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On lap 62 Tamada pitted and Kiyonari rejoined the race. Kiyonari's curse did too as he had a lowside crash in the Casio Triangle on the out lap, but picked the bike up and was able to continue. Ito and Aoki pitted on lap 79 - and so did Kiyonari on the 17th lap of his stint! Kiyonari's bike was placed on the jackstand, and after some discussion, the front wheel was replaced (but not the rear!) and fuel was added. While all this was taking place in slow motion, Okada pitted right next to Kiyonari's bike and did a full pit stop in what seemed to be one-third the time of Kiyonari's stop. Yasuda finally finished his stint on lap 82. By lap 84 Tsujimura had a 42-second lead on Konishi, and Konishi had a 48-second lead on Watanabe. Watanabe was 14 sec- onds ahead of the outclassed Deguchi. Kiyonari was in seventh place and in danger of going two laps down. The rest of the race was unre- markable except for a late-race push from Kiyonari, which saw him advance to fifth place by lap 134 and mark the fastest lap of the race (2:09.818) seconds on lap 170. Ito and Tsujimura proved what can happen at the Suzuka 8 Hours when good riders are given a good bike, good tires, and a good crew. The factory Honda and Yamaha teams proved what happens when the case is otherwise. CN SUZUKA 8 HOURS SUZUKA CIRCUIT SUZUKA, JAPAN RESULTS: JULY 30, 2006 OVERALL: 1. Takeshi Tsujimura/ Shinichi Ito (Hon) 2. Yoshiteru Konishi/Takashi Yasuda (Hon) 3. Atsushi Watanabe/Nobuatsu Aoki (Suz) 4. Osamu Deguchi/ Tadayuki Okada (Hon) 5. Ryuichi Kiyonari/ Makoto Tamada (Hon) 6. Tatsuya Yamaguchi/ Kazuki Tokudome (Hon) 7. Yoshiyuki Sugai/ Joshua Brookes (Hon) 8. Ryuji Tsuruta/ Matsudo Naoki (Kaw) 9. Yusuke Tejima/ Gaku Kamada (Hon) 10.Igor Jerman/Gwen Giabbani/ Sebastien Scarnato (Yam) 11. Hidemichi Takahashi/ Izumi Matsubara (Hon) 12. Yukio Nukumi/ Kazuma Tsuda (Hon) 13. Shingo Suzuki/ Takaomi Takahashi (Hon) 14. Norihiko Fujiwara/ Nobuyuki Ohsaki (Yam) 15. Yoshihiro Konno/ Yuki Hatano (Suz). Suzuka Circuit Suzuka, Japan Round 5 July 30, 2006 AUGUST 16, 2006 • C Y C L E N E W S 68 World Endurance Championship bility of a lapper running into you or taking you out, but every track has that. But still, they have to do some work. After being on the tracks that I've been on for the last two years and come back here, it feels tight. But they don't change anything until somebody is carted out in a pine box. Changes are needed before that happens." Since the last 8 Hours that Edwards rode in 2002, Suzuka has made changes to the class structure that has reduced the speed difference between the fast classes and the slow classes. "To me, it's gotten a lot better since 2002. There's a lot more fast guys. Back then, you had Superbike and the ape hangers, the naked bikes. The naked-bike thing was just not right. Now there are 83 proper motorcycles and nobody with ape hangers. They're all pretty good riders." American Jason DiSalvo was at Suzuka but, unfortu- nately, as a bench warmer for Yamaha riders Katsuyu- ki Nakasuga and Shinichi Nakatomi in case one of them was forced out before the race started. DiSalvo came to Suzuka once to test for Yamaha. "I came out here and tested about a month ago. I did about 25 laps in the wet. Yesterday was my first time seeing this place in the dry. It's so much different from riding in the wet because of the higher speed going through some of sweepers. By the end I was kind of getting a feel of which way this place was going." DiSalvo was somewhat disappointed not to race, but found good training value from the trip. "It was a good experience to come and see how the race weekend goes. If I had to be a number-one or -two rider for this team, I'd be lost. There's just so much stuff that you don't ever see anywhere else in the world. I've run a number of different series all throughout the world, and this is definitely different. Everything is done differently. And everything is all set and different procedures that you have to follow. Even things as simple as pulling into the pit garage there is a procedure on how they check the bike. There's no place else in the world that does that." Like most first-timers at Suzuka, DiSalvo gushed praise for the track. "This place is smooth as glass. Coming from Laguna Seca last weekend, this place is night-and-day different. And next weekend we are going back to Mid-Ohio and you never know how that is going to be." Another reserve rider at Suzuka was Karl Harris from the British Superbike Championship. "I ride for HM Plant on the HRC bikes. I'm the teammate of Kiyonari. I'm having an okay year: about six podiums but not a win yet. I'm sixth in the championship at the moment, which is not too good, really. I've had quite a bit of bad luck as well, a few crashes and the bike broke. I hope I get a good end of season and some wins." Harris was the quickest of all the reserve riders and marked an impressive time of 2:10.326 - a time better than both Osamu Deguchi and Makoto Tamada. "I asked HRC if I could do this at the beginning of the year. I had half an idea that they wanted me as the reserve rider. But when my times were quicker than most of the guys, I half- expected to be riding. I have been 1.5 seconds quicker than Tamada and over two seconds quicker than Deguchi, so I thought I had a chance to ride. But still, nope. I'm pretty gutted, really." Another rider from the UK racing at Suzuka was Leon Camier. Camier was impressive last year at his first appearance in the 8 Hours, and this year he was back again on the Moriwaki Honda. Unfortunately, Shogo Moriwaki's first-lap crash left Camier without a teammate, but he rode a few stints, regardless, to get some experience for 2007. "The crash broke the frame. It broke one of the lugs that holds the foot- pegs on. The mechanics went back to the factory [located across the street from the spectator parking lot] and made a bit to hold the footpeg on and keep the frame together. I did about two and a half hours of riding, just to have a go, you know." Unfortunately for Camier, his Dunlop rear tire went flat while he was riding, but he did not crash. "I felt it about Dun- lop Corner, and then it gradually got worse. Coming out of the hairpin I had a big moment and then I felt it flapping. Then as I tipped it into Spoon Curve I had a big old highside. I went straight off and hit the gravel, but I didn't realize it was gravel 'cause it looked smooth to me. I hit the gravel and it nearly launched me, but I managed to keep it upright." The Yamaha Austria Racing Team were sleepers through qualifying but came well in the race. "Qualify- ing low is normal for us at Suzuka," said team manager Mandy Kainz. "For my riders it is absolutely forbidden to crash at Suzuka. We can only ship 1000 kilograms when we come here, so it is absolutely forbidden to crash. Thus, the riders do not risk a lot and we do not use qualifying tires. Suzuka is a game, always." The Yamaha Austria Racing Team was the best Yamaha on the day, but they were not without trouble. "We had problem in the last hour with a broken third gear," said Kainz. "We changed last year from Dunlop to Pirelli and that it was very hard for us. We had grip for six laps and then after that it was a gamble." Suzuka Circuit revised its number-plate require- ments for this year. The change was the elimina- tion of numbers on the side of the rear-seat cowling and placing a number on the top of the seat cowling and numbers on each side of the rear-most part of the bellypan fairing. As race bikes lean more than 45 degrees through the corner, the numbers were much easier to read when the motorcycle was viewed in the corner - which is where most specta- tors spectate and photographers photograph. Suzuka Circuit also issued an advisory of a rule change intended for 2007, which requires a supple- mental protective cover over the fuel tank openings to prevent unintentional opening of the fuel-tank- filler hole. Toy manufacturer Kyosho sold 1:32 scale-model replicas of 16 popular 8 Hours motorcycles for about $4 at various convenience stores. Toy Story Racing previously raced as the Honda Active Riders Club, or HARC team. HARC is the official Honda owners association in Japan. "We have a property tie-up with Disney," said team pres- ident Yoshitaka Suzumi. "Our team asked Disney if we could use the Toy Story character Buzz Lightyear. We are making some T-shirts with Buzz Lightyear and we pay royalties to Disney. We pay royalties on products, but for the property tie-up we did not pay anything, only have a letter of agreement." Briefly... Vincent Philippe brings his Suzuki to the pits with crash damage. The podium after the Suzuka 8 Hours. Continued from page 67