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Knight Sports RX-8 Wins at Macau Grand Prix 56th Macau Grand Prix, Road Sports Challenge race
Macau, China, November 19-22, 2009 - The 56th Macau Grand Prix. A Mazda RX-8 participated in the Road Sports Challenge race contested by mass production sports cars. The Knight Sports RX-8 driven by Tatsuya Tanikawa, who also participates in Japan's Super GT Japan series, claimed the 3rd fastest lap time in the practice session, greatly raising expectations. However, he spun out and crashed during qualifying, causing severe damage to the car. But amazingly, the team fixed the RX-8 after an intense rush, enabling Tanikawa to take part in the race. Starting from 21st on the grid, Tanikawa's 500-ps RX-8, equipped with a 13B-REW turbo, jumped ahead and into 4th position in the start. After that, he gradually closed the gap on the top two competitors, rising to 2nd place by lap 10. Kitakawa continued to push, taking the checquered flag a mere 0.198 seconds behind the leader. Kitakawa took the spoils in class B and 2nd place overall. The team's overwhelming speed and performance gained attention from the media and other race participants.
The Macau Grand Prix is a world famous street circuit race, which has been taking place since 1954, when Macau was still a Portuguese territory.The 6km street circuit is known to be very demanding, starting from the straight in front of Macau's Port terminal, running along old city streets which are extremely narrow and rough. In addition to the Road Sports Challenge race, other headline events including the Motorcycle GP, the WTCC and the enclave's main event, the Macau GP for F3 cars.
Tanikawa said, "Although this was my first attempt at this track, the car was well set up and I was able to set good lap times during practice. However, I made a mistake in qualifying, resulting in a high-speed crash. It was relief that I was uninjured and the car was able to be fixed through the unflinching effort of the entire team. In the race, I was so glad to get the class win and take 2nd overall. Next year, I'd like to go for outright victory."
2009.11.26
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