The Sugo Inter 500 km, was the fifth round of both the 1991 All Japan Sports Prototype Championship and the 1991 Long Distance Series, held at the Sugo on 15 September, in front of a crowd of approximately 45,000.

Report

Entry A total of 14 cars were entered for the event, in two classes, one for cars running to Group C1 specification and the other to IMSA GTP regulations.

Qualifying The Nisseki Racing Team of George Fouché and Steven Andskär took pole position, in their Porsche 962GTi ahead of the Toyota Team SARD's Toyota 91C-V of Roland Ratzenberger and Pierre-Henri Raphanel, by only 0.047secs.

Race The race was held over 135 laps of the Sportsland Sugo circuit, a distance of 500 km (actual distance was 500.075 km). Eje Elgh and Geoff Lees took the winner spoils for the Toyota Team Tom's, driving their Toyota 91C-V. The European duo won in a time of 2hr 57:30.838mins., averaging a speed of 105.641 mph. Second place went to Akihiko Nakaya and Volker Weidler in the From A Racing's Nissan R91CK who finished about 6.5 seconds adrift. Also on the lead lap, in third place was the Nissan Motorsport of Anders Olofsson and Masahiro Hasemi.

Classification

Result

Class Winners are in Bold text.

Pos. No. Class Drivers Entrant Car — Engine Time, Laps Reason Out 1st 37 C1 Eje Elgh Geoff Lees Toyota Team Tom's Toyota 91C-V 2:57:30.838 2nd 27 C1 Akihiko Nakaya Volker Weidler From A Racing Nissan R91CK 2:57:37.020 3rd 1 C1 Masahiro Hasemi Anders Olofsson Nissan Motorsport Nissan R91CP 2:58:55.982 4th 100 C1 George Fouché Steven Andskär Nisseki Racing Team Porsche 962GTi 132 5th 25 C1 Hideki Okada Masahiko Kageyama Team Le Mans Nissam R90VP 132 6th 18 C1 Mauro Martini Jeff Krosnoff TWR Suntec Jaguar Jaguar XJR-11 129 7th 38 C1 Roland Ratzenberger Pierre-Henri Raphanel Toyota Team SARDToyota 91C-V 127 8th 21 C1 Hideo Fukuyama Hideshi Matsuda Aoshima Tsunemasa Spice-Ford SE90C 127 9th 202 GTP Tetsuya Ota Takashi Yorino Mazdaspeed Mazda 787B 126 10th 36 C1 Masanori Sekiya Hitoshi Ogawa Toyota Team Tom's Toyota 91C-V 126 11th 119 C1 Kazuyoshi Hoshino Toshio Suzuki Nissan Motorsport Nissan R91CP 119 DNF 201 GTP David Kennedy Yojiro Terada Mazdaspeed Mazda 787B 23 Course Out DNF 230GTP Tetsuji Shiratori Masatomo Shimizu Syuuji Fujii Pleasure Racing Mazda 767 3 Differential DNQ 3 C1 Taku Akaike Karou Iida Navi Connection Racing Mazda-Ford 767B Fastest lap: Masanori Sekiya/Hitoshi Ogawa, 1:14.593secs. (111.74 mph)

References