Over May 23rd (Sat) to 24th (Sun), the historic race car show event, the “SUZUKA Sound of Engine” was held at Suzuka Circuit, and taking a lead role amongst the numerous machines on show, from 1960s classics up until F1 vehicles from the 1990s, was the Mazda 787B JSPC spec driven by Yojiro Terada. Contrary to the forecast, the two days were blessed with fine weather and a total of 33,000 historic car fans came out to Suzuka Circuit.

Having been transported from its storage location at the Mazda Mine Proving Ground (Yamaguchi Prefecture), the Mazda 787B JSPC spec belongs to the legend sports car category and, along with the overall winner of the 1992 24 Hours of Daytona, the Nissan R91CP (driver: Hironobu Yasuda), performed 4 demonstration runs over the 2 days. When they began to warm-up the engines, the large number of spectators in the paddock gathered at the Mazda pit. After checking the rise in water temperature and blipping the throttle the huge crowd let out a big cheer of applause. After this, when this 4-rotor engine passed down the Suzuka Circuit home stretch, between the towering grandstand and pit building, the roar it created was phenomenal. Terada, knowing full well the unique sound created when the 8,500 revolution, 4-rotor is released full throttle, put pedal to metal after passing around the final corner. When the demonstration run of the 787B was completed one could here the sigh of exclamation coming from the grandstand. It would appear that there were more than a few people who came out specifically to see hear this awesome sound.

On the talk stage, Mr. Terada, along with Nissan’s Yasuda, talked about the group C car. “ I made my race debut 50 years ago here, at Suzuka. At that time I was driving an S600. After that though I was fortunate enough to be made one of Mazda’s contract drivers and poured my energy into trying to raise the Japanese flag at Le Mans. Wanting to create an exhaust sound that was pleasing to the ear when we competed in the international arena, I, along with the development team, put everything we had into the sound tuning of the car. Today I really want everyone to experience that sound.” When the event was heading towards its finale, large numbers of audience members could be seen visiting the Mazda pit and saying, “Thank you so much for the opportunity to hear the roar of this car.”

In the event’s “world sports car” category, the Mazda 12A rotary engine equipped “MANA 73GC” took part. The driver was the same man who took the wheel for that car’s debut race, Takashi Yorino. Mr. Yorino commented, “First time in 42 years. This machine proved to be a great leap forward for the rotary in the GC and eventually led us to Le Mans. When I look back on that I get pretty emotional.”

Photo by MZRacing