My Story

Keishi was born in Japan, but grew up in Australia where his dream of becoming a professional racing driver started at a very early age. It was a passion that was sparked while watching highlights on the evening news of F1 legends such as Senna and Prost do battle, and further inspired by the rise of a young Craig Lowndes.

While the Ayukai family didn't have the means to take Keishi racing through his childhood, he (impatiently) waited till he was able to save enough money to buy a go kart and go racing in 2005 at the relatively old age of 18. From this point, Keishi's entire adult life has been dedicated to chasing his dream.

Even though there was no previous family history in motorsport, Keishi immediately felt at home behind wheel and over the following years showed he could win races at regional level while also placing regularly within the top 10 at state and national level.

In 2008 Keishi made his first step towards transitioning from racing go karts to racing cars with an evaluation day in a Formula Ford 1600 at Wakefield Park Raceway in New South Wales. After completing almost 100 laps Keishi set the second fastest time by a rookie driver that year in the car he was testing and was offered a seat in the team for 2009, but was unable to secure the required budget to accept the offer.

While disappointed at not being able to race in Formula Ford, Keishi continued karting along with the occasional test in various cars over the coming years while saving his money for a more affordable racing opportunity in the future.

This opportunity came in 2013 as part of the growing Australian Suzuki Swift Racing Series. After starting with a pre-season driver's challenge where he narrowly missed out on winning a fully funded drive for the season, Keishi finally made his National car racing debut, competing in the first two rounds of the season with a best qualifying result of 2nd, and best race finish of 3rd.

Unfortunately Keishi's luck ran out in the final race of Round 2 where he was turned around by a car competing in a different class leading to heavy contact with a concrete wall. The resulting damage was significant enough to end his season due to the cost of the repair. While again disappointed and out of budget, Keishi still wasn't about to give up.

Always open to any available opportunity, Keishi turned his attention to the Nissan GT Academy program in 2015 where the best gamers on the popular Playstation franchise Gran Turismo compete for a professional racing contract with NISMO.

Keishi didn't actually own a Playstation console, but he was able to borrow one from a friend and was immediately able to qualify for the 2015 National Final through through the 'Live' qualifying rounds becoming one of the top 20 Gran Turismo drivers in Australia after only a few months of practice.

In 2016 Keishi went one step better and was chosen as 1 of the 6 people to represent Australia at the Nissan GT Academy International Final in the UK and participate in a week long Race Camp with some of the best driver coaches in the world.

While he wasn't able to win the coveted NISMO racing contract, Keishi stands committed to his dream, and in 2017 he will risk it all and make the long journey to Canada to contest the highly competitive Nissan Micra Cup.

Join Keishi on his journey around Canada in his Quest For Micra Cup.