Here are a few images of what was happening off-track throughout the Suzuka weekend, beginning with this shot looking between the gantries of the Nakajima Racing HSV-010 GT coming in for adjustments during practice
2008 SUPER GT Driver's champions Satoshi Motoyama and Benoit Treluyer sign autographs for the kiddies – and the not-so-young!
Race Queens: Another crowd-puller at races….what's that kid in the back doing?
Aston Martin Vantage GT2 of Hiroki Yoshimoto, "Totally different from last year's Shiden," in his opinion
The man himself, Hiroki Yoshimoto.
The Hasemi Motorsport pit on Saturday morning
Kids and Kids'-related activities are always high on organizers lists for events in Japan. This is just one of many themed characters roaming the pit and paddock area over the weekend
From new entrants Good Smile Racing (#9 Porsche 911 GT3 RS), showing that "Ita-sha" style hasn't disappeared over the winter break.
Inside 2008 GT300 champions MOLA pit. Great to see the car back in its title-winning livery.
Enjoying their jobs: Mechanics having a laugh in the CALSONIC IMPUL pit
Team LeMans driver Bjorn Wirdheim
A close-up of the #74 Toyota Corolla AXIO
Changeable weather all weekend made scenes like this quite common
Kohei Hirate gettin' the word from the boss, Toyota Team SARD pit garage
Inside the Real Racing pit with the brand new Honda HSV-010 GT. Little did the team know this would be the highest-placed finisher in the race the following day with third.
The sole Vemac in the series this season. This is actually the 408 R model, once campaigned in GT500 by the car's developers.
GT300 Drivers – just 40 pilots representing 20 entries. Expect to see at least three or more spot entries for the big races, namely the Fuji round in May and the 700kms in August.
GT500 Drivers – all 26 from the thirteen entries in the class this year.
That's all for now, more Super GT and other Japanese endurance racing-related posts coming soon, stay tuned!
– Len Clarke
OFFICIAL SPEEDHUNTERS SUPPLIERS
Very nice! Thanks for this guys, can't get enough of those strange GT300 cars like the Vemac and Shiden
Good Smile Racing cars will ALWAYS be "itasha's". The team is owned by Good Smile Company which is a figure company from Japan, which happen to have a whole line of articulated figures based on Yamaha's Vocaloid character series including the girl on their car Hatsune Miku.
Right now they're going with a brand new version - the mechanic Miku, but i predict they'll change it a couple of months when the Black Rock Shooter anime debuts (a variation of Miku is the main character)
i think i have to make something clear, BRS is NOT a variation of Miku, the character was an original, created by Huke, the MV u saw from youtube or niconico was just writen for this character, but using Miku's voice, they may look similiar but two totally different character! (sorry...i got a little carried away)
i want more photos of the Good Smile Company Porsche!!! Please XD
looking good!! the Toyota Corolla AXIO & the Aston Martin Vantage GT2 are my stand out favourites.. thanks for the coverage.. keep it up!
I'm glad to know that I'm no the only "otaku" here reading Speedhutners lol.
Yeah, sad to see Studie no longer in Super GT anymore but have to say good luck to Good Smile Racing on this years campaign.
and thanks for the Super GT coverage Len Clarke!!!
i'm still far away from being a real otaku lol,
actually, i wanna know if their car is competitive or not...it used to be a GT2 format race car right? should be reliable, but when looking at all the other teams with their monterous aero kit...i started to worry..
haven't really start to keep track with JGTC yet, so i don't know much about the race
everytime when i looked at James Elterman's Takata Impreza, i wished them the best of luck' and gave a smile....but it really was cracking my heart. Why? u may ask me, i am the 2nd place winner of their car's livery design competition, being just less than half step to reach what most of the game car painter's higest desire, or even dream...i rather to get a 3rd place, seriously.
If anyone had seen my design of that competition, tell me how you feel.
NLR Kaizer