【Japanese Rally Championship Round 5 / Kyotango City】

Takeuchi Scores Second Straight Rally Tango Win in JN-3,
Sudo Celebrates First Victory with His Swift in JN-4.

JRC Round 5

Date	21-23/05/2021
Venue	Kyotango city, Kyoto
Weather	Leg1 : Cloudy & Rain / Leg2 : Cloudy & Fine
Surface	Leg1 : Wet & Dry / Leg2 : Dry (Tarmac)
Total distance	293.13km
Total SS distance	120.66 km

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Since Kuma Kogen Rally, scheduled in early May, was canceled, there was a six-week-waiting in the 2021 Japanese Rally Championship until this Rally Tango 2021, the fifth meeting of the series.

Based in the city of Kyotango in Kyoto Prefecture, the rally consisted of 12 Special Stages (SS) on asphalt-paved roads, of which the total competitive distance was 120.66km. As the championship point coefficient 1.2 was applied to this event, provided all 12 SS was completed, this was one of the most important events for the championship contenders.

The stages were set out along Tango Jyukan Rindo, which means the longitudinal forest road in Tango, and the event was run for two days. The competitors drove Tango Peninsula “vertically” from the north to the south in Saturday’s Leg 1. They went the opposite way to the northern part of the Peninsula in Leg 2 on Sunday.

Two stages were used for both Legs, Tsunotsuki and Nariai, but in the opposite directions each day. In addition, Iwatsuki Okuyori was added to the Saturday’s itinerary, and Taiko Downhill to the Sunday’s, so there were three stages on each Leg, and every stage was run twice in one day.

The weather bureau declared that Kinki Region went into the rainy season on May 16th, the earliest on record, a week before the rally started. While it rained heavily on Thursday, the forecast said the Tango region had less chance of rain throughout the weekend. However, the changing weather had no small effect on how things went during the event.

The #1 car started from the city center of Kyotango at nine o’clock on May 22nd, Saturday, heading for the first SS. The sky was overcast, and the majority of the road surface was gradually drying in the morning hours. But it rained in the mountainous areas when the competition was about to start, so there were many wet sections along with them.

Yokohama Tire users had two choices of tires: ADVAN A08B, which works best on dry surfaces, or ADVAN A052, which is better on wet roads. Most Yokohama users predicted there would be no rain and picked A08B at the start, so it was an unpleasant surprise for them to see some wet surfaces out there…

Still, a JN-3 class competitor, Genki Takeuchi / Satoshi Kimura in Subaru BRZ, mastered using ADVAN A08B under such road conditions and won the SS1 Tsunotsuki 1 (12.62km), beating the crew finished in second by 16.9 seconds. This meant they were more than 1 second per km faster than any other in the class, which was an excellent start to the rally.

Takeuchi was also the fastest in SS3 Iwatsuki Okuyori 1 (6.56km) by 3.5 seconds. Then, in the second run of the loop in the afternoon, he won SS4 Tsunotsuki 2 by 14.2 seconds. His stage time here was the sixth fastest overall, including the upper classes. Thus, he ended Leg 1 as the class leader, with a 25.4 second gap with the crew in the second.

Leg 2 saw totally dry surfaces throughout the day. Takeuchi continued to expand his lead by winning SS7 and SS8 in a row. After that, all he had to do to secure his second straight victory in Rally Tango was cruising to the finish safely.

Similarly, Hiroshi Sudo / Masakazu Arai, driving Suzuki Swift in JN-4 class, built a significant lead in Leg 1. Setting eighth overall stage time in SS4 Tsunotsuki 1 on the way in his lower class car, he won all stages in the leg. At the end of the day, he had a 46.6 second gap with the rest of the field.

With such a big cushion, Sudo didn’t need to take any risk in Leg 2. Therefore, he steadily drove the remaining stages at a controlled pace to win in the class, just as everyone expected from the veteran driver. This was the first victory for him in nearly three years since Montre 2018.

Seiji Yamaguchi / Hitomi Okura in Toyota 86 in the JN-3 class and Yasuhito Kurohara / Yuki Mino in Suzuki Swift in the JN-4 class also put up a good fight. Unfortunately, they lost out the battle for podium positions, but both crews added some valuable championship points by finishing in fourth in their respective classes.

In the top-level JN-1 class, Fumio Nutahara / Shungo Azuma drove their Toyota GR Yaris, the car which had taken them to the podium in its debut in the previous Karatsu round. Nutahara started the rally with the second-fastest time in the opening stage, and then he won SS4, which was the repetition of SS1, beating all R5 cars. However, they had a gearbox problem in SS6, the final stage of Leg1. Their mechanics replaced the gearbox at the last service of the leg, but the repair work took four minutes longer than the time allowed at the service, despite his teams’ all-out effort. As a result, a 40-second penalty was given to Nutahara.

Toshihiro Arai / Naoya Tanaka in Subaru WRX STI hit a puddle on the road in SS4 and crashed in a bank, which resulted in their premature retirement. Nutahara, on the other hand, was now out of contention for the class win because of the penalty. Still, he completed all stages and finished the rally in fourth, saving some points essential for their championship fight.

Hiroshi Yanagisawa / Takahiro Yasui stood on the final slot of the JN-4 podium. Driving a Skoda Fabia R5, Yanagisawa fought a close battle in Leg 2 against his main rival in the same car. The gap between them sometimes went below a second during the leg, and he managed to win the challenging Taiko Downhill stage two times, SS9 and SS12.

Finishing in third two meetings in a row after achieving the same result in Karatsu, expectations are running high that Yanagisawa may gain his first victory in the next round, Montre 2021, which is his home event.