【Japanese Rally Championship Round 4 / Kumakogen Town】

JN-3 Championship Sees Three-way Battle In Final Round
Nao Otake / Megumi Fujita Pair Wins JN-3 Class Title

JRC Round 4

Date	29-31/10/2021
Venue	Kumakogen town, Ehime
Weather	Leg1 : Fine / Leg2 : Rain – Cloudy
Surface	Leg1 : Dry / Leg2 : Wet (Tarmac)
Total distance	341.60km
Total SS distance	110.10km

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The 2021 Japanese Rally Championship initially had ten rounds on its calendar. But it had to be reduced to eight events, as the season opener and the eighth round, Rally of Tsumagoi and Yokote Rally 2021, were canceled. Plus, the championship’s fourth meeting, Kumakogen Rally, originally planned in May, was also postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic0. Therefore, it was held as the effective final round from October 29th to 31st.

The host town of the rally was Kumakogen-Cho in Ehime Prefecture. Since the event was called off last year, this was the first visit for JRC to the island of Shikoku in two years. The rally base was located at Highland Park Mikawa, at the height of about 1,000m above sea level, as was the case in past events.

But, unlike the past examples, Special Stages were set on the roads on the mountain side of Route 440, such as Town Road Miyama Line, Farm Road Miyama Line, and Main Forest Road Nishidani-Hinoura Line. The change was made because the rally’s traditional route, Prefectural Road 328, which climbed up Ohkawamine (altitude at 1,500m), was closed due to rockfall.

The itinerary was as follows: Leg 1 on Saturday, October 30th, was southbound from Highland Park Mikawa, and the competitors ran the loop of Mikawa Reverse (6.97km) and Yanaigawa (14.21km) three times. In Leg 2 on Sunday, October 31st, they went the same loop in reverse direction two times, but the stage, Mikawa (23.28km), was created by rolling the two stages and the liaison section in the previous leg into one.

Therefore, the same roads were used over the two days, but the running direction was different each day, plus there were two long stages that exceeded 20km on the second day. As the total competitive distance was over 100km, the point coefficient 1.2 was applied to this rally when the event was completed.

The competitors had an opportunity to recce the stages on Friday, October 29th. “It’s challenging, and there was a lot of gravel on the surfaces. But generally, the roads are better maintained than I thought,” a competitor said.

Kumakongen Rally has been a regular fixture of JRC, since 2006 when the current championship was established by merging the 2-wheel drive division and the 4-wheel drive division. The events have usually had an early May slot with only a few exceptions since then, and this was the first time for the rally to be run in late October.

Consequently, there was a concern about fallen leaves on the road, which could make the surfaces a bit tricky, but it didn’t become an issue for the rally crew, as the amount of such fallen leaves was much less than expected. Instead, there were some mossy patches in spots because the locals hadn’t heavily used those roads. And the conditions of tarmac have certainly deteriorated in these years, which meant the surfaces were more aggressive to the tires.

Leg 1 started under a clear sky. In the JN-1 class, Hiroki Arai / Noritaka Kosaka driving Subaru WRX STI was the second-fastest in the opening stage, SS1 Mikawa Reverse 1, 2.7 seconds behind the leader. Then His father’s pair, Toshihiro Arai / Naoya Tanaka in Subaru WRX STI, took second in SS4 Yanaigawa 2, and Hiroki followed in third. The father and son clocked almost equal stage time, which was only 0.5 seconds slower than the winner. Hiroki was the second-fastest again in SS5 Mikawa Reverse 3, but the gap with the top two increased gradually.

It started to rain on Saturday night in the Kumakogen area. So Leg 2 on Sunday began in light rain, and the surfaces were totally wet. Therefore, the rally control declared “wet conditions” for the day, which meant the competitors were allowed to use two more tires in addition to the maximum number of tires, eight in this event.

Unfortunately, the Yokohama Tire users generally continued to struggle under such conditions of Leg 2. Still, giving a glimpse of speed on the wet surfaces, Fumio Nutahara / Shungo Azuma in Toyota GR Yaris passed the Arais and finished the rally in fourth. Hiroki Arai came in fifth, and Toshihiro Arai followed in sixth.

Nao Otake / Megumi Fujita, driving Toyota 86, headed to this final round as the point standings leader of the three-way JN-3 championship battle. As only the top six results of each competitor count in JRC this year, what Ohtake / Fujita pair needed to grab the title was to win this rally or finish in second and add three extra points for the fastest crew of Leg 2.

At the end of SS3, Otake was running in third, 8.6 seconds behind the crew in second, and 13.9 seconds behind the leader. Trying to catch up, he pushed very hard in SS4 Mikawa Reverse 2, and he was running faster than the leader. But he hit a metal grating ditch cover, which probably was kicked up by one of the preceding cars, just 2km before the stage finish, and his right-hand rear tire was broken as a result.

Fortunately, Otake managed to finish SS4, though the pace had to be reduced, and his time was still the third fastest. And his stage time was actually only 1.2 seconds slower than that of the crew in second, so it was clear that the mishap during the stage didn’t destroy his hope for the title.

Completing the day’s remaining two stages steadily, Otake ended Leg 1 in third, and the gap with the second was 30.2 seconds and 39.1 seconds behind the class leader. The gap was expanding, but the opportunities to turn around might be there on Sunday because Leg 2 consisted of two long stages, which were over 20km. On top of this, the rain started to fall on Saturday night, and the surfaces turned to wet. Given that any driver can make a costly mistake on the wet roads, no one could yet tell who would win the championship.

Otake started the first of two long wet stages, SS7 Mikawa 1, with ADVAN A052 tires on his car. He didn’t make any mistakes throughout the stage and set his first fastest time in this rally. At the end of SS7, his time deficit from the closest rival, who was second in the point standings and dropped to second from the first here, came down to 17.4 seconds.

SS8 Mikawa 2 was the final stage of the rally. In other words, it was the last stage of the season and a do-or-die situation for Otake. However, just before the start of the stage, he found his engine didn’t respond to the throttle pedal properly. It was clear the motor had a problem, and he could feel it lost a lot of power. It seemed to be a return of the nightmare which he narrowly escaped the previous day.

But he didn’t give up and finished the stage with the handicapped car. Then he knew the new rally leader, who was third in the standings, retired at the stage because of an off. The rival might fail to deal with the pressure created by Otake’s fastest time in SS7.

Thus, the JN-3 championship battle, which was so eventful until the last stage, was settled. The 21-year old Otake completed the rally in second and won the driver’s title by adding extra points for the fastest crew in Leg 2. And for Fujita, this was the first co-driver’s title crown since 2014.

Seiji Yamaguchi, who was born in Ehime Prefecture, shared his Toyota 86 with Kousuke Maruyama. He had an electrical problem with the car in SS7 but kept going with persistence. Then, after fixing the issue, he clocked the fastest stage time in SS8 and finished in third to get on the podium of the event in his home province, which has a special place in his heart.