- Yesterday, we noted the Super GT 450-kilometer race run on Greenery Day. What we didn't show you was that the race was red-flagged twice due to crashes. The first came on lap 48 after a big crash for the GT300 Mercedes of R'Qs Motor Sports.
The second was after 59 laps due to a horrible crash on the frontstretch. NDDP Racing's Mitsunori Takaboshi was racing Team SARD's Yuhi Sekiguchi for the lead. They ran up on a very slow Arnage Toyota 86 MC. Sekiguchi was trying to break the draft before noticing the slower car. He then made a move to the left a little too late for
Takaboshi to react.
The result was that Takaboshi spun and hit the wall head-on and littered the track with debris. Retired driver and current Team SARD boss Juichi Wakisaka told Motorsport.com that Sekiguchi had some responsibility for the crash. The race was red-flagged for 90 minutes after the crash, then never went back green due to darkness encroaching.
As for Takaboshi, he was extricated from his destroyed Nissan Z GT500 and transported to a local hospital. He suffered no broken bones in the crash. Teammate Katsumasa Chiyo visited
Takaboshi in the hospital after the race.
Tomoki Nojiri and Nirei Fukuzumi ended up winning the race due to Sekiguchi getting penalized for touching the car during the 90-minute red flag. A mini-Sterling Marlin incident, if you will. Since the race never went back green after the crash, the No. 39 Supra was assessed a 40-second penalty that dropped Sekiguchi to 13th.
- Earlier today, the W Series announced a new TV deal that will see all 10 races and qualifying sessions aired live on ESPN's family of networks starting with the first two races this weekend
in Florida. The deal replaces a deal that saw the races air live on beIN Sports Xtra, then via tape delay on beIN Sport, one of the United States' lowest-rated cable networks.
