The ran from 1971 to 1989. It was a drivers' championship in Japan and was originally for 2 litre
Group B6 cars. The series was started in 1971, and all races were held at the
Fuji Speedway
is a motorsport race track standing in the foothills of Mount Fuji, in Oyama, Suntō District, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. It was built in the early 1960s. In the 1980s, Fuji Speedway was used for the FIA World Sportscar Championship and nati ...
circuit.
History
In its formative years, cars eligible to start included the
March 74S,
Alpine A441
The Alpine A441 is a 2-liter ( Sports 2000) Group 5 sports prototype racing car built by French company Alpine and co-developed by Renault to compete in the 1974 European 2 Liter Sports Car Championship. It was designed by French engineer and r ...
,
Chevron
Chevron (often relating to V-shaped patterns) may refer to:
Science and technology
* Chevron (aerospace), sawtooth patterns on some jet engines
* Chevron (anatomy), a bone
* '' Eulithis testata'', a moth
* Chevron (geology), a fold in rock ...
,
Lola
Lola may refer to:
Places
* Lolá, a or subdistrict of Panama
* Lola Township, Cherokee County, Kansas, United States
* Lola Prefecture, Guinea
* Lola, Guinea, a town in Lola Prefecture
* Lola Island, in the Solomon Islands
People
* Lola (fo ...
and
GRD.
In its fourth year of running, it had its first fatalities. At the start of the second race of the second round of the 1974 series, two cars were racing for the lead. They collided and
Hiroshi Kazato and
Seiichi Suzuki crashed into them, causing a fire.
Both Kazato, 25, and Suzuki, 37, were killed. The race was immediately abandoned, and the circuit was reconstructed with the hairpin first corner that exists to this day, bypassing the banking.
A change in the rules in 1979 made it possible for single seat sports cars, similar to the revived Can-Am series, to race in the series.
In the second race of 1983
Famiyasu Sato was killed in practice. Later in the series,
Toru Takahashi was killed when his car spun, and the aerodynamics of the car caused it to fly through the air, driver's head-first into the catch fencing, also killing a spectator. This led to a further change in the circuit where a chicane was added in 300R (the final corner) to slow the cars.
The maximum engine size limit was increased to 3 litres in 1987. In 1988, the series changed its name from Fuji Grand Champion series to Grand Champion series because some races added into the championship were not held at Fuji.
The late 1980s saw attendance dropping, and after 1989 the series folded.
Revival
The series was revived again in 2002 as GC-21, like its predecessor;
[ ] the series used
Dallara GC21 cars, which were rebodied
F3 cars powered by
3S-GTE engines. Like its predecessor, it raced exclusively at
Fuji Speedway
is a motorsport race track standing in the foothills of Mount Fuji, in Oyama, Suntō District, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. It was built in the early 1960s. In the 1980s, Fuji Speedway was used for the FIA World Sportscar Championship and nati ...
with the exception of 2004, when the circuit was undergoing a major renovation work.
Despite running on a small field (usually five and six cars at a time), it ran on into 2006 when the series again folded. Between
2006
File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...
and
2007
File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...
, it formed part of the
LMP2 class in the
Japan Le Mans Challenge.
Champions
See also
*
Fuji Long Distance Series
The was a Japanese endurance championship which took place mainly at Fuji International Speedway.
The series began in 1977 and until 1984 was an independent championship with three rounds, all held at Fuji. In the first two seasons the series wa ...
*
1999 Le Mans Fuji 1000 km
The 1999 Le Mans Fuji 1000 km was an endurance race backed by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO), who ran the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and the Japan Automobile Federation (JAF), who ran the JGTC race series. It was run on November 7, 1999.
Pre ...
*
Japan Le Mans Challenge
References
Resources
Fuji Grand Champion Series results
Sports car racing series
Auto racing series in Japan
{{Japan-sport-stub