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.
Tsukuba Circuit’s TC2000 course has been hailed as the birthplace of time attack. Drivers around the world use the circuit as a benchmark for speed in the motor sport. With the adaptation of modern tuning methodology and tire development, times at TC2000 have never been falling faster.
On Friday, January 27th, on his second session on track, Yoshiki ‘Fire’ Ando broke the 50-second barrier at Tsukuba Circuit with a record 49.897 second lap time. A truly incredible moment for motorsport enthusiasts world wide and a massive breakthrough in Japanese time attack.
Three years ago when Yoshiki ‘Fire’ Ando and the expert team at Escort set out to claim the tuning car record at every international circuit in Japan, they knew it was a challenge that would demand perfection in all aspects of their operation.
The new season of Attack kicked off on the weekend of October 25th with the always anticipated Attack Tohoku event at Sportsland Sugo; a track that, with it’s lush forested backdrop, and unique layout, has quickly become among my favorites in Japan.
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I was watching Top Gear the other day and on their news segment they mentioned that the Nurburgring ‘production car’ lap record had been broken. Apparently this happened way back in June. I must have been in a coma or something because I never heard of the news (*edit – It was on June 29th, my girlfriends birthday. That explains it). I don’t understand how Pagani gets away with calling this a production car, although it’s what they market it as, but watch this in-car footage of driver Marc Basseng smashing this work of art around the circuit in an amazing 6 minutes 45 seconds. Be sure to turn your speakers up real loud. Click past the break for a cool little documentary about Pagani and their relationship with the Nurburgring.
