The ALL-JAPAN GRAND TOURING CAR CHAMPIONSHIP

The All-Japan Grand Touring Car Championship or JGTC can be called the greatest race in Asia. JGTC features grand touring car racing. To us enthusiasts, this simply means sports coupe, sports-cars, and super-cars all thrown into one of the grandest racing spectacle in existence. While the title of the "Greatest Race on Earth" rightfully belongs to Formula-1, I think the JGTC can safely lay claim to be the "Most Interesting Race on Earth". For it is only in JGTC that we can see all of the world's greatest sports and super cars battling each other. These are cars that we see running around on public roads. Indeed for some very fortunate ones, thanks to whoever invented the idea of "re-conditioned cars" and the concept of buying a used (or pre-owned) vehicle, these are the very same cars that with hard work, we can actually look forward to owning and driving on the roads in our future. JGTC features cars like Honda NSX fighting it out with competitors like Toyota's Supra and Nissan's Skyline. Furthermore unlike the often frustrating races in BEST MOTORing where stock supercar battles are often lop-sided in favour of the European supercars like Ferrari and Porsche due to the artificial 280ps max power limit for Japan's domestic supercars, no such situation exists in JGTC. So the NSX, Supra, Skyline, RX-7 and others are able to fight it out with the likes of Ferrari F355 and Porsche GT2 without the burden of labouring with a false max power handicap. This of course makes for unforgetable battles.

JGTC is semi-endurance racing, with two drivers per car and each driver being required to drive for at least 1/3 of the entire race distance. It is divided into two classes : GT500 and GT300. As their name suggests, GT500 is for supercars but with max power limited to 500ps and GT300 is for sports cars and coupes with an upper limit of 300ps. Furthermore JGTC operates with a concept of an 'equalization formula', where an attempt is made to balance out the competitors. This takes the form of enforcing the upper power limit via air-restrictors (to curtail air-intake efficiency) and ballast weights to ensure that most competitors races within a consistent power-to-weight ratio envelope.

The KUNIMITSU NSX

However, for all practical purposes, any restrictive rules ends here. One of the most attractive aspect of the JGTC is the fact that aftermarket brands of all sorts joins the fray. Watch a JGTC race and you will see famous brand names like Mugen, Eibach, Tom's, PIAA, etc sponsoring a major race team. Thus we get to see the aftermarket brands fight each other besides watching our favourite supercars slug it out. JGTC cars also features completely stripped interiors, exotic designs and materials, roll-cages and wild ground-effect body-kits. Some cars even uses sequential shift gearboxes and some cars, like the KUNIMITSU NSX that raced a few years ago have special pistons that even allows full-throttle sequential upshifts. JGTC cars are in fact just a very small level below Formula-3000, that last step to CART and Formula-1 racing.

The Greatest Race in Asia Goes to Sepang

In a very much welcomed move, for this year 2000, the JGTC Association decided to hold one leg of their JGTC series outside of Japan, and most gratifyingly have chosen my country's Formula-1 standard race-circuit, the Sepang F1 Circuit as their first (and currently only) foreign race venue. Thus in one simple decision, millions of enthusiasts in South-East Asia can now witness the excitement of a JGTC race. The date for the Sepang leg will be from June 23rd to June 25th 2000, Friday-Sunday. The schedule follows the Formula-1 format, with Friday being official practise, Saturday official Qualifying and Sunday the actual race-day.

The most intesting aspect of JGTC is of course watching our favourite supercars battle it out on the race-track. For TOVA readers, our primary interest will of course be the five NSX'es that will be slogging it out with the other supercars in the GT500 class. These will include two MUGEN powered NSX. All the NSX are the NA2 variant using the 3.2l C32B powerplant. The primary competitor for the NSX in the GT500 class will be a host of TOYOTA SUPRAs and NISSAN SKYLINES (the R34 version). Other competition will be provided by a DODGE VIPER and a LAMBORGHINI DIABLO.

There is no HONDA in the GT300 category though the Integra Type-R's nemesis, the S15 NISSAN SILVIA will be racing. Other GT300 cars includes a TOYOTA CELICA, a FD3S MAZDA RX-7, a PORSCHE GT3 and GT2 and an RSR, and a SUBARU IMPREZZA WRX. It would be most interesting to see how the IMPREZZA WRX will fare on a proper race-circuit against proper racing cars. Dissapointly there will not be a Ferrari in the Sepang leg, nor will there be any MacLaren F1 GT-Rs. The Ferrari has never really did well in the JGTC but it should still add quite a bit of excitement by merely competing. The famous Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution also never featured in the JGTC despite it's reputation. As for Honda's other great models, the S2000, Integra, Civic and Preludes, I believe they are currently being raced in the N1 series.

Comparing the information available on the JGTC Association homepage, I believe that the number of cars racing in the SIC leg is smaller compared to the full-blown list that races domestically. For example, there is a Toyota AE86 (!) listed in the JGTC homepage that is not on the teams listing at the SIC homepage. Hopefully we are not missing out on anything due to this.

For those interested to find out a little bit more details, the Sepang F1 circuit homepage is located at www.malaysiangp.com.my while those who are able to read Japanese, a lot of additional information is available at the official JGTC homepage at www.gtc.infosim.co.jp. For those who can read the Japanese homepage, be sure to send me any corrections to this article, or any additional interesting pieces of information that I may be able to use in a possible follow-up article prior to the actual race build-up. For eg, it would be most interesting to know the relative positions of the teams and how the five NSX are faring prior to the actual Sepang leg.

BEST MOTORing comes to Town

BM's BEST : Dori-King and Hattori

It is not sheer coincidence that I chose to write an article on my favourite car magazine BEST MOTORing just before this. The JGTC also sees the visit to Malaysia of some of my favourite racing heroes. Three BEST MOTORing heros are in fact driving in the Sepang race; Drift-King Keiichi Tsuchiya, CART racer Naoki Hattori, and T Hara. Both Tsuchiya and Hattori will be driving Honda NSX while Hara will drive a Toyota Celica.

The RAYBRIG NSX

Tsuchiya's partner is Aguri Suzuki, an ex-Formula-1 driver. Their ARTA NSX (Car #8) will be using the C32B engine, and racing under AUTOBACS RACING/TEAM AGURI colours. Hattori will be racing the Car #100 RAYBRIG NSX, also using the C32B, with partner Akira Lida, one of Tsuchiya's co-drivers when they won the Le-Mans 24 hours GT2 class in 1996. Hattori's team will be Team Kunimitsu/MOONCRAFT. Both of these are of course GT500 class machines, and will no doubt be featuring 450-500ps engines and sequential shifters. Both cars will be using Bridgestone tyres.

In the GT300 class, T. Hara will be driving a WedSport Celica (Car #19) using the 3S-GE engine under RACING PROJECT BANDOH and using Yokohama tyres. Those fortunate enough to get regular supplies of HOT VERSION, the sister publication to BEST MOTORing may also recognize the name Tekeshi Tsuchiya, whom I believe is Keiichi Tsuchiya's son. Tekeshi used to race in the JGTC GT300 class. In last year's series, he was driving an S15 Nissan Silvia very successfully. For this year, Tekeshi has moved up into the GT500 class. He will be racing a CASTROL TOM's SUPRA (Car #36) along with Masanori Sekiya, champion of the Le-Mans 24 hours some years ago in a MacLaren F1 GTR. Sekiya have often been called Japan's "Number-1" driver and sometime guests in BEST MOTORing. Tekeshi will be racing under TOYOTA CASTROL TEAM/TOM'S and using Michelin tyres.

There are of course a lot of other very qualified drivers who will be racing in the JGTC though unfortunately they are relatively unknown to most enthusiasts due to the unavailability of the JGTC outside of Japan. This looks set to change because the JGTC Association has announced that they plan to make the Sepang leg a regular feature for future years. So come June 23rd to 25th, I will be at the Sepang F1 Circuit, Grandstand, enjoying myself and cheering my favourite drivers on.

SEPANG JGTC BATTLE - START-TOH !