The third round of the 2004 AUTOBACS JGTC will be held at Sepang International Circuit, Malaysia. Sepang is well known as one of the hosts for the F1 Grand Prix. The track layout is designed as a medium to high-speed course with two relatively long straights and several curve combinations. But the most important peculiarity for Sepang is, of course, the heat. Situated near the equator, the ambient temperature regularly rises to over 30 degrees Celsius. This year, however, the race will start late in the day (17:00) in an attempt to avoid the stifling heat.
Last year's race was cancelled due to concerns related to the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Asia. Instead, a substitute race was held in its place at Fuji Speedway in Japan. Its official name was the "Malaysian JGTC at Fuji Speedway."

The first race held at Sepang was an exhibition race in 2000. It was won by a Nissan Skyline GT-R. The following year, a Toyota Supra got the victory and third race in 2002, held as full championship event, a Honda NSX coming out on top.
This year Nissan bring to the Malaysian event the Fairlady Z. They will be running without ever having previously collected data from the track. However, the situation is quite similar for the Toyota and Honda camps as well. Toyota has changed engines, moving away from the small 4-cylinder turbocharged powerplant to a big naturally aspirated (NA) V8. Interestingly enough, Honda has switched from a horizontally mounted NA engine to a turbo-charged engine that is mounted vertically.

So far this year, it has been the Toyota Supra and Nissan Fairlady Z (350Z) sharing victories in the two previous races, and Honda has experienced some delayed developments beginning from the pre-season test session, especially with progress on the engine change. But the Honda cars are consistent in the game of catch-up they play, and even more, four of the five Hondas will be running after receiving one or two level performance enhancement measures for the Malaysian round.

Looking at each car, the winning driver pair of the previous round and current championship points standing leaders, Y. Tachikawa and S. Ara (who also won the Le Mans 24 Hours just last week) will be driving the TOYOTA TEAM CERUMO Supra carrying the heaviest handicap weight (80kg) if the 42 cars entered.

The winners of the opening round, Motoyama and Lyons in the No.1 Fairlady Z, had a terrible race at Sugo, ending the race before it started in the formation lap. They will be trying their best at the tropical circuit, also with some handicap weight (40kg). For the other Z cars, the No.22 NISMO will carry 30kg and the No.12 car, 10kg. The No.3 Fairlady Z will be running free of any handicap weight.

For the other Toyotas, a very quick driver pair, Dufour and Cooto of TOYOTA TEAM SARD, will have only 10kg of handicap weight in their No.39 Supra. Tom's team, too, will have a bit of weight, the No.37 car with 20kg and the No.36 car nothing. The Nissan and Toyota cars will be put to the test again this year, pushing car performance to the max in the tropical climate Round 3 race.

AMPREX Motorsports will debut its Lamborghini Murcielago at the Sepang Round. Genji Hashimoto and Norman Simon will share the wheel of the Italian car.

The situation in the GT300 class is similar to that of the GT500. The main contenders will be running at Sepang for the first time too. The winners of the opening round, the No.10 Ferrari 360 Modena of Team Gainer (T. Tanaka and A. Yogo) are first-timers at the Malaysian track, and the winners of Round 2, Racing Project Bandoh's T. Aoki and N. Taniguchi will be piloting the No.19 Celica for the first time on foreign turf. The No.10 Ferrari will be carrying a handicap weight of 30kg and the Celica 55kg (the heaviest in the class for this race).
M-TEC enters the No.16 Honda NSX, which presented excellent performances in the two previous races at the hands of T. Yamano and H. Yagi. The No.16 car will be carrying a 30kg handicap.
Team Gainer's second Ferrari, the No.11 car (H. Matsuda and I. Suga), Team ARTA's No.43 Garaiya (M. Nitta and S. Takagi) and the No.31 Toyota MR-S entered by A'PEX with apr are expected to be in the battle as top runners as well.

The green light for Round 3 will be given on Sat. June 19 at Sepang International Circuit, Malaysia.