Twin Ring Motegi
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| Location | 120-1 Hiyama, Motegi Haga, Tochigi, 321-3597 Japan |
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| Capacity | 68,156 |
| Owner | Honda |
| Operator | Mobilityland Corporation, Ltd. |
| Opened | August 1997 |
| Construction cost | ¥5 billion |
| Major events | FIM MotoGP Japanese Grand Prix IRL IndyCar Series Indy Japan 300 |
| Oval | |
| Length | 2.493 km (1.549 mi) |
| Banking | Turns - 10° |
| Road Course | |
| Length | 4.796 km (2.980 mi) |
| West Road Course | |
| Length | 1.400 km (0.869 mi) |
| East Road Course | |
| Length | 3.400 km (2.112 mi) |
Twin Ring Motegi (ツインリンクもてぎ Tsuin Rinku Motegi) is an automobile racing track located at Motegi, Japan. Its name comes from the fact that there are two race tracks at the facility: a 2.493-kilometer (1.549 mi) oval and a 4.8-kilometer (2.98 mi) road course. It was built in 1997 by Honda, as part of Honda's effort to bring the IndyCar Series to Japan, helping to increase their knowledge of American open-wheel racing.
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[edit] Super Speedway
The oval course is the only one of its kind in Japan, and currently is only used once a year for racing. It is a low-banked, 1.549-mile-long egg-shaped course, with turns 3 and 4 being much tighter than turns 1 and 2. On March 28, 1998, CART held the inaugural race at Twin Ring Motegi Speedway. The race was won by Mexican driver Adrian Fernandez. CART continued racing at Twin Ring Motegi Speedway from 1998-2002. In 2003, Honda entered the Indy Racing League and the race became a part of the IRL schedule. In addition to IndyCar Racing, the track has also hosted a single NASCAR exhibition race in 1998.
Honda, which had built the oval for the express purpose of developing its oval-racing program for Indycar Racing, did not win a race at the track for its first six years of operation. In 2004, Dan Wheldon took the first win for Honda on the oval. In 2008, the Motegi oval gained additional publicity when Danica Patrick became the first woman to win an Indy car race there.[1]
For race results, see Indy Japan 300
[edit] NASCAR history
Mike Skinner won the only NASCAR Winston Cup exhibition race held at the track in 1998. Skinner won driving the #31 Lowe's Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing. The race was most notable for being the first oval NASCAR race in Japan as well as being the first in which Dale Earnhardt & his son, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. competed with one another, driving #3 & #1 Coca-Cola Chevrolets, respectively.
[edit] Road Course
The road course is 4.8 kilometers long and is unique in sharing garage and grandstand facilities with the oval course, but being entirely separate otherwise. Although they are separate tracks, it is impossible for races to occur simultaneously on the two courses at the same time; to access the oval track, teams must cross the road-course pit and front straight. The road course also runs in the opposite direction from the oval; clockwise, rather than counter-clockwise.
The course itself is built in a stop-start straight/hairpin style; this less than flowing arrangement has attracted criticism including that of Valentino Rossi[citation needed]. By Japanese standards the circuit is exceptionally flat, with only a slight elevation rise towards the hairpin turn. The road course is much busier than the oval track, with Formula Nippon visiting twice, Super GT and Super Taikyu cars once each, and local events almost every weekend. The road course can be used in three ways: the full course, or two 'Short Courses' can be made, using connecting roadways. These short courses are usually used for junior formula events, such as Formula 4 or FJ1600.
The road course is also a popular motorcycle racing spot, with the MotoGP usually visiting once a year, as well as several Japanese national bike racing series. It has hosted the Pacific motorcycle Grand Prix from 2000 to 2003 and the Japanese motorcycle Grand Prix since 2004.
The 2 tracks look like an egg (the Super Speedway) and a falling man (The full circuit)
[edit] Other facilities
In addition to the main racing complex, Twin Ring Motegi features a second road course (called the North Short Course) for karting and Formula 4 events, as well as a 1/4 mile dirt track for modified and sprint car racing. In addition, the FIM Trials series visits the track every year for the World trials Championship. Therefore an outdoor trials course exists on the facility.
Outside of racing, Twin Ring has the Honda Collection Hall, which features historic Honda racing and production cars and motorcycles, and Honda Fan Fun Lab, which features Honda's next generation technologies such as robotics, fuel-cell vehicle and aviation. Honda also operates a technology demonstration center on the site, as well as educational centers.
[edit] Track difficulties
Twin Ring is a separate-but-combined road-and-oval track (as opposed to 'roval' tracks common in the United States), and the decision to include a full road course contained largely within the oval necessitated design compromises. For spectators, sightlines can be extremely poor for road-course races, as the grandstands are much further back than usual. The oval course blocks the view of much of the road course, including the best passing point on the track[citation needed], and several large-screen televisions are needed. Seating outside the grandstand is limited to areas of the infield and along the backstraight of the road course.
Track access is a major concern, with only two entry and exit points by two-lane public road. Motegi is not a particularly large town, and accommodation is virtually non-existent close to the track, except for the on-site hotel. Train links to the area are extremely limited (the major regional lines, JR East and Tobu Railway do not service the area), nor has a planned superhighway been completed. Thus the stated track capacity (about 65,000) is dictated largely by traffic flow, not by actual seating capacity (estimated to be nearly 100,000 for road-course events, 80,000 for the oval).
[edit] In popular media
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Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (March 2010) |
- Forza Motorsport 3 Has the 3 configurations of the road course and the oval.
- Forza Motorsport 2 In downloaded content/three configurations of the road course, as well as the oval.
- Ferrari F355 Challenge features this course as the first selectable track.
- Gran Turismo 4 – three configurations of the road course, as well as the oval.
- Tourist Trophy – three configurations of the road course, as well as the oval.
- R:Racing Evolution – oval track.
- MotoGP '07 and in its predecessors on XBox 360 and PS2
- GT Championship – a GBA game which featured the track as part of the championship, SuperGT
- In Honda's 2005 Clio Awards winning commercial Impossible Dream, the sequence in which the BAR Formula One car is driven into the bridge is filmed at the circuit.
- During the opening sequence of Kamen Rider Agito, the three main Kamen Riders are shown riding around the circuit, as Honda is the series sponsor.
- During the ending sequence of Engine Sentai Go-onger the series' characters are shown dancing in the main straight of the Motegi's road course. The racetrack is revealed in the series as the primary Go-onger team's origin, and used in the series finale.
[edit] See also
- Suzuka Circuit, a Honda owned track built in 1962 and host to the FIA Formula One Japanese Grand Prix.
- Fuji Speedway, a road track originally conceived as a high speed oval, and former host to the Japanese Grand Prix.
[edit] External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Twin Ring Motegi |
- Twin Ring Motegi - in Japanese
- Twin Ring Motegi - in English
- Trackpedia's guide to driving the Twin Ring Motegi Circuit
- Satellite picture by Google Maps
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Coordinates: 36°32′01″N 140°13′39″E / 36.53361°N 140.2275°E
