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40-436: Taniguchi is a three-time Super GT GT300 class champion, eight-time Super Taikyu class champion, and D1 Grand Prix champion. Taniguchi began his motorsport career when he was racing minibikes and won a Honda sponsored All Japan Mini Bike race, which took place at its Suzuka Circuit . Taniguchi would progress into four wheels and became interested in drifting when he acquired a Toyota AE86 . He moved to Tokyo in 1998 with

80-593: A "Racing Concept" version of their new Fairlady Z (RZ34) sports car, which served as the prototype for the Nissan Z GT4. Mazda introduced a new biodiesel concept, the Mazda3 Bio Concept, at the end of 2022. The hydrogen GR Corolla will adopt the use of liquid hydrogen in 2023 - the first race car in the world to do so. Honda introduced a carbon-neutral fuel compatible version of the Civic Type R in 2023. Yokohama

120-768: A Nissan 180SX as a drift practice car with suspension and arm parts produced and being set up by fellow D1GP champion Masato Kawabata. The car is also equipped with Kick Blue body kit which also produces by Kawabata. HKS and Formula Drift made an exclusive partnership in 2007 that brought NOB to the United States to perform drifting exhibitions at Formula Drift events. Taniguchi made his first appearance at Formula Drift's second event Road Atlanta, May 11 and 12, 2007. He regularly appeared in Formula Drift Japan event as Japanese commentator alongside announcer Tom Saeba and sometimes as judge. Taniguchi has been heavily involved in

160-409: A car review, his project cars and many motorsport related videos. As of August 2022 he has over 200,000 subscribers. ( key ) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap) Half points awarded as less than 75% of race distance was completed. Season still in progress. Super Taikyu Series Super Taikyu (スーパー耐久, Super Endurance ), formerly known as

200-407: A driver that entered scored every possible point for their respective teams. Drivers listed in italics competed in a select number of rounds for their respective team. [REDACTED] Akira Tuchida (Rd. 3) During a 2012 race at Suzuka Circuit (a support event for the 2012 FIA WTCC Race of Japan ), Osamu Nakajima , driving a Nissan Fairlady Z (Z33) , died after crashing into a barrier at

240-563: A good percentage of his body which may have been prevented if JGTC, at the time, had sufficient emergency response. Ota filed a lawsuit against the racing club plus organizers for negligence and won the sum of ¥90 million ( US$ 800,000 ). Although there are presently no fatalities during a JGTC or Super GT race meeting, Shingo Tachi , the 1998 GT300 champion, was killed during a testing accident in TI Circuit Aida on March 11, 1999. Tachi's GT500 Toyota Supra, belonging to Team LeMans, suffered

280-412: A new three-year contract to take over as the tyre supplier of Super Taikyu beginning in 2024. On 24 April, it was announced that Bridgestone would take over as the series' tyre supplier with immediate effect on 24 April, prior to the second round of the 2023 season. Bold drivers indicate a driver that entered scored every possible point for their respective teams. Drivers listed in italics competed in

320-546: A private drifter could copy the car, HKS also built second Altezza nicknamed IS220Z which originally his car but he lend it to be built by HKS for event. He had the most wins in D1 Grand Prix until his tally was overtaken by Youichi Imamura in 2005. Taniguchi retired from professional drifting competition after a D1GP exhibition event in 2016. He also drifts a Toyota Aristo (Lexus GS300 in US) for non-D1 events. In 2016 he purchased

360-671: A record six back-to-back class championship titles racing for the Petronas Syntium team from 2008 to 2013, driving the BMW Z4 M Coupé and Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 . He return for one off appearance with D'Station Racing for final round of 2023 season driving Aston Martin Vantage GT8R in ST-1 class. He is reunited with Manabu Orido whom he partnered when the two win the championship in 2005. The duo win their class after starting from pole position,

400-461: A select number of rounds for their respective team. Bold drivers indicate a driver that was entered in every race for their respective team. Drivers listed in italics competed in a select number of rounds for their respective team. Bold drivers indicate a driver that entered scored every possible point for their respective teams. Drivers listed in italics competed in a select number of rounds for their respective team. Bold drivers indicate

440-475: A technical failure and was unable to slow down for the first corner; Tachi crashed into the tyre wall at unabated speed, suffering massive chest injuries from the steering wheel and was pronounced dead an hour later. Masahiko Kageyama and Morio Nitta are tied for the record of most drivers championship won in GT1/GT300 class with three. Masahiko Kageyama was the first driver to win multiple championship as well as

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480-457: A test driver and as a sponsor, as well as sponsoring his S15 Silvia for drift events. Taniguchi started out in street racing with his AE86 when he was with his team 'After-Fire' and competed in the various drift competitions like Video Option's Ikaten, Battle Magazine's BM-Cup, and CarBoy's DoriCon GP. In the inaugural season of D1 Grand Prix in 2001 , Taniguchi won the championship with his team After-Fire sponsored by HKS, after winning two of

520-500: Is notable for surviving a fiery multi-car pileup he was involved in during a JGTC race at Fuji Speedway on May 3, 1998. The accident was initially caused by an oversaturated track. Ota then aquaplaned and left the track which put him directly into an already crashed Porsche. At the time of the accident, the Ferrari Ota was driving had a full cell of fuel which was ignited by the impact. Ota was severely injured due to third-degree burns on

560-491: The 2004 season of D1, Taniguchi switched to an Altezza which had not been properly set up and had shown some technical issues that many believe cost him the championship that year, as he finished in 2nd place as the runner-up with one win and three podium finishes. Taniguchi did admit that he wanted to finish the 2004 season with the S15 RS-2 instead, as well as wanting to retire the car with the champion title under its name. During

600-528: The 2005 season , the switch to Altezza was proving to be a mistake for HKS and NOB which led them to quit the series at the end of the season, with only one podium finish. Both of them did not return to the D1 series until 2008 as a spot participant. Taniguchi and HKS fully returned to the series again in 2012 with a Toyota 86 and scored two podium finishes, and continued competing until 2014 . Taniguchi has gone through four cars with HKS for D1, between 2001 and 2005,

640-1036: The 2009 FIA WTCC Race of Japan , at the Okayama International Circuit . One Make Series Taniguchi had competed in several One Make Racing series including Netz Cup Altezza and winning championship in both Civic Race and Gazoo Racing 86/BRZ Race. Taniguchi appears in many DVD series, such as Video Option , Drift Tengoku, Best Motoring , Rev Speed Video and Hot Version. He often presents alongside fellow racing drivers Manabu Orido and Keiichi Tsuchiya . He now lives in an apartment in Yokohama opposite his friend and former employer Takahiro Ueno. He had hobby of golfing in his day off. He regularly wrote blog on his activities in Ameba . On 24 March 2020 he created his own Youtube channel called NOBチャンネル (NOB Channel) and uploaded his first video on 3 April and has since regularly uploading every Friday, his content including

680-594: The 2017 season , driving the Mercedes-AMG GT3, he won his third GT300 Championship title again alongside Kataoka and both became the drivers with the most titles in the GT300 class of Super GT. Taniguchi began competing in the Super Taikyu series in 2001, winning a total of eight class championship titles since then. Early on in his Super Taikyu career, he won a class championship in 2002 and 2005. He later went on to win

720-548: The JGTC / Super GT racing series since 2002, winning the championship 3 times in the GT300 class. In 2002 he began competing in JGTC with RE Amemiya in a Mazda RX-7 . He has continued to compete in the series as it was renamed Super GT in 2005. Having previously raced for Racing Project Bandoh in 2004-2005, Direxiv / R&D Sports in 2006 and Team Taisan in 2007-2008, he returned to Amemiya in 2009. After RE Amemiya's withdrawal at

760-627: The Japanese domestic market . Super Taikyu races are held across all of Japan's major motor racing circuits, with formats including a single five-hour race, and a double-header format of two three-hour races. The series' largest event is the Fuji Super TEC 24 Hours , which is held annually at Fuji Speedway since its revival in 2018. Prior to that, the Tokachi 24 Hours was the series' largest event, held annually from 1994 until 2008. In 2022, Eneos became

800-727: The ST-Q class was introduced for manufacturer-developed, non-homologated special racing vehicles, similar to Nürburgring Langstrecken Serie 's SPX class. Toyota and ROOKIE Racing entered a modified Corolla Sport ( GR Corolla ) hatchback, equipped with a hydrogen-powered internal combustion engine , in ST-Q beginning in 2021. In the 2021 season finale, Mazda entered a modified version of their Demio (Mazda2) subcompact, powered by biofuel. In 2022, Toyota and Subaru entered special versions of their GR86 and BRZ sports cars, adapted to run on carbon-neutral synthetic fuel. That same year, Nissan entered

840-457: The ST-TCR class for TCR touring cars (initially named ST-R for the first round of the 2017 season). The ST-1, ST-2, ST-3, and ST-4 classes have all existed since the first year of the series in 1991, based on the original Group N regulations and with various displacement and drivetrain layout limits in place. A fifth production class was introduced with the addition of ST-5 in 2010. In 2021,

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880-652: The Super N1 Taikyu Series prior to 2005 and N1 Endurance Series prior to 1995, and currently named the Eneos Super Taikyu Series Empowered by Bridgestone for sponsorship reasons, is a Japanese endurance racing series that began in 1991. In contrast to the Super GT series, Super Taikyu is a pro-am racing series for commercially available racing vehicles such as GT3 , GT4 , and TCR cars, and minimally-modified production vehicles mainly from

920-857: The Tokachi 24 Hours in 2005 driving the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup . He also won the Sepang 12 Hours twice in 2011 and 2012 driving the BMW Z4 M Coupé, and the Fuji 500 km in 2012 and 2014 driving the BMW Z4 GT3. He won the A5 petrol class and second overall in 2010 Dubai 24 Hour with his teammates Fariqe Hairuman , Masataka Yanagida , and Johannes Stuck in the Petronas Syntium Team BMW Z4 M Coupé. He made his World Touring Car Championship debut with Proteam Motorsport at

960-414: The supertouring formula. Seeking to prevent the spiraling budgets and one-team/make domination of both series, JGTC imposed strict limits on horsepower, and heavy weight penalties on race winners in an openly stated objective to keep on-track action close with an emphasis on keeping fans happy. In its first season, the JGTC grid mostly consisted of Japan Super Sport Sedan  [ ja ] cars, with

1000-694: The GT Association (GTA). Autobacs has served as the title sponsor of the series since 1998. The JGTC (Japanese Grand Touring Championship) was established in 1993 by the Japan Automobile Federation (JAF) via its subsidiary company the GTA (GT Association), replacing the defunct All Japan Sports Prototype Championship for Group C cars and the Japanese Touring Car Championship for Group A touring cars, which instead would adopt

1040-740: The HKS USA Mitsubishi Evolution in the Car and Driver Super Tuner Challenge against top US manufacturers and drivers. Taniguchi beat the nearest competitor by three seconds, and set the day's fastest ¼ mile, 0-60, and road course times. In 2006, Taniguchi drove the HKS Speed Source RX-8 in the Grand Am Cup race at Arizona's Phoenix International Raceway and set the fasted qualifying time for any Mazda RX-8. Taniguchi has regularly been involved in different endurance racing competitions. He won

1080-644: The RS1 Hyper Silvia S15 (Crashed by Keiichi Tsuchiya, eventually rebuilt for 2002 and later revised as a backup car with a similar build to the RS2 in 2003, initially brought to HKS Europe but it was later bought by Rockstar Energy to be used in Formula D), and RS2 Hyper Silvia S15 (brought to HKS Europe), the Genki Racing Project Altezza, which was designed with off-the-shelf HKS parts, for the purpose that

1120-465: The aim of becoming a motor journalist. He also worked at Takahiro Ueno 's car bodykit company, Car Make T&E to supplement his racing career whilst competing in various one make series racing with the Toyota Celica and Vitz and participating in drift events. In 1999, he came into the attention of HKS when he won a Suzuka Clubman Race in a Honda Civic sponsored by Bride . HKS signed him up as

1160-481: The categories derive from their traditional maximum horsepower limit - in the early years of the series, GT500 cars would have no more than 500 horsepower while GT300 cars would max out at around 300 hp and have far less downforce than their GT500 counterparts. While the current generation of engines in GT500 and GT300 cars produced a horsepower output in excess of the traditional limit, the limit stayed in place throughout

1200-580: The end of 2010 season, he moved to Goodsmile Racing using a BMW Z4 GT3, and won the GT300 Championship title in the 2011 season alongside Taku Bamba. Again with the BMW Z4 GT3 this time alongside 2009 champion Tatsuya Kataoka , Taniguchi captured 3rd place in the 2014 season finale at Twin Ring Motegi, secured 78 points in total for his season, narrowly winning the GT300 Championship title again with no points difference but only 1 more race victory. In

1240-660: The entirety of the JGTC era. In both groups, the car number is assigned to the team, in which each team is allowed to choose whichever number they want as long as the number isn't already used by any other team. The number assigned to each team is permanent, and may only change hands when the team exits the series. In addition, only defending team champions in GT500 are allowed to use number 1, although it isn't mandatory for defending champions to use that number. For easy identification, GT500 cars run white headlight covers, windshield decals, and number panels, while GT300 cars run yellow versions of those items. Japanese driver Tetsuya Ota

Nobuteru Taniguchi - Misplaced Pages Continue

1280-456: The fate of the JSPC series it had replaced. The newly formed GT500 and GT300 regulations were adopted, which capped cars with air restrictors depending on their amount of weight and horsepower. While the regulations would continuously evolve, the GT500 and GT300 classes continue to form the top level of Japanese sports car racing today. The cars are divided into two groups: GT300 and GT500. The names of

1320-493: The field. For the following season, the series would undergo a rules overhaul, creating a class for the FIA 's GT1 category, and another for the GT2 category. The JSS series would altogether dissolve into the latter category. What made the series more significant was that compared to other racing series, JGTC teams at the time had the freedom to enter whichever cars they preferred, even if it

1360-622: The first corner of the circuit. All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship ( JGTC ) is a grand touring car racing series that began in 1993. Originally titled as the Zen Nihon GT Senshuken ( 全日本GT選手権 ) , the series was renamed to Super GT in 2005. It was the top level of sports car racing in Japan. The series was sanctioned by the Japan Automobile Federation (JAF) and ran by

1400-447: The five rounds. However starting in 2002 , he didn't have much chances with the series champion title as he did in 2001 as the series had banned the use of S-tires/Semi-slicks that was occurring the year before but he was doing very well, staying as a seeded driver. He finished the 2002 season in 2nd place as the runner-up with one round win and two podiums, and the 2003 season in 4th place with one win and two podiums. Mid way through

1440-501: The new title sponsor of the series. The series has nine classes of vehicles, ranging from international GT3, GT4, and TCR categories to domestic categories of commercially available cars with effective displacements of under 1,500 cc. GT3 cars were introduced with the debut of the ST-X class in 2011 (named ST-GT3 from 2012 to 2013). In 2017, the series introduced the ST-Z class for GT4 cars, and

1480-669: The only genuine JGTC cars being a Nismo -entered Nissan Skyline GT-R and Nissan Silvia S13 , of which the GT-R was a modified AWD Group A car. An exception was the first race of the season, which was also an exhibition race of the IMSA GT Championship , and therefore saw a contingent of GTS and GTU cars from the American series join the field. The 1000 km Suzuka also saw a greater variety of competitors, with Group C prototypes, Group N touring cars, and GT cars from Europe and IMSA all joining

1520-677: The two first win together in 18 years. He was also a test driver for HKS in 2004 and 2007 where he drove the HKS Time Attack Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution 7 and set a 54.37 second lap time at Tsukuba Circuit (famous for its complexity and focus on cornering skills), and again in 2007, where he drove the all carbon fiber body HKS CT230R Mitsubishi Evolution and set the Tsukuba Time Attack record of 53.589 seconds ( video ). Taniguchi and HKS have not limited their racing campaign to Japan. In 2005, Taniguchi drove

1560-554: Was the JSS cars from the inaugural season or spaceframe racers from the IMSA GTS class. However, the Group C prototypes, whilst easily showing dominant form, were banned from the series from the 1995 season onwards. By the end of the 1995 season, as the cost of obtaining and running a GT1 car had dramatically increased, the JGTC would go through another rules overhaul in order to lower costs and avoid

1600-496: Was the series' official tyre supplier until the end of 2017. In 2018, Pirelli became the series' new tyre supplier as part of a three-year contract. In 2021, Hankook became the series' new tyre supplier. Their contract was to last for three years, ending in 2023, with the option to extend the contract through the end of the 2025 season. Due to the fire at Hankook's manufacturing plant in Daejeon on 12 March 2023, Bridgestone signed

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