The rain wasn't enough to keep away devoted motorsports fans, as a crowd of 51,000 made their way to the countryside course, Twin Ring Motegi, for Round 5 of the 2004 AUTOBACHS JGTC Series. EPSON NAKAJIMA RACING Team drivers (Tsugio Matsuda and Andre Lotterer) and their crew gave a superb performance that brought their Honda NSX to the checkered flag at the front of the pack, giving the Honda camps their first victory of the season on the Honda-owned track. In the GT300 class, co-drivers Morio Nitta and Shinichi Takagi drove their No.43 Garaiya to its second consecutive win following the Round 4 victory at Tokachi.

Starting from the pole, the No.35 Supra with Shigekazu Wakisaka behind the wheel controlled the early stage of the race as he quickly created a gap between himself and the second running Motoyama in the No.1 Nissan Fairlady Z and Iida in the No.6 Supra. Lotterer pushed hard in the No.32 Honda NSX, charging up through the field from an eighth place start on the grid. The German Honda driver moved in behind Iida, taking up fourth by the third lap.

By lap nine, the top runners were coming up to the back markers, and when Wakisaka went to overtake, misjudgment sent him off the track. He managed to return unscathed, but the time off the circuit cost him the lead as he came back on in fourth place. In the confusion, Lotterer slipped by Iida to take second running just behind the new leader Motoyama. Not a full lap passed before Lotterer, driving with amazingly good form, passed the defending Driver's Champion to take the lead. Lotterer was not the only one on the track creating thrills for fans: Courtney in the No.37 Supra, started from ninth on the first lap and brilliantly paced himself behind the No.32 NSX and settled into second, just slightly off the lead by lap 13. Teammate Tsuchiya, driving the No.36 Supra, worked his way into third by lap 19, but the battle of the Supras was on, and Iida overtook him on lap 20 to put the No.6 Supra back into third. This was followed by a side-by-side, tail-to-front mix-up between the two Supras for some 10 laps.

The leaders began making their routine pit stops for driver and tire changes around lap 30. When all were back out on the track, it was the No.37 Supra with Kataoka behind the wheel that was out in front. In order behind him were Matsuda in the No.32 NSX, Juichi Wakisaka in the No.6 Supra and Lyons in the No.1 Fairlady Z. Matsuda laid the pressure on heavily to the leader, doing everything he could to get passed, and he found the hole on lap 48, squeaking through and giving his Honda the lead. While the NSXs have been troubled with some hard races since the first of the year, it seemed as though the answers had been found as the No.32 car fought through the Nissans and Toyotas on its way to the front. Finally in the Matsuda set out to create a gap over Kataoka, who was still threatening immediately behind. And behind the young Toyota driver, the veteran Wakisaka in the No.6 Supra was rapidly catching up.

In the final stage of the race, a fantastic last minute effort by Lyons in the No.1 Fairlady Z brought him up to within striking distance of second and third running Kataoka and Wakisaka. With only a few laps remaining, Wakisaka overtook Kataoka to move into second. Lyons found a spot too, and moved into third immediately after. The No.6 and No.1 cars started closing the gap on the No.32 Honda, but Matsuda tried everything to hold them off, and the cars crossed the finish line in that order.

The No.36 Supra went off the track just after the routine pit stop, but a good effort by Apicella brought the car back up to finish fifth, just ahead of the No.39 Supra driven by Couto and Dufour; the No.39 Supra was imposed a drive-through penalty while Couto was behind wheel (collision with the No.100 car).

GT500 Winner

No.32 EPSON NSX

Andre Lotterer : "It was a really wonderful race. I realized soon after the start that we were faster than any other car, so I started overtaking. Of course, the track was very slippery and dirty inside, so I had to drive carefully. When Courtney was catching up with me, one of my tires had a slow puncture, and that made the situation very hard as he was very quick. Matsuda did a very good job driving."

Tsugio Matsuda : "I didn't feel that we could take the lead if the track was dry, and knew that we had chance if the conditions were wet. The engine has been improved and our speed on the straight lines was good. This victory was realized only through the efforts of the entire staff. I couldn't help but shed tears of joy and gratitude when I received the checkered flag."

It was a near catastrophe for the No.43 Garaiya on the opening lap. Nitta put the car through as spin that dropped the car's position to far back in the pack. Fortunately, he recovered the car gracefully and began to work his way back up through the field. Each lap seemed to be consistently quicker, and it wasn't long before he was back into contention with the leaders.

Takeuchi and the No.52 Celica lead the GT300 class in the initial laps of the race, followed by Yamano in the No.16 NSX, Hoshino in the No.80 Fairlady Z and Matsuda in the No.11 Ferrari. Watanabe, driving the No.2 NSX with Korean Kumho tires, started from 20th on the grid and moved up quickly through the pack. The Kumho tires seemed to be very suitable for the slightly wet surface. The No.2 car overtook to move into third on lap 11, and kept going to overtake the No.16 M-Tec (Mugen) works Honda NSX for second. It seemed like there was no way to stop the Honda, and Watanabe found himself leading the class on lap 14 when Takeuchi took the No.52 Celica into the pits to change tires from wet to slick. The fantastic charge was not to payoff, however, as beginning mid-race the Honda began losing positions and failed to recover them in the final stages of the race.

It was Nitta, on the other hand that showed the ability to recover well and improve continuously during the latter part of the race. By lap 20 he was running in second and overtook the No.2 Honda on lap 24 to take the GT300 lead. And the Garaiya pace, assisted by BF Goodrich tires, did not slow down. Takagi took the wheel at the routine pit stop and finished the day leading the field, giving the team its second consecutive victory this season. Crossing the finish line second was the No.16 Honda NSX (Yamano and Yagi), and third went to the No.10 Ferrari (Tanaka and Yogo).

The Fairlady Zs ,while having monopolized the front row on the grid, were not able to keep the advantage, and slowly lost positions in the first half of the race. The No.80 car pitted to change to slicks on lap 10 when Hoshino was behind the wheel, and he battled hard back to fifth place before giving the wheel to Kinoshita. Kinoshita also overtook to improve the position even more, but a driveshaft problem on lap 52 brought their race to an end. The No.81 car driven by Yanagida and Omoto finished fourth.

GT300 Winner

No.43 ARTA Garaiya

Morio Nitta: "I expected this second straight victory, but I don't think everything went as well and as smooth as it could have. Under the very difficult conditions, everything went really well, like team strategy, tire choice and so on. But the conditions were really hard. It was like the Safari Rally I took part in before. I couldn't see well due to dirt on the windshield, even when I was running normally. This is my 11th victory in JGTC, and I want to thank the entire crew."

Shinichi Takagi: "When Nitta spun, I thought this is really going to be a fun race. Then he caught up with the leader by running 2 seconds a lap faster. And I thought I was going to have to match that in my stint, but then he brought the car into the pit on top. I pushed hard, and couldn't see in the rearview mirrors because of the dirt."