Pit bikes are a must at this place, preferably an old Suzuki PV.

With drifting comes trackside repairs, some bigger than others. Olle had his whole top of changing is headgasket and Rickard had some issues with his turbo setup on his 1 day old rebuilt M50. But both got their cars back together and drove the rest of the weekend.

One of my old favorites from the 2024 trip, the old Cresside, made it back to the event. This car won my Lardel’s pick last time around.

Another great feature of the track is that it’s very open, especially for the media people who can get pretty close to the cars (in a safe way ofcourse).

Something that I personally appreciate with the finnish drift culture is that custom liveries is a part of the game over here, which makes their in general very colorful cars stand out from the crowd even more.

Some sending it harder than others, but everybody had a good time.

I will for sure miss these pit-vibes, but hopefully I only have to wait a year to experience it again.

The hospitality from the Makosa guys is unmatched. We very much thank them for hosting us and for treating us so well again and again. Thank you guys <3

Suzuki PV showcase, award ceremony and good chats from all of the pit areas.

The winners of this years Lardel’s pick-award will get their own blog post shortly!

But the Oaktree Outlaws guys Victor and Olle took home some prizes of their own! Olle won Best Driver and Victor won Best Car, two prizes they both truly deserve.

Thank you to all of you who made this trip what it was, thank you again to the Makosa guys for having us och tack så mycket till det svenska gänget som var med på resan.

Until next time Finland!