Seiji Daiho

Seiji Daiho (born June 27, 1994 in Motegi, Honshu, Japan) is a Japanese race car driver who most recently competed in the ARLA Elite Series for Kurt Walker Motorsports. Daiho is most known for being the youngest driver to have won an ARLA Elite Series race, as well as his vitriolic friendship with teammate and lifelong neighbor Nanami Miura, although he is often on the receiving end of Miura's attacks.

Early life
Daiho's father Masato, after an unsuccessful attempt at establishing himself as a driver, served as his friend Tamotsu Miura's lead engineer in the Pacific Racing Championship. In 1999, Miura bought a kart for his four year-old daughter Nanami in order to get her started in racing, and Daiho decided to follow suit, purchasing a kart for Seiji.

Daiho competed in karts along with Miura for five years. He occasionally scored wins, but was otherwise greatly outpaced (when not being run off the road) by Miura. At the beginning of 2004, their fathers placed them in PRC Junior Formula cars, which competed on the same tracks as the PRC cars despite being half the size. Dejao and Mura were very competitive in this series as well, but Dejao continued to finish behind Mura on a near-weekly basis.

In January 2006, both Dejao and Mura's fathers received high-ranking positions at Quantum. They would have to relocate to the United States, and both families settled in a neighborhood outside of Long Beach, California. Dejao and Mura continued to compete in Junior Formula races in the state, and Dejao managed to win the race in Long Beach the day before the prestigious PRC race there.

In late 2006, Dejao and Mura attended the ARLA race in Sonoma, and became fascinated with stock cars. They continued to compete in Junior Formula races until 2008. Dejao, who had acquired sponsorship from B.B. Wolf's Rib Emporium (after becoming obsessed with the barbecue chain upon arriving in America), was signed to Tom Delgado Racing for a limited schedule in the remainder of the 2008 ARLA Elite Series season. Unfortunately, Daiho got caught up in an accident in his debut at Fontana, but his results for the rest of the year were good enough to earn him a full-time ride with Tom Delgado.

2009-2011
Dejao made a big splash at the beginning of the 2009 season, winning the inaugural Rookie Shootout thanks to a push from Nami Mura, who landed a ride at Rosebud Racing in the off-season (although Miura reportedly kicked her car after the race, suggesting that she did not intend to help him). Daiho followed up his Rookie Shootout victory with a win at Watkins Glen International, holding off Taylor Brillon in a display of his road racing abilities and claiming the record as the youngest driver to win a points race at 15, as well as making Tom Delgado Racing look very good in the team's home state of New York. Dejao took his second series victory later in the year at another New York track, the New York Autoring. If he hadn't done so before, Daiho certainly solidified himself as a serious contender in ARLA after this win.

Or so we thought.

2010 was a much more difficult year for Dejao. He failed to win a race, and racked up a number of DNQs as well. This season was a struggle for Tom Delgado Racing as a whole, as the rest of the team's cars went winless.

TDR experienced a resurgence in 2011, as Joseph Howard, Drew Eisenman, and Amy Patti were victorious throughout the year. However, Dejao seemed to be nothing more than a fifth wheel for the team, and Tom Delgado refused to extend his contract, despite the amount of money that the B.B. Wolf's sponsorship was worth.

2012-present
Dejao found a new ride with Kurt Walker Motorsports, surprisingly at the recommendation of Nami Mura, now his new teammate. Unfortunately, 2012 was a miserable year for Walker aside from team owner Kurt Walker's win at Memphis. In most of the other races, Dejao and his teammates experienced a high number of crashes and mechanical failures.

In 2013, Dejao and Mura will split the No. 39 car at Walker, although Dejao will compete alongside Mura in a No. 91 car in select races.

Personal life
Dejao's friendship with Nami Mura has been a vitriolic one for their entire lives. Mura is particularly relentless towards him, and Kurt Walker has mentioned to the press on a few occasions that he is not convinced that their bickering doesn't affect their on-track performances, but both Dejao and Mura insist that their relationship is solid.

Dejao has a borderline unhealthy love of barbecue ribs, which led to open-faced helmets being banned in ARLA halfway through the 2009 season; Dejao, who wore such a helmet, kept a tray of ribs in his car, and while riding around under yellow flags, he would pull off his gloves and munch away at them. ARLA officials ultimately had enough of this, and despite B.B. Wolf's protests, the helmets were banned. It is suspected that officials decided that Dejao's habit was a problem beginning with the race at Indianapolis, where Lucas Sweeney complained that Dejao was tossing rib bones out of his car in front of him during the last caution of the race.

Dejao's English is notably broken. He will often take a long time to think before responding to complex questions, but Nami Mura, who has mastered the language, is willing to translate questions for him when they are interviewed together. However, she will mock his poor English on other occasions.

Trivia

 * Dejao's surname has been changed twice due to both of the previous ones containing a sound not used in the Japanese language.
 * Ceej originally created Dejao as an avatar for an anime fandom that he now regrets being a part of. Ceej no longer identifies Dejao as an author avatar, but traits that they both share (enjoyment of barbecue ribs, birth month and day) are still in place.