July 21 (Sunday): Tochigi prefecture's Twin Ring Motegi played host to Round 3 of the Super Taikyu Series. Having qualified third in the ST-5 class for the five-hour race, the NOPRO Demio (Tatsuya Tanigawa/Ken-ichi OBara/Tatsuya Nogami/Toshihiko Nogami) completed the distance in seventh. Moreover, the RS☆R Demio (RYU1/Ryo Hamaguchi/Hiroshi Nomura/Hirotoshi Sugawara), which had started in sixth place, finished fifth.

In the previous day's qualifying session, former GT driver Tetsuya Tanigawa who recently joined the NOPRO team, took the top time among the A drivers. Combined with the B driver's time, the car placed third. After A driver qualifing, rivals were surprised at the Demio’s newfound speed. Meanwhile, the engine in the RS☆R Demio was damaged on qualifying day, and had to be replaced with a spare unit. The team would have to play catch-up from the rear of the field.

The race got underway in cooler than average temperatures for the time of year, the mercury sitting at 30 degrees as the cars left the line. The NOPRO Demio followed the two cars ahead in the opening stages. A planned driver switch in the final stages came undone when, at the end of his stint, Obara missed the fuel switch and the car ran out of fuel. The car had to be pushed into the pitlane and incurred lost time as a result. Soon after making the driver change, trouble with the rear brakes became an issue.

A number of pit stops where measures were taken to alleviate the problem were then taken during the second half of the race, and by the flag the car was running in seventh position. Team representative Mr. Nogami-san said, “Without doubt the Demio has shown an increase in speed this year. We proved it in qualifying yesterday. However, if it becomes quick, the influence will go to another part. This track is hard on brakes and it seems as if excessive stress occurred not only on the fronts, but also with the rears. We ran with only front brakes in the final stages. However, we got there in the end. We're looking forward to showing some real speed in the next round, the seven-hour race at Fuji.”