The Suzuka 500 km, was the opening round of the 1987 All Japan Sports Prototype Championship was held at the Suzuka Circuit, on 12 April, in front of a crowd of approximately 18,000.
Report
Entry A total of 24 cars were entered for the event, across three classes ranging from Local Prototypes to Group C Prototypes.
Qualifying The pairing of Hideki Okada and Mike Thackwell took pole position for From A Racing, in their Porsche 962C ahead of the new partnership of Kazuyoshi Hoshino and Kenji Takahashi for Hoshino Racing, in their Nissan R87E, by just 0.42secs.
Race The race was held over 85 laps of the Suzuka circuit, a distance of 500 km (actual distance was 502.519 km). Hideki Okada and Mike Thackwell took the winner spoils for From A Racing, driving their Porsche 962C. The pair won in a time of 2hr 57:25.959mins., averaging a speed of 106.206 mph. Second place went to Kunimitsu Takahashi and Kenny Acheson in the Advan Alpha Nova’s Porsche 962C who finished just 2.775 seconds adrift. Also, the lead lap, was the third placed Toyota 87C of Geoff Lees and Alan Jones.
Classification
Race result
Class Winners are in Bold text.
Pos. No. Class Driver Entrant Car - Engine Time, Laps Reason Out 1st 27 C Hideki Okada Mike Thackwell From A Racing Porsche 962C 2hr 57:25.959 2nd 1 C Kunimitsu Takahashi Kenny Acheson Advan Alpha Nove Porsche 962C 2hr 57:28.734 3rd 36 C Geoff Lees Alan Jones Toyota Team TOM’s Toyota 87C 2hr 58:29.226 4th 16 C Kris Nissen Volker Weidler Leyton House Racing Team Porsche 962C 84 5th 202 C Takashi Yorino David Kennedy Mazdaspeed Mazda 757 84 6th 201 C Yoshimi Katayama Yojiro Terada Mazdaspeed Mazda 757 84 7th 2 C Chiyomi Totani Naoki Nagasaka Alpha Cubic Racing TeamPorsche 962C 82 8th 32' C Aguri Suzuki Masahiro Hasemi Hasemi Motorsport Nissan R86V 80 9th 70 B Seiichi Sodeyama Syuuji Fujii Batsu Racing Team MCS Guppy-Mazda 75 10th 100 C Vern Schuppan Keiichi Suzuki Trust Racing Team Porsche 962C 75 11th 67 A Yoshifumi Yamazaki Masaki Oohashi West-Mazda 87S 74 12th 29 A Norihiro Yamazaki Kenji Mizuno Oscar-Mazda SK85 74 13th48 A Keiichi Mizutani Motozou Fujikawa Oscar-Mazda SK85 73 14th 30 A Isao Nakahira Kenji Kuroki West-Mazda 87S 73 15th 6 A Hideki Uemura Yoshiyuki Ogura West-Mazda 85S 71 16th 38 C Eje Elgh Ross Cheever Dome MotorsportDome Motorsport-Toyota 87C 71 17th 31 A Nobuyoshi Horil Hajime Kajiwara Horil Racing West-Mazda 83S II 71 18th 47 A Seiji Imoto Tadao Yamauchi Rev Racing Oscar-Mazda SK85 70 19th 35 A Mitsutuka Hayakawa Masatoshi Yamaguchi West-Mazda 83S II 70 20th 7 C Osamu Nakako Maurizio Sandro Sala Best House Racing Team LM-Toyota 07 63 DNF 50 C Syuuroku Saski Taku Akaike SARD SARD-Toyota MC87S 52 Driveshaft DNF 8 C Takao Wada Anders Olofsson Person’s Racing Team Nissan R86V 31 Oil Leak DNF 23 C Kazuyoshi Hoshino Kenji Takahashi Hoshino Racing Nissan R87E 17 Drivesharft DNF 9 A Souichirou Tanaka Hiroaki Ishii Katayama Racing Oscar-Mazda SK85 15 Retire DNS 37 C Geoff Lees Masanori Sekiya Toyota Team TOM’s TOM’s-Toyota 87C Withdrawn
References