2001-08-02 Race Preview The Toyota Supra is showing top form in the JGTC series, claiming victories in the races leading up to the mid-summer break: the Sugo round ending with the season's first win for the Matsukiyo ZENT Tom's Supra driven by Shinichi Yamaji/Wayne Gardner, and the heat-intensive tropical race, "Japan GT Race Malaysian Round," being won by the ESSO Ultraflo Supra of Juichi Wakisaka/Hideki Noda. (Remember they dominated the second round of the championship held at Fuji as well.) Yet another favorite is the other Tom's car, the Castrol Tom's Supra with driver pair Takuya Kurosawa/Takeshi Tsuchiya. These two also gave an excellent performance at Sugo, and like their teammates will be running on Michelin tires, which have a reputation for holding out well under hot conditions. For the Honda teams, Sebastien Philippe in the TAKATA Dome NSX has ran quick every race this season and Hiroki Katoh is showing good form as well; Katoh won the fourth round of the FIA Sportscar Championship behind the wheel of a Dome prototype. A major factor to be reckoned with is the current championship points leaders, Keiichi Tsuchiya and Katsutomo Kaneishi in the ARTA NSX. The Nissan teams are looking to have a hard race, having failed to claim a victory yet this season. But the NISMO team has advanced test car developments and is looking forward to providing an impressive performance in front of the huge crowd expected to gather for the race. The team's top driver, Erik Comas, was absent from the GT-A test sessions held at Twin Ring Motegi on July 24-25 due to an injured right wrist. But it has been heard that recovery is going well and he'll be ready to drive at Fuji. The two McLaren F1 GTRs entered by TEAM TAKE ONE and HITOTSUYAMA RACING are the dark horses coming into the race; especially the Sokei McLaren GTR of TEAM TAKE ONE, which put in a good performance during the test sessions at Motegi and squeezed into the top group on the timing monitor. The GT300 class is a hotbed for competition this year, a different team taking the victory flag for each of the first three rounds. Following a pole-to-finish win for Morio Nitta/Shinichi Takagi in the ARTA APEX MR-S in Round 1, Nobuyuki Oyagi/Takayuki Aoki conquered the field with their DAISHIN ADVAN Silvia in Round 2. Then, in Round 3 it was the Amemiya Matsumoto Kiyoshi Aspara RX7 driven by Tetsuya Yamano/Haruhiko Matsumoto crossing the finish line first. The dark horse for the GT300 class is undoubtedly the MT900R driven by Dilanta Malagamuwa/Joao Barbosa. The Portugal driver claimed the class pole at the Daytona 24 Hours race and will surely be looking to place well here. Unlike the long 500km Round 2 race held at the same venue earlier this year, Round 4 will be the shorter 250km distance. Regardless of the distance, look forward to an eventful weekend filled with heated contention and battling for position throughout the circuit. This midsummer race welcomes nearly 50,000 spectators annually. The green lights up on August 5th. BACK HOME Copyright 2001 JGTC.net. http://www.jgtc.net