• Tournament Name
2016 MFJ All Japan Road Race Championship Series, Round 3, SUPERBIKE Race in MOTEGI
• Date
[Qualifying Race] May 28, 2016 (Sat) Weather: Overcast, Course Condition: Dry
[Final Race] May 29, 2016 (Sun) Weather: Slightly overcast, Course Condition: Dry
• Number of spectators
12,200 (two days total)
• Venue
Tochigi Prefecture, Twin Ring MOTEGI
• Riders
JSB1000 class: Yukio Kagayama
J-GP2 class: Naomichi Uramoto
• Racing machines
JSB1000 class: SUZUKI GSX-R1000L6 Tuned by Yoshimura
J-GP2 class: SUZUKI GSX-proto71
• Results
JSB1000 class: Yukio Kagayama, Qualifying race/14th (1 minute 51 seconds 423), Final race/ DNF (Did Not Finish)
J-GP2 class: Naomichi Uramoto, Qualifying race/4th (1 minute 53 seconds 702), Final race/1st place
At the third round of the All Japan Road Race Championship, held at Twin Ring MOTEGI, all four classes entered the stage for the first time in the 2016 season. It was also the first time for Yukio Kagayama and Naomichi Uramoto to challenge the race at the same time.
Practice session
The first day of the practice session was rainy, and it rained on Friday of the race week too. This caused some schedule cancellations which affected the participants till the end.
Naomichi Uramoto of the J-GP2 class, had achieved double victory in the opening race at Tsukuba. He had been tuning his machine along with his supervisor of J-GP2, Yuichi Takeda, to show off his power at Twin Ring MOTEGI, too.
Official qualifying race
The official qualifying race of the JSB1000 class was held in a Twin Ring MOTEGI-unique style: the Top 6 survival race. All race machines competed over the first Q1 race, which was held for 30 minutes. They couldn't get through to the Q2 race unless they made the top 10.
Yukio Kagayama, however, had trouble shortening his time. It was because he hadn't been able to select the appropriate tires on Friday, and they didn't suit the qualifying race day's condition. Though he challenged to shorten the time, he finished up in the 14th place which was against his will.
He changed his machine set after the qualifying race, and felt a good response at the warm-up ride on the morning of the final race. He was seeking to hit rewind.
Final race
And the day of the final race came. The air temperature was 29 degrees, and the road surface temperature was 49 degrees. It was the hottest day of the race week.
Though Yukio had thought that he had failed at his start, he rallied and came back to the home straight course in the 8th place at first. He was in a good state at the beginning, but started to suffer trouble from his fourth round. He deviated from the course at the right-angle corner of his eighth round. He judged that he couldn't continue his race, and descended his machine after entering the pit lane.
On the other hand, Naomichi Uramoto of the J-GP2 class, had anxious factors after ending in the fourth place at the qualifying round. Yet he was calm enough to analyze his current situation. After emerging to the second place at the middle of the race, he increased his speed in the midst of the severest condition towards the end. He pulled ahead of his competitors, and achieved three consecutive victories since the opening of the race.
* Comments of Yukio Kagayama, the rider and the chief supervisor
We appreciate for your continued support that you have placed in Team KAGAYAMA. This time we encountered some troubles during the race, and we had to make a decision to withdraw, for it was too dangerous to keep on going. We are sorry that we are unable to give you a good report at this moment, but we are working together as a team to try our best.
Naomichi has done a great job again. Team KAGAYAMA is very proud of his three consecutive victories, and I myself would like to follow after.
* Comments of Naomichi Uramoto, the rider
Actually, we weren't in a good condition during the race week, and things weren't getting that well. I couldn't tell how other competitors would race at the beginning, so I decided to see how it goes. It was the hottest day of the week, and the road surface temperature was high. It seemed to me that others weren't racing so fast, so I rode with full force after I came at the top.
I feel grateful for Yukio Kagayama, Yuichi Takeda, members of the team, and all of the fans who have supported us. I would like to try to keep up this condition and go for the next race.
* Comments of Masahiko Saito, supervisor of JSB1000
We couldn't perform our preliminary checkup because it rained on Friday, and that obstructed the mood till the qualifying race. We've tried to change the atmosphere and switched over to a new machine set at the warm-up ride of the morning of the final race day. But we've encountered some troubles before raising the speed.
The next SUGO is our favorite track, so we would like to make necessary corrections and face the race.
* Comments of Yuichi Takeda, supervisor of J-GP2
We've been keeping the condition of the Tsukuba round at the practice session, and have been making some minor adjustments after then. But actually we didn't need to make change that much. Our condition changed during the race week, and we weren't in a great mood when the race started.
Our competitors at this race were all fast. We wanted to maintain the machine to keep up till the end, but actually, I think we ultimately owe much to the rider. We would like to do our best to win the next race too.
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* Team KAGAYAMA Official Goods
