Five months after the first and second rounds of the CarGuy SCR, we’re now at the fourth round. Held at Fuji Speedway like before, it was slightly more interesting due to more cars on the grid, more spectators watching keenly, and extremely wet conditions.
Despite the typhoon warning on the weekend when the third and fourth rounds of the SCR was held, they didn’t cancel the event. These rounds were held at the same time as the Fuji Champion Race Series, meaning the SCR had to share track time with other race series.
For the Sunday schedule the SCR was the last race of the day which meant I was able to watch a couple of other races before the SCR to get myself ready. I arrived at Fuji Speedway in the pouring rain in time to watch the last half of the Inter-Proto Series, a one-make event.
The cars are powered by a 4.0-litre V6 producing 340hp. They looked and sounded pretty damn epic. After them was the ‘Fuji Champion Race N1500/N1400/N1000/Demio/Audi A1 Fun Cup’.
Despite the long name it was a short and fun race to watch.
Basically, it was all just basic front wheel drive hatchbacks fighting it out on one of Japan’s most well known circuits in weather conditions that made them thankful they were in front-wheel drive hatchbacks instead of rear-wheel drive GT cars.
Once the hatchbacks had their time on the track it was time to get the spectators ready for the SCR. In case you missed the first article introducing SCR, it’s a racing series that’s been going on
since 2014. It aims to allow anyone a chance to race in a proper JAF-backed series.
Anything is allowed, from road cars to GT cars, Cup cars, and Premium Track cars that don’t fit into any race series such as the McLaren P1 GTR, Ferrari FXXK, and Aston Martin Vulcan. The latter was one of the main attractions for this round of the SCR.
The Vulcan went around alongside a McLaren P1 hypercar, owned by a member of the CarGuy group which are partnered with Super Car Race to help promote and grow the series. Certainly
with cars like the Vulcan and P1 to attract crowds their partnership seems to be going well.
The pair did a quick and loud lap of Fuji before retiring back into the pits, ready to let the track open for the SCR race cars to go out. The grip was made up of 12 cars, comprising mainly of Lamborghini Super Trofeo cars and other Cup cars.
There was a Mercedes-Benz SLS GT3, a Ferrari 458 GT3, a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup, a road-legal Porsche GT3, as well as a pair of Toyota 86 N1 class cars. The grid was arranged from the previous day’s lap times, with the Mercedes taking pole position. No, this isn’t Formula 1.
As with the previous rounds, the SCR race only lasted 50 minutes or around 25 laps. Considering the weather it was a pretty clean race with only one of the Toyotas going off track in a minor collision forcing to retire. The Ferrari had to retire as well but that was due to transmission issues.
That left the Mercedes to fight off the Raging Bulls behind it and about a third into the race, it was overtaken by the Lamborghinis. It never regained its lead. #38 Huracan won the overall race as well as the GT class. #24 GT3 Cup won the Cup 1 category while the #19 Audi RS3 LMS won the GT4/N1 category.
The wet weather race certainly made it very exciting but seeing more cars on the grid than last time was a great sign that this relatively new race series in Japanese motorsports could have a bright future ahead of it. Here’s hoping for more exciting and bigger races next season.
By Ken Saito