The second round of the Civic series was held at Honda's home course, Twin Ring Motegi. This course has many 'stop and go'sections, and places a lot of stress on the cars. TEIN user's Shimamura took pole and Mizukoshi followed in second, with an all TEIN front row. Maejima qualified 0.3 seconds behind in 3rd place. It was a free for all fight from 4th to 10th positions as only 0.25 seconds separated them.
There were glimpses of the rain from the previous night on the circuit surface, and the race started in half-wet conditions. All the cars started were equipped with dry tires as they got ready for the 14lap race. But due to the unstable race conditions, delicate final settings had to be made with the cars lined up on the grid.
In the opening lap, Shimamura had a great start, and held the lead going into the first corner. Mizukoshi, starting from second position, had a slight disadvantage because he had to use the wet inner line and dropped to third position. The battle in the second group consisted of TEIN user's Matsui, Kobayashi, Goto, and Muramoto.
Shimamura was in total control up front and was too strong for the others, finishing in top position. Mizukoshi fought hard to try and avenge his lost second position, and was right on the tail of Maejima through out the race but unfortunately was unable to take advantage and came home in a respective third position. Shimamura was able to make up for his performance from round one by dominating the race from start to finish. |
