World Time Attack is one of the highlights of the motorsport calendar down here, with the previous two years' events being awesome days where we had plenty of overseas teams coming downunder to compete. This year there were fewer foreign entries, but nonetheless the event manages to go from strength to strength. But I'm jumping ahead a bit here...where the Hako comes in, is in the car show that took place in the infield.


This year the car show was huge, with plenty of J-tin car clubs being invited. Starions were sold here back in the day, but not the widebodies, and even so, they are a very rare sight today.


The local Toyota forums and clubs also were well represented, with quite a number of nice Corollas in attendance.


This thing was super-clean!




As was this...




This grandpa-spec example was real time warp stuff...




No Toyota presence is complete without at least a few nice AE86s of course


...running 4AGE 20V power


This Takumi replica was also 20V powered.


The drag scene was also represented by a few entries, like this oldschool Bug racer


And a couple of RX-3s.


Rotaries are still a strong presence in local drag racing here.


Not to forget this nice FB too


The Hako had some illustrious neighbours though...


FD RX-7 with a genuine RE-Amemiya D1 bodykit

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One cool part of the event was an exhibition class they called Legends of the Turbo Era, which was for historic racecars from the late 70s and 80s. The Celica is an Group A rallycar from the Neal Bates collection


This one, a real WRC car, never competed in WRC in-period but was a fully-built up roller used for promotional purposes by Toyota Japan. Many years later, it was unearthed in the USA, and converted to a real historic rallycar with period-correct parts.


Also from the Bates collection was their RA40 recreation.


Recently built as a rally car to historic specs.


The two RA-series Celicas you see here are late-70s aussie racers built to Group C specs.


And in the background are two Group A R342 GT-Rs, which are still very active in historic racing today. These old racers were given a session where they did some non-competive laps, which were great to see (and hear!)


This one's for Ben A TRD-built Group A AE86, as raced by John Smith (who won the 1600 class in Group A several years in a row during the 80s)


And on the inside, it's all business


The R31 Skyline GTS-R was also a successful racer during the Group A days too.


Moving (reluctantly) along from the old race cars, the pit lane is chock full of trade stands and displays


Advan and Hankook sent trucks FULL of tyres to support the competitors, and they were busy all day


And naturally, the most popular demo-car amongst all the trade stalls was the new BR86

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Also part of the proceedings was a drift competition, which attracted some high profile entrants, like Mad Mike Whidett from New Zealand with his crazy triple rotor RX-8.


Australian drift champion Beau Yates with his TRD sponsored 86


Plus plenty of local entrants


Rounding out the drift field were two cars from Team Orange in Japan, and you might recognise Nobushige Kumakubo in the background.


The drift event was held at night, after the time attack event had finished, and I didn't stay to watch, but it was won overall by Naoto Suenaga in one of the Team Orange cars.

But the headline event was of course the Time Attack itself. To give you a bit of context, the defending champion is Tarzan Yamada in the Cyber Evo HKS Lancer Evolution, and in the past few years it's been fair to say that the foreign teams have outpaced the local entrants. And so the story for 2012, is really about how new local cars being unveiled, to try to take the competition back to the Japanese teams.

Naturally, all eyes were on the Cyber Evo car, which returned to Australia with some aggressive new aero.


Unfortunately, this was a common sight throughout the weekend, with the HKS car having constant engine troubles. The Japanese engine never ran very well, with the Cyber team calling upon local workshops for help. Eventually a local engine was hurriedly installed and a standalong Haltech system wired up from scratch overnight. But sadly, the doors to the HKS garage remained closed for most of the final day, and in the end they never got it running properly.


Poor Tarzan Yamada (who is easy to spot in a crowd!) only managed a few laps during the last session on the final day, before an oil leak put the 2011 champion back into pit lane with an engine bay fire.


Another JDM entry was the M7/Re-Amemiya FD, piloted by NOB Taniguchi.


This thing screamed around with a proper rotary wail, and was on the pace straight away, putting away laps consistently in the 1'29 range (last year's winning time by Cyber Evo was 1'28). NOB would finish sixth. Taniguchi was pulling double-duty and was also driving the Top Fuel S2000, which came 5th with a slightly faster time (also in the 1'29s).


Ahead of Taniguchi, was Under Suzuki, a JDM privateer entry in his S15


Just pipping NOB, with a 1'28.


By the way, how cool is this...one of my mates had NOB sign his 2yr old daughter's coat


Also in the Pro Class was the Pan Speed RX-8, a totally bonkers 500hp all-motor triple rotor that was a bit further down the field cutting 1'35s, but was a crowd favourite with its insane exhaust note, which was louder than pretty much all the other cars combined Best-Motoring co-host Naoki Hattori was behind the wheel.

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And if you think that everything has suddely sprouted unfeasibly large wings, well you would be correct


Absolutely enourmous wings and diffusers seem to be fashionable this year, and this wasn't the case last year...


Some cars even has wings which made the car a whole lot wider






This FD with the mahoosive diffuser was LSX powered


Not all the entries has massive aero, though. Here's the 800hp Supra belonging to my friend Shane, who was running in the streetcar class




Lancer Evolutions were by far the most popular choice at the pointy end of the field, here is the EvoX that got 3rd in the Clubsprint class.


But in the end, the car that blew absolutely everything away, was this car from Nemo Racing


Outrageous aero aside, it is a quite the piece of work, as you can see from this pic. The "door" is just a thin carbonfibre flap that flips up, gullwing style, and the car is actually mostly a full tubeframe chassis. Well-driven by local hotshoe Warren Luff, it set the pace early with a scorching 1'25 time, which was a clear two seconds ahead of the field. And it's a brand new car for 2012, too.


I'll leave you with a few more pictures, but 2012 will be remembered as the year that the locals evened the score a little bit, with aussie-built cars taking the first three places outright, with the Under Suzuki Scorch Racing S15 the fastest foreign car in 4th place.


Oh, and it'll also be remembered as the year that all the cars turned up with really strange looking aero (which admittedly seems work very well)!




With this event growing in stature year after year, I'm looking forward to 2013, and the JDM teams coming back to show us what they got

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Thanks for the great coverage, Kev I don't feel so bad about missing out now.

The Wings & Aero are really getting crazy, eh? Some of the cars are starting to look like they belong at Daikoku Futo P.A. on a Saturday night

Onboard footage of the winning lap from the Nemo-Racing Evo.

http://youtu.be/VzAE7BL4U9s

Some interesting things to note...it seems to get up to 220kmh very early on the main straight, but then seems to take an age to max out at 240, which suggests to be that it's got a hell of a lot of drag from all that aero. But it's obviously generating massive downforce, because he scoots into the first corner at 230 (as a point of reference, my AE86 on R-comps was sideways through there at 170)

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Some interesting insights from NOB Taniguchi's blog: http://ameblo.jp/nob-taniguchi/entry-11326096179.html

<roughly translated using Google>


And of the Winning Nemo-Racing car, he had to say:


NOB suggests that the Nemo car is really a GT500 racer on DOT-legal racing tyres, and that HKS should take the old CT230R Lancer Evo out of retirement, to win back some dignity for Japan's #1 tuning firm. Since the CT230R is the record holder at Tsukuba to this day, I guess he has a pretty good point . Fingers crossed we'll see it in the flesh in 2013.

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Oh BTW, remember how I said that the Panspeed RX-8 was louder than all the other cars put together? Well, it is
http://youtu.be/IiJeoSxVMWI

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Awesome write up and photos!

Do you have any more shots of the green Group C Celica? It's one of my favourites of the era.

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1971 1300 Wagon Deluxe
1973 1300 Wagon

Happy to oblige

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It's probably just the green colour scheme but I really like that car!

The NEMO Lancer has left me jaded. It's an incredible machine that's for certain however it really is verging on a Sports Sedan of soughts. So much bar work, so very little monocoque left. I'm not exactly sure on the finer points of the construction of cars like the Cyber Evo from last year but from what I understood most of these time attack cars are basically an extensively caged production body with major driveline mods. I wonder if factory suspension points are retained?

Interesting stuff.

Kurt.

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1971 1300 Wagon Deluxe
1973 1300 Wagon

I'm in the same boat re: the Nemo car. I feel as if it's getting away from the spirit of the competition (modified production cars) in the name of winning. I feel that if someone rocked up with a Porsche GT3 Cup car, they'd be looked down upon, but if you rock up with a tubeframe sports sedan based on a japanese car, that's ok. We'll see what next year brings I guess.

Panspeed RX8 was far and away my favourite for the weekend. Glad to see something a bit more unusual, rather than just another EVO with a big wing.

And great to see the Hako out Kev. The only carbie car on display?

Yeh, on the one hand, if this is the dawn of some crazy era like Group B rallying in the 80s, then I am all for it. And as far as I know the stock suspension points like the towers are still there on Nemo...but as to whether they are still connected to firewall, or the rollcage instead...


No, there was at least one stock-engined 70s corolla there

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This is a guy I know's car that they had at their stand, only just finished. 2JZ Impreza, custom widebody






What he started with