TEAM WORLD CAR AWARDS TEAM WORLD CAR AWARDS WINS CLASS IN FIRST CHALLENGE AT RING In a dream start to its entry into motor racing, Team World Car Awards won its class at the Nurburgring on August 29. Starting from 30th on the grid in a Nurburgring 4-hour endurance race, we finished 125th out of 190 entries and won the SP8 class. After our windscreen was smashed by flying aeroparts from another car during practice on Friday, causing a premature (and unpopular) exit from the session, the team regrouped, fixed its windscreen and focused on arguably the most gruelling 4-hour race on the planet. All drivers are World Car Awards' jurors and consist of Hideshi Matsuda, ex-Indycar racer and current Japan GT series driver, Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi, and Japan-based motor journalist and Mazda MX-5 one-make series driver Peter Lyon. GT guru credits his game for fast lap time in real world!! After the race, an ecstatic Yamauchi said that, "It's my first race here, on the real world Ring, of course. But it just goes to show what over 2000 laps of the Ring in dozens of different cars on my game can achieve." The game guru posted the team's fastest lap time of 10 minutes 9 seconds, a time that tied with Matsuda. "Lyon's best time of 10 minutes 13 seconds (I think) is also a product of hundreds of laps on Gran Turismo," laughed Yamauchi. In response, all Lyon could do was raise his eyebrows and gently nod. Confident that the car was capable of a sub-10 minute lap, Matsuda jumped in the driver's seat for his second stint in the last half hour of the race. But on his out lap, transmission trouble meant he had to finish the race in automatic mode. The sub-10 min lap will have to wait till October. In an IS-F boasting modifications that included welding the rear suspension to the body and revised front wishbones, and tweaked camber and toe angles, all drivers were able to slice over one minute off the car's previous fastest time of 11 minutes 15 seconds, posted at the Nurburgring 24-hour race in May. And with further revisions in the works, including Toyota Europe's challenge to reduce the car's rather heavy 1750kg curb weight (with 120 litres of fuel), an even quicker race car is expected for the team's next visit to the Ring, a 250-mile race on October 17. Lyon, who races a Mazda MX-5 in a one-make series in Japan, has also completed over 30 laps of the real track, and tells us that he has been practicing in an IS-F on Yamauchi's latest version, Gran Turismo 5, due out in 2010. Drivers for the October 17 4-hour event at the Ring will be announced soon. Best regards, Peter Peter Lyon Co-chair, World Car Awards
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2010 Awards: Milestones Juror List Juror Details Design Experts Green Experts Fact Sheet Team World Car Awards: Wins First Challenge Nurburgring Update Eligible Vehicles: World Car of the Year World Car Design of the Year World Performance Car World Green Car Award Photos Voting Results Media Releases: 02-MAR-2010 Top Three Finalists Announced in All World Car Award Categories 01-FEB-2010 Top Ten Finalists - World Car and World Performance Car 01-FEB-2010 World Green Car - Five Potential Winners 01-FEB-2010 World Car Design - Four Potential Winners Juror Login  Press Days: Mar 30 - Apr 1, 2010      |
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