This weekend, the Autobacs SUPER GT Series is hosting the Suzuka GT 450km Race at legendary Suzuka Circuit. They are accompanied by a collection of six classic Group C sports prototypes which took to the track for a demonstration run on Saturday afternoon.
It has been three years since the most recent running of the Suzuka Summer Endurance Race, an event whose lineage begins with the inaugural running of the Suzuka 1000km in 1966, through to the most recent Suzuka 10 Hours in 2019.
From 1983 to 1991, the Suzuka 1000km was a perennial fixture of the All-Japan Endurance/Sports Prototype Championship.
The Group C sports prototypes featured on track this weekend were among the “hero cars” of this era, universally remembered as a golden age of sports car racing all around the world.
Two-time GT300 champion Kazuki Hoshino got on board the late-stage Group C unicorn that was the 1992 Nissan NP35, the sibling of the aborted 1993 Nissan P35.
It appears just as it did when Toshio Suzuki and Jeff Krosnoff drove it in its one and only race, the 1992 Inter-Challenge Cup Miné 500km.
Also appearing from the Nissan Heritage Collection is the 1986 Nissan R86V, built from the March 86G, and powered by the twin-turbo, three-litre VG30T V6 powerplant.
In this car, Kazuyoshi Hoshino, Keiji Matsumoto, and Aguri Suzuki spearheaded Nissan’s first works entry into the 24 Hours of Le Mans. But their race ended well before the chequered flag.
Hoshino would win the pole for the ’86 Suzuka 1000km a few months later, one of three pole positions for the R86V in that year’s All-Japan Endurance Championship.
It’s hard not to notice the sound of one of Mazda’s quad-rotor prototypes of the era, represented this weekend by the 1989 Mazda 767B – the forerunner to the 1991 Le Mans-winning 787B.
This is the car owned and driven by master Mazda mechanic, Senji Hoshino.
The 767B’s exploits as a works prototype include a fifth place finish on debut at the 1989 Daytona 24 Hours, and a seventh and ninth overall in its maiden 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The 1988 Argo JM19C appeared, as it did when run by Martin Schanche, Robin Smith, and Robin Donovan in the 24 Hours of Le Mans en route to a 25th place finish.
Driving this Ford Cosworth V8-powered example was Arnage Racing driver Ryohei Sakaguchi, who’s driven his fair share of unique vehicles in a career that has spanned over a quarter of a century!
Also representing the Group C2 lightweights was this Spice SE90C, also powered by a Ford Cosworth V8.
The livery is a recreation of The Berkeley Team London’s 1990 entry at the World Sports Prototype Championship Suzuka 480km, a SE89C driven by Ranieri Randaccio and Stefano Sebastiani.
Last and certainly not least, there is the obligatory appearance of the mighty Porsche 962C, wrapped in Advan black and red.
The late, great, Kunimitsu Takahashi won the 1989 Suzuka 1000km, alongside co-driver Stanley Dickens, driving a Nova Engineering 962C in this exact livery. It was Takahashi’s record-setting fourth overall win at the Suzuka 1000km/10 Hours, a record that no other driver has matched in the years since.
That victory in December (the race was rescheduled from its usual August date due to a typhoon) clinched Takahashi’s fourth All-Japan Endurance title in five years, following a run of three straight from 1985-1987.
At the wheel of an Advan Nova Porsche 962C, Kunimitsu Takahashi was the most successful Japanese driver of the Group C era. And while the man himself is no longer with us, it is only appropriate that this part of his boundless racing legacy is part of this event.
The good news is that there will be a second demonstration run at Suzuka, right at noon local time!
Images © Suzuka Circuit / Mobilityland Corporation
