Hey guys. I opened up the lobby for race #2 a couple of hours ago.
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#2
Toyota GT500 07/04/2015
Twin Ring Motegi Road Course
Supra GT500 Base Model ´05 only.
Start (track clock) is 6:20pm. Time progression: 1.
Race duration is 40 minutes.
Damage is Heavy. Tyre / Fuel is Normal.
Minimum pit stops: 1.
And I have just received the best news possible for my team. Somehow, how impossible it may seem
I have managed to sign Toranosuke "Tiger" Takagi as my driver for the Motegi race on Tuesday.
Tora became one of my favorite drivers when I discovered Formula 1 towards the late nineties.
He was a true underdog that had to pack his bags many times throughout his career.
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Me and Tora went to Red Bull Ring to take some photos.
Tora hasn't raced anywhere since his last season in 2008 and he is 41 years old at this point, but I still managed
to persuade him to sign on for this one-off race on Tuesday with us.
His number will be #37 in celebration of Toyota's birth year. Toyota Motor Corporation was founded on August 28, 1937.
I took this from several different sources around the internet;
*He started out racing Rotax karts between 1990-1991 and later moved up the ladder to
Japanese F3 for two years where he picked up three podiums driving a Tom's Toyota for the Itoham team.
*Next career move was four years of Japanese F3000 and Formula Nippon between 1994-1997.
He also found time to race a Porsche 993 during the
1997 Porsche Supercup Season.
All in all he won six races between '94-'97 and finished runner-up in the 1995 Japanese F3000 season
driving for Team Nakajima Planning.
*A huge step up for 1998 saw him sign on for Team Tyrrell in Formula 1 and the following year
landed a drive with Team Arrows.
It was around this time that I started following Tora's career.
He didn't score any points in F1 but he outqualified his teammates by 22-10 and finished ahead of
them 10-7 when both finished a race. In the fastest lap category he led by 19-13.
Helped a bit perhaps by having the dreadful Ricardo Rosset as a teammate for one season.
He finished in the top 10 four times in Formula 1 so had todays scoring system in F1 been used
back then he would have scored points.
*When his time in F1 had ended he went back home to Japan in 2000 for another season of Formula Nippon
driving for Nakajima Racing and this time he dominated the field by winning 8 of 10 races and
becoming champion for the first time in his career.
*The following two years were quite busy for Tora, between 2001-2002 he raced in the Champ Car series
in the United States with a Reynard Toyota, totalling 37 races and 82 points.
He was also promoted as one of Toyota's official test drivers in 2002.
*2003-2004 saw Tora move from Champ Cars to the Indycar Series racing with a Toyota engine for Mo Nunn.
In his rookie season he finished tenth overall with one podium finish, but the following year saw him slip
in the standings down to 15th overall.
*By 2005 Tora's international career was over and he went back home to Japan for good.
His continued racing in Formula Nippon and Japanese Super GT500 though (between 2005-2008) and met with
immediate success, becoming 2005 Japanese Super GT500 champion for Team Cerumo driving a
Toyota Supra (what a coincidence, eh?
).
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Great to hear about your experiences, guys. I'm glad it went reasonably okay and amazingly there are no driver complaints post-race about other competitors.
Well, except Manny that is. Who didn't approve of my driving at all.
I forgot to mention this but on two separate occasions during our race at Nurburgring (at night) I didn't know where I was!
I shifted down thinking I was approaching a bend but in reality it was a place where you normally go flat out.
Unbelievable. Luckily I was alone at that time.
But I recall an interview with ex-F1 driver Jacques Villeneuve where he mentioned how he had forgotten where he was during
a race at Elkhart Lake. I think he even went off and crashed the car because of it. I didn't do
that at least.
Excellent. 👍
*Championship standings and race results will be added.