was a
Japanese race car driver. He formerly raced in the Japanese Grand Touring Championship, currently known as
Super GT
Super GT (stylized as SUPER GT) is a grand touring car racing series that began in 1993. Launched as the , generally referred to as either the JGTC or the All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship, the series was renamed to Super GT in 2005. It is ...
.
Yamaji's race debut was in 1986. He competed for YOURS Sports in the RX-7 at the JSS race at Fuji. He went on to take the championship in the RX-7 class of the Fuji Freshman Race series and from 1994 moved up to the All Japan GT Championship. He is widely remembered for an incident that occurred at the start of the 1998 race at Fuji in which, following a serious accident that resulted in an outbreak of fire, he rushed over to the stricken car and frantically worked to extinguish the engulfing flames. Thanks to his heroic efforts the driver,
Tetsuya Ota, was able to escape with his life. In recent years he served as the Clerk of the Course at various events such as Fuji Speedway races and the D1 Grand Prix. In 2011, he retired from Super GT300. On May 25, 2014 he checked into the hospital due to worsening conditions and he died the following day.
Complete JGTC/Super GT Results
(
key
Key or The Key may refer to:
Common meanings
* Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm
* Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock
* Key (map ...
) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)
References
1964 births
2014 deaths
Super GT drivers
Japanese racing drivers
24 Hours of Le Mans drivers
{{Japan-autoracing-bio-stub
TOM'S drivers