A Must See Show Comes to Fontana
As one who spent seven years in Japan, and many hours attending races held under the Japan GT Championship banner, I urge anyone within easy travel distance to attend this weekends events at California Speedway. The main event will be a JGTC 2004 All-Star race featuring 20 of the top teams from Japan, as well as local entries. The All-Star show will feature the first-ever JGTC night race, The JGTC ALL-STAR 200 on Saturday the 18th and two 24-minute sprint races on Sunday the 19th called JGTC ALL-STAR SPRINTS.
Personnel background
As stated I spent seven years in Japan and when not at sea attempted to make every JGTC show that was possible. In some ways it is not unlike NASCAR. The cars are based on highly modified production models, Toyota Supra, Acura NSX, Mazda and Nissan 350Z, and the massive influx of manufacture’s cash ensures racing is very competitive. The largest share of cash comes from NISMO and its support for the Nissan 350Z teams. It has become so competitive between the top three Japanese manufactures they have relegated two privateer Ferrari 550 GTS Maranello’s, built to FIA-spec, to rather sorry backmarker status.
Another similarity is the sanctioning body’s efforts to “even the playing filed.” We have all become accustomed to NASCARS’s sometimes transparent use of a late race “Yellow” for “debris” that bunches the field in the last 20 laps, all in an effort to appease the TV ratings Gods fans with a close finish - JGTC takes another view, a preemptive one - Anyone displaying “Ferrari like” performance is assessed.
(NOTE: Entry truncated due to a host/data transfer - ed.)
