Suzuka 8 Hour Preview

[Ghost Lemur]

Once upon a time, I used to work for the Official World Endurance Championship website... sadly, I wasn't the one that got to go overseas!

It is still run by a mate of mine though.... so as it is a mate and you guys are interested in Suzuka, This is the Official World Endurance Championship website URL

One of these days I'll have to look through and see what work of mine is still on there.

Thanks for the link Bob.

Looks like the r1's are kicking ass in the championship. 3 or the top 4 spots. The top three teams are also all French.

[Bob]

Something interests me about the Suzuka 8 Hours - Gav touched on it when he said " And what ever happened to the days when the 8 hour was THE race to win, seems like a big Japanese club day these days....."

Suzuka, in terms of the Japanese - was THE most important race in the calendar, and I am talking worldwide here. Massive amount of honour involved in winning the race (the sort of money thrown into that one race could finance some teams for a season in some series!)

Other series were not allowed to clash with it, all riders were made available to race - hence Honda being able to put out Rossi and Edwards in a team for example.

Not sure about Doohan, but I know Rossi - after a season when his form was badly affected by Suzuka - had a clause entered into his contract that he would not be called on to ride in the 8 hours.

And now, MotoGP races on the same weekend? So no GP stars. So the 8 Hours is well and truly relegated in terms of importance.

Wonder when and what was the start of the 8 Hours being shunted down in importance? Was it Rossi not having to ride? Or Dorna flexing their muscles and telling the Big 4/IRTA etc that MotoGP is the top championship and everything else takes 2nd place?

I'd be interested to know just when such a huge change in importance happened - it was still top dog race when I was involved in WEC - and thats only 3 years ago.