FEATURE – COMING TO 7TUNE IN JANUARY

It was an absolutely MEGA end to 2012 for 7Tune – with almost a dozen events to attend, countless people to meet and a couple of international events to fly to. Here is a rundown on what you can expect on 7Tune in the coming weeks during the first month of 2013… Read more

FEATURE – MAX TV THAILAND

It was back to Thailand for me at the end of December to enjoy another crazy week at one of the absolute best racing festivals on the planet; the 2012 Bangsaen Festival of Speed. My hosts for the week, MAX TV Thailand, graciously arranged for the entire trip, and in very short notice mind you, so all that was left for me to do was pack the Nikon D3, a couple of lenses and document as much of their weekend ( and everyone else’s ) as possible. Here’s how it all unfolded… Read more

FEATURE – A FINE AND SUNNY SUNDAY AT FUJI 2012 SUPER GT FINAL ROUND

Up an at it early the next day for round two at Fuji Speedway and what a glorious day it was! A complete contrast to yesterday – the only disappointment being that Mt Fuji was surrounded by clouds.

A honk of the horn outside the hotel and I see the familiar shape of Richard and another guy I haven’t seen for a couple of years who happens to be great friend Dominik Schwager; a German driver who raced in Japan for many years. Delighted to see him, I jump in car and off we go.

At the circuit and with Richard tied up with Team business and commitments, I was left free to wander around with Domonik in the glorious sunshine and to really get a hold of the atmosphere here at Fuji on race-day without the torrential rain. Before Richard left us, I had time to pull off a quick picture with himself, Dom and GT Japanese legend Motoyama san; Richard’s 2004 championship winning teammate.

It was also amazing to see just how crazy the Japanese are about their racing and motor-sports. Dominik hasn’t raced in japan for 4 years, yet he was recognised and flagged down by fans all day everywhere we went!

Hanging around in the pit lane before the start of the Formula Nippon Race, I managed to catch a few shots of the cars themselves, which are loud and lightning fast V-8 550bhp rockets.

Here in Japan, everything is totally family orientated at big events like this and it’s always great to see the kids involved!

I went back to the Garage and found the boys watching the start of the Formula Nippon race, so I settled down to watch it with them and see how drivers and teams watch races as opposed to us normal folk haha. The amount of banter between the teams about what the other teams might be doing is actually quite intense. In-between watching the monitors and timing splits, I was just seeing blurs out of the corner of my eye out of the garage entrance of the cars screaming by, by God, they are quick.

An interesting race with an eventful end in which the initial winner, Andre Lotterer, was disqualified after it was found the skid block underneath his car was thicker than regulations allowed which handed Takuya Izawa the win.

In the jam packed schedule the GT300 class was up next with Richards Team mate Akihiro Tsuzuki and Igor’s team mate Kenji Kobayashi up in the Audi R8 cars of Hitotsuyama Racing.

Tsuzuki made a great start but dropped back a bit and finished 12th from 15th on the grid. Unfortunately, Kobayashi didn’t fair so well and lost the Bonnet of the car after a touch on the 2nd lap and couldn’t continue…..seems like team Hitotsuyama Racing had a tough weekend but im sure they walked away with a lot of experience to put in that knowledge bank for next season.

I decided to walk up and down the paddock and the team trailers and see if there were any interesting cars after all this is the glitz and glamour of motorsport here and im sure I might spot some kick assery in the car park and sure enough I did.

Before the GT500 got underway it was time for a bit of a photoshoot with the race queens and the drivers.

Time for GT 500 and unfortunately we couldn’t watch for long and only stayed for a few laps….the chariot waiting to carry me back to the bright lights of Tokyo was awaiting me. Coming back in the car with Richard and Domonik was fun to say the least – if you consider a 6 hour traffic Jam all the way from Gotemba to the Tokyo turngate fun.

Till next year Fuji Speedway…

With many thanks to Richard Lyons and Hitotsuyama Racing

7Tune – The Ultimate Motor Racing Experience Since 2005

Words and Photos – Adrian Venner

FEATURE – WET AND WILD SATURDAY AT SUPER GT FINAL ROUND

Waking up at stupid O clock on a Saturday on a November morning in Tokyo is never a warm occasion but today wasn’t so bad, a little gloomy but I didn’t care as I would soon be on a train heading down to Gotemba and Fuji Speedway for the last races of the Formula Nippon, GT 500 and GT300 series for 2012. Read more

FEATURE – 2012 OKAYAMA HACHI ROKU FESTIVAL PART 2

Having left the paddock, it was time to get serious and train the Nikon D3 and 70-200mm on the cars and drivers as they battled it out on the track. There was an absolutely packed schedule of action going on throughout the day, right from the opening sessions at 8am and culminating in easily the biggest parade of 86′s that I’ve ever seen at 5pm. Which left me with a lot of work to do… and a lot of shots to post… Read more

FEATURE – 2012 OKAYAMA HACHI ROKU FESTIVAL PART 1

Easily one of the best and biggest 86 festivals in the world, the Okayama 86 fest provided an absolute overdose of Hachi goodness in all shapes, colors and configurations. It was quite a hike East to get to the circuit but it was damn well worth it and there’s a lot to cover, so let’s get started… Read more

FEATURE – OKAYAMA 86 FESTIVAL PREVIEW

There’s just way too much content to go through for one or two overviews of this absolutely EPIC day down south at Okayama international circuit. Up to 400 of the countries best Hachi Roku’s converged on the place and I made the 700km south along with Keiichi Tsuchiya and the team from Hot Version to make sure every angle was covered. Go and check out the preview… Read more

FEATURE – 2012 R’S DAY AT FUJI SPEEDWAY PART 1

I returned to Japan from an epic trip to Europe on the 15th of September knowing full well that Sunday the 16th was going to bring with it the mother of all Skyline GT-R days. The weather turned out to be excellent too and Fuji Speedway was packed to the brim with hundreds upon hundreds of Skyline GT-R’s, in all shapes and sizes. Not only that but on the same day, the Drift Muscle championship was being held down at the Short Course and the super popular 1JZ day was on at the Drift track! Let’s take a look around at an epic day out… Read more

FEATURE – 2012 WTAC PRO CLASS WRAPUP

Having settled back in Tokyo this week, I’ve been able to reflect on what was a magic weekend for all involved. The WTAC really came of age this year with a huge crowd turnout, tons of unpredictable on track action and an equal amount of fizz taking place in the support paddock and support events. 7Tune was at the event this year with a team of 7 people, covering both videography and photography plus we hosted the pre-party for the event at Zen Garage on the Thursday night. To say that it was a weekend of epic proportions would be a big understatement… Read more

EVENT – LE MANS 24 HOURS 2012 – AN IMPRESSION

“The 24 hours of Le Mans… the most famous race in the world!”
Familiar words for visitors to what is… the most famous race in the world!
If you ever visit this race make sure to tune in to radio Le Mans and you will understand what i’m talking about! But what makes this race so famous? Read more

EVENTS – 24 Hours of Racing, 36 Hours of Fun! – PT3.

Let me take you back to the Nurburgring 24 hour race once more. Due to the trip both Allard van Grafhorst and myself made to the Le Mans 24 hours these photo’s have been laying around catching dust. Here is more on the Sunday of the race. Read more

EVENTS – FAST CAR FESTIVAL – AN OVERALL LOOK

For the second time Fast Car Festival was held at the circuit park of Zandvoort. It was the first time for me to attend the event and I really looked forward to this Sunday. From what I’ve heard, the first edition of FCF was a succes and the high quality level was undeniable. But to be fair I didn’t have a clue what to expect. Allard asked me to cover this event for 7Tune since he had something important to do in France (Editors note – LeMans 24H). So I will try to show you readers an overall look of the event in this coverage. Read more

EVENT-SUPER GT ROUND 3 MALAYSIA

 

After much anticipation and hearing the commercials on radio for the past 3 months, the day of Super GT finally came and boy were we an excited bunch. For me it was my first time and i seriously did not know what to expect but for Kevin he has been to Super GT in the past few years. All of us had problems sleeping the night before because of the excitement creeping on us; like a feverish disease and the blistering heat that is notorious here certainly did not do us any justice. Read more

EVENTS – 24 Hours of Racing, 36 Hours of Fun! – PT2.

It’s early Saturday morning. My body feels like a wreck and I get out of the Renault Clio, my hotel for this weekend. Next to the Renault a door opens and an evenly blurry sight crosses my view. This is your 7TUNE N24 team reporting for duty Read more

NEWS – PANSPEED RUMORED TO BE GOING TO WTAC WITH NEW CAR AND DRIVER

While it cannot be confirmed at this stage in the developments leading up the the 2012 WTAC Time Attack Challenge at Eastern Creek, sources close to Panspeed have hinted to 7Tune that the world renowned Panspeed RX-7 will not make the trip “Down Under” and neither will its driver in 2011, Sasaki san… Read more

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