Honda Racing THANKS DAY 2018

[Mits Yoshi]

Honda Racing THANKS DAY 2018, event showing Honda’s wide range of motorsport activities for 4-wheelers and 2-wheelers was held on December 9th at Honda owns Twin Rings Motegi circuit for Honda fans. Great news for Honda fan in 2018 is that RAYBRIG NSX-GT in winning GT500 class title in this year’s SUPER GT with four wins and six pole positions, this year’s fan event was full of excitement for all. Drivers including Piere Gasly, Toro Rosso Honda Formula One driver and Jenson Button, ex-Formula one driver and world champion who drove RAYBRIG NSX- GT in 2018 and all Honda works Japanese drivers who drove Super GT and Super Formula as well as 2 Japanese drivers drove F2 in Europe joined the event. All Honda works Riders including Moto GP champion Marc Marques (not joined due to health condition) also joined.

Those drivers and riders were participated a lot of event such as Karting race, Honda N-One (660cc small car) race, Super GT race and Super Formula Race. All those raced are exhibition race, but all drivers and riders showed real race for audiences.

As a special “Winners Run” parade run was held on the road track in the morning to honor the champions and championship machines that won titles in the various categories this season. Jenson Button was there to drive the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX-GT that won the GT500 class title in this year’s SUPER GT. In the parade, his SUPER GT teammate, Naoki Yamamoto, drove the machine that he use to win his own title in the Super Formula series this year. Before this Winners Run, the yearly events including the GT machine fan rides, the Circuit Safari and other maker-related events were held to the delight of many fans to show appreciation to them.

In the afternoon, the main feature on the road course was the SUPER GT Grand Final of Honda. In addition to the five NSX-GT cars competing in the SUPER GT series GT500 class, the No. 99 test car joined the race. And it was driven by a golden pair of Gasly and Sato! It was certainly a spectacle for the fans to behold.
The race was competed over seven laps of the Motegi course with one mandatory pit stop for a driver change and tire change simulation (off and on). However, to give its team a slight advantage, the No. 99 only had to make the driver change and was allowed to skip the tire change. Starting from 2nd position on the grid (decided by lottery), it was Sato in car No. 99 that made a fast dash! But that only put the spurs to the regular GT500 drivers. Especially determined were the No. 100 RAYBRIG NSX-GT pair starting from the back row of the grip. Showing the same speed as in the regular season, with the driver change from of Naoki Yamamoto to Jenson Button, they went on to take the checkered flag first in a big come-from-behind victory. In this way, the new GT500 champions won the last “race” of the season.