Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

FCC TSR team is completely independent of Honda Motor Company and Honda Racing Corporation. It was the first overall victory for FCC TSR in 19 attempts. It was the 10th consecutive time a Honda has won the race, and the 21st time a Honda has won. Toy Story Racing had a brilliant, though not as fast, race to finish second. Riders Takashi Yasuda and Yoshiteru Konishi fin- ished one minute, 9.459 seconds behind FCC and wore racing suits styled after Toy Story character Buzz Lightyear. Their Honda was painted in matching colors and featured the best parts from HRC's toy box. "Right now I have both happy and sad tears," said Konishi on the podium. "It feels like a dream. It's unbelievable to be this close to first place. This was a very important race to me. I'm motivated to do better in the future. I'm so happy that the fans supported me during the race. "In the past the top teams stopped before the end of the race," added the animated Konishi. "That was my biggest fear, you know, that we would do well and then run out of gas. I am feeling more tired after this race then usual, and I'm feeling old. I really tried my best. Throughout this race I observed the other top teams and watched their strate- gies so that we would not run out of gas." "This is a dream for me, too," agreed Yasuda. "Riding with Konishi is fantastic and I really thank Konishi for being a men- tor. Last year we were third, this year we are second, so maybe next year we will win. We are aiming for first." One minute off from Toy Story Racing and finishing third were Atsushi Watanabe and Nobuatsu Aoki on the Yoshimura Suzuki. Like second-placed Toy Story, the Yoshimura team did not make any errors in the race, but right from the start they lacked the absolute pace to stay with the leaders. "I was not feeling good during the race, physically," said Watanabe. "But when I was on the track I saw a lot of Yoshimura fans and that really motivated me. I will try better next year." "This was a very long and hard race - and very hot," said Aoki. "I nearly fainted after I came back to the pits, I was so hot and tired. I'm so happy now that we fin- ished the race. This is the first time I've been on the podium in the 8 Hours." Aoki surprised his girlfriend, Kazuko, with a marriage proposal from the podium. The top three teams all used Bridgestone tires, as did nine out of the top 13. It was Bridgestone's first victory in the Suzuka 8 Hours after earning third place the last three years. For a while it looked as if the two Seven Stars-sponsored HRC teams were the ones to beat, but the two power- house teams just missed the podium by finishing fourth and fifth. "There must be at least four reasons for this defeat," said Tsutomi Ishii, team man- ager for fourth-placed Tadayuki Okada and Osuma Deguchi and fifth-placed Ryuichi Kiyonari and Makoto Tamada. "We must find these reasons and study them." Indeed, the FCC and Toy Story Racing private Honda teams were better pre- pared and had better planning than the once seemingly invincible HRC Suzuka 8 Hours team. The top FIM Endurance Championship team - and top team on a Yamaha - was the Yamaha Austria Racing Team in 10th overall. Second in the championship coming to Suzuka, YART decreased the gap to leader Suzuki Castrol from 44 to 21 points after Suzuki Castrol crashed three times in the race. "Our goal when we came here was to finish in the top 10 and come closer to Castrol Suzuki," said YART team manager Mandy Kainz. "We knew that they would have a lot of pressure in Japan because they are a factory team, and they might risk a lot because they have such a big lead over us. We did not expect this though." The YART team was pretty much the only reason to cheer at Yamaha. The much-ballyhooed return of Colin Edwards and Noriyuki Haga on the factory Yamaha all fell to pieces when the engine died on the fifth lap. The other factory Yamaha of Katsuyuki Nakasuga and Shinichi Nakatomi made it up to fifth, when Nakasuga compounded Yamaha's misery by pulling into the pits midrace with heat exhaustion. Though a private team won the 8 Hours in 2003, their race was made much easier when several top teams crashed on oil left on the track by a midlevel team right at the start. This time, private teams earned first and second on merit, as the factory teams made their own bad luck. T T H H E E R R A A C C E E Forecasting the race winner from the basis of qualifying results is always dubitable, particularly at the 8 Hours and particularly this year. Bridgestone are now supplying tires to nearly 20 percent of the teams, and brings enough qualifying tires for use in practice and qualifying. Thus, everyone was put- ting an asterisk next to the lap times of the Bridgestone riders on the practice and qualifying timing reports and few knew how well Bridgestone's race tires compared to the other brands. C Y C L E N E W S • AUGUST 16, 2006 65 The Suzuka 8 Hours continues to have the biggest purse in motorcycle road racing with $343,494 paid for qualifying, Special Stage results, and overall race results. A total of $153,527 was paid out for overall race-finishing position. Shinichi Ito and Takeshi Tsujimura earned $86,348 for the win, Takashi Yasuda and Yoshiteru Konishi earned $17,270 for second, and Atsushi Watanabe and Nobuatsu Aoki earned $8635 for third. Ito and Tsujimura took home $86,348 for their fastest qualifying time from the Special Stage. The Special Stage - one-lap timed qualifying for each rider - was changed from the top 20 teams to the top 10 teams. The reason given in the race program was that the 11th through 20th teams had lap times significantly slower than the top ten teams in recent years. When it was provisional polesitter Yoshiteru Konishi's turn to go out on track for the Special Stage single flying lap, the team dis- covered rain tires instead of qualifying tires under the tire warmers. Fortunately, their pit garage was the nearest one and the team swapped wheels for slick race tires. Konishi's time suffered from the confusion and was 2:10.221 seconds - a full second slower than Friday's best. Konishi's teammate, Takashi Yasuda, had a time quick enough to place the team third on the starting lineup. The class structure for this year's 8 Hours was changed, such that all the Japanese wild-card entries raced in the Japanese Superbike (JSB) class and the regular FIM teams raced in the FIM Superbike class. "At the end of last year, Suzuka Circuit came to HRC," explained HRC managing director Satoru Horiike. "They said to us, 'if HRC use Superbike specification for 2006 Suzuka 8 Hours, for sure, you will win. It will not be competitive. We want to make the Suzuka 8 Hours a very competitive race. So please come down from Superbike to JSB. If HRC agree, then we will ask all factory teams to be JSB.' So we said, 'okay, we agree.' " The JSB class limits engine modifications to the cylinder head, intake, and exhaust. Pistons, connecting rods, and crankshafts are required to be standard production items. Chassis modifications are allowed, including special swingarms and forks. The request from Suzuka Circuit to HRC to stop using their very effective CBR1000RRW Superbikes for CBR1000RR JSB bikes sounds like a losing proposition. "Yeah, JSB is more difficult," said Horiike. "But this is always our way. If it is very difficult, then we should try. This is Honda's way." Yoshimura Suzuki's Fujio Yoshimura con- curred on the change in class for wild-card entries. "The regulations don't say about the JSB class, but there is a verbal, unwrit- ten gentleman's agreement on this. Suzuki - and I think Yamaha and Kawasaki, too - don't want to put the extra effort to have the Superbike-based 8 Hours bike. It would cost less to build [a JSB] bike. Suzuka Cir- cuit had a gentleman's agreement with Briefly... Osamu Deguchi leaves the pits while the number-seven Honda sits. Colin Edwards didn't make it far in the race before his Yamaha expired. Continued on page 67

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