Last week, my wife and I made the drive from Osaka to Himeji, in Hyogo, to visit the boys at Pit Road M; a shop that has been on my list for quite some time. If you know me, you’ll know I’m a huge fan of RH9 – both in idea and what it stands for; it is the group I emulated to create the Frontrunners Group.
Continuing coverage from Central Circuit, we’ll take a look at the podium finishers of the day, and a few of the close runner-ups. While most everyone in the Vertex classes were quick, I was surprised at where some of the cars landed on the time sheets. I think my perception of who was fast at Central was a bit skewed from the events held in prior years. If I’m not mistaken, Iwata took fastest lap a few years ago before he crashed the EG at TC2000. Seems like the Kansai guys have been doing their homework recently though.
The days leading up to this event were spent in somewhat of a rush to compile my projects at work so I could afford some time to do a bit of research on Central Circuit, and the event itself. This would be the first time attending CTAC for both Sekinei and I, and I wanted to have at least an elementary grasp of the track layout and event schedule. It may seem dramatic, but when I’m presented with a finite amount of time to photograph something comprehensively, I get a bit anxious. With the top class getting 3 sessions comprised of 15 minutes each, you can’t afford to be isolated from the action for even a minute. With some of the fastest drivers gathered from all of Japan, I was looking forward to seeing what the day had in store.
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Craft Company is, among other things, just plain awesome. Based out of Amagasaki, a city in an industrial area in the Hyogo prefecture, Craft Company toils away under the hoods of many cars. Included in that lineup is their CCFD35 seen here – a car heavily partnered with FEED. CC is a regular at these events, but came to Tsukuba last weekend specifically to take part in the ‘Advan Fastest Amateur Tournament’. There were a ton of impressive cars at this event, most of them are regular time attackers we all know and love. Despite the stiff competition though, the CCFD35 managed a 6th place time of 57.658 around the circuit. To give you something to compare it to, Suzuki-san’s Scorch S15 posted a blistering 54.162 second lap time. Click past the break to check out more pics of the CC built RX7.
