In relation to motorsport governed by the FIA, Group A referred to a set of regulations providing production-derived vehicles for outright competition. In contrast to the short-lived Group B and Group C, the Group A referred to production-derived vehicles limited in terms of power, weight, allowed technology and overall cost. Group A was aimed at ensuring a large number of privately-owned entries in races.

Group A was introduced by the FIA in 1982 to replace the outgoing Group 2 as "modified touring cars", while Group N would replace Group 1 as "standard touring cars".

Homologation[link]

To qualify for approval, a minimum of 2500 cars of the competing model had to be built in one year, out of 25,000 for the entire range of the model (e.g.: 2500 Subaru Impreza WRX, out of 25,000 Subaru Impreza). Up to 1991, the requirement was a minimum of 5000 cars in one year, without regards to the entire range, but the FIA allowed "Evolution" models to be homologated with a minimum of 500 cars (e.g.: BMW M3 Sport Evo, Mercedes-Benz W201 Evo). Rules also required some of the interior panels to be retained, e.g. interior door panels and dashboard.

However, not all manufacturers who built 500 such models sold them all, some stripped the majority of them to rebuild them as stock models or used them to allow teams to use modified parts. One such example of this was Volvo with the 240 Turbo in 1985. After they had produced 500 such models, Volvo stripped 477 cars of their competition equipment and sold them as standard 240 turbo roadcars. As a result, after FISA's failed attempt at finding an "Evolution" car in any European countries, Volvo were forced to reveal the names of all 500 "evo" owners to be permitted to compete. The other example was Ford, after selling off their entire RS500 stocks, they read the rulebooks and found themselves that rather than using either the Sierra Cosworths or the RS500s, they could use the body of the basic 3-door Sierra, which Ford was discontinuing, and use their Evolution equipment on them. Nowadays, these cars are treated as any other model in the range.

Touring Cars[link]

For touring car competition, vehicles such as the BMW 635CSi, Jaguar XJS, Volvo 242 Turbo, Holden Commodore, Ford Sierra RS500 and Nissan Skyline GT-R were homologated. In the European Touring Car Championship, Group A consisted of three divisions, Division 3 - for cars over 2500cc, Division 2 - for car engine size that are between 1600-2500cc, Division 1 for cars that are less than 1600cc. These cars competed in standard bodykits, with the production-derived nature required manufactures to release faster vehicles for the roads in order to be competitive on the track. Tyre width were dependent on the car's engine size.

Group A stopped being used in touring car racing in 1994, when the German Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft (DTM) switched to a 2.5 L class 1 formula, while in Japan by that year as the Japanese Touring Car Championship organisers followed suit and switched classes like most other countries who had adopted the British Touring Car Championship-derived Supertouring regulations, many of the redundant Skylines found a new home in the form of the JGTC (Japanese GT Championship) with modified aerodynamic devices, showing its competitiveness whilst being up against Group C, former race modified roadcars and specially developed racers, like the Toyota Supras during the earlier years. For 1993 the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport replaced Group A (or Group 3A as it was officially designated in Australia ^[1]) with a new formula for Australian Touring Car racing. This was initially open to five litre V8 powered cars and two litre cars (later to become known as V8 Supercars and Super Touring Cars respectively). Hillclimb races still use Group A as a Touring Car class across Europe.

Rallying[link]

Peugeot 306 Maxi, one of the best popular kit-car.

Under Group A in the World Rally Championship, the cars used were modified road cars, often based on turbocharged, four wheel drive versions of small cars such as the Lancia Delta Integrale, Toyota Celica GT-Four, Nissan Pulsar GTI-R, Subaru Impreza WRX and the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution.

In order to be homologated, manufacturers were required to produce 5,000 units worldwide, and then in 1993 this number was reduced to 2,500. The cars are further modified for greater power and torque, and fitted with suspension and tyres specifically suited to the conditions of the specific rally, which may take place entirely on asphalt roads, different consistencies of gravel and dirt roads and even snow/ice-covered roads on some rallies held in northern Europe.

By 1990, Group A cars exceeded the performance of the Group B cars on many events, because although they had far less power they had better handling and traction. They were also much safer.

Group A is still used as the basis for most rally competitions around the world, but the most competitive cars are limited-production prototypes, known as Kit car, World Rally Cars, Super 1600 and Super 2000.

The last WRC car to use the old Group A homologation requirement was the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI.

Series that used the Group A formula[link]

• Australian Touring Car Championship 1985-1992
• Australian 2.0 Litre Touring Car Championship 1986-1987
• Australian Endurance Championship 1985-1986 & 1990-1991
• Australian Manufacturers' Championship 1985-1991
• British Touring Car Championship 1983-1990
• Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft 1984-1994
• European Touring Car Championship 1982-1988
• All Japan Touring Car Championship 1985-1993
• World Rally Championship 1987-2001
• World Touring Car Championship 1987

The cars[link]

See also[link]

	Book: Rallying
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

	Book: Touring car racing
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Frank de Jong's Group A ETCC section

Look up group in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

A group is a number of things or persons being in some relation to one another.

Mathematics[link]

• Group (mathematics), a set together with a binary operation satisfying certain algebraic conditions
  • Group theory, the study of groups
  • Group action, a way of describing the symmetries of objects using groups
  • Group isomorphism, a one-to-one correspondence (function) between two groups which respects the given group operations
  • Group object, a kind of generalization of a group which is built on more complicated structures than sets

Science[link]

Chemistry

• Functional group, a functional entity consisting of certain atoms whose presence provides a certain property to a molecule
• Group (periodic table), a column in the periodic table of chemical elements

Biology

• Cultivar group, a formal classification category in the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP)
• Group selection, in evolutionary biology, the idea that alleles can become fixed or spread in a population because of the benefits they bestow upon groups of organisms

Cosmology

• Galaxy groups and clusters, a small number of galaxies near each other
  • Local Group, the group containing the Milky Way Galaxy

Other

• Group delay and phase delay
• a set of lenses stacked together
• Group (stratigraphy), in geology, a lithostratigraphical unit; a group consists of formations, or rock strata.

Business[link]

• Business group, a legal entity comprising several companies

Sociology[link]

• Social groups, a description of various human groups
  • Peer group
  • Working group
  • Interest group
• Group action (sociology)
• Group affective tone
• Group aggression
• Group attribution error
• Group behaviour
• Group cohesiveness
• Group conflict
• Group development
• Group dynamics
• Group guilt
• Group narcissism
• Group polarization
• Group psychological abuse
• Group scapegoating
• Group-serving bias

Computing and the internet[link]

• Group (computing), a collection of users or other objects
  • Group identifier (Unix)
• Group editor, a program that allows many people to edit a shared document over a computer network
• Usenet newsgroup

Military[link]

• Army group
• Group (air force), an air force formation
• Group Captain

Other uses[link]

• Breed Groups (dog), the group or category to which breeds of dogs are assigned by kennel clubs
• Group (auto racing), a category of car allowed to compete in auto racing.
• Group insurance covering people with common characteristics
• A musical ensemble:
  • Boy band
  • Girl group
  • Groupies

See also[link]

• Grouping (disambiguation)
• The Group (disambiguation)
• Functional group (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. It includes attribution to IMDb, which may not be a reliable source for biographical information. Please help by adding additional, reliable sources for verification. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (October 2009)

Keiichi Tsuchiya

In 2008, as Executive Advisor of ARTA
Nationality	Japanese
24 Hours of Le Mans career
Participating years	1994-2000
Teams	Team Kunimitsu Honda, Team Lark McLaren, Toyota Team Europe, TV Asahi Team Dragon
Best finish	2nd (1999)
Class wins	2 (1995, 1999)

Keiichi Tsuchiya (土屋 圭市, Tsuchiya Keiichi^?, born January 30, 1956, Tōmi, Nagano, Japan) is a professional race car driver. He is also known as the "Drift King" (or Dorikin (ドリキン)) for his nontraditional use of drifting in non-drifting racing events and his role in popularizing drifting as a motorsport. He is also known for touge (mountain pass) driving.

The car he drives, a Toyota AE86 Sprinter Trueno, has become one of the most popular sports cars; the car is also known as "Hachi-Roku" in Japan (hachi-roku meaning "eight six"); his car is also called "The Little Hachi that could." A video known as Pluspy documents Tsuchiya's touge driving with his AE86. He also is a consultant for one of the popular comic books, "Initial D". "Bunta" (Takumi's dad) is a character which describes him.

Biography[link]

Tsuchiya started his career through the Fuji Freshman series in 1977. Unlike many drivers who came from wealthy families or motorsport backgrounds, he honed his skills from street racing and became an underground legend.

Racing career[link]

National championships

He would continue to take part in the Japanese Formula Three Championship, Japanese Touring Car Championship (JTCC), the latter while driving a Nissan Skyline GT-R (previously in the Cosmo Oil Sierra Cosworth) in the Group A championships and later a Honda Civic in the Supertouring car championships. ^[1]

Le Mans

He went on to score a class win and an 8th place overall at the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans in a Honda NSX. In 1999 of the same race, this time in a Toyota GT-One, during the last hour while co-driver Ukyo Katayama was building up pace to the leading BMW V12 LMR he was forced into the grass by a backmarker privateer's BMW LMP, blowing the tire out. They survived the ordeal and went onto score the fastest lap but were forced to settle for second.

NASCAR

He has raced in NASCAR-sanctioned exhibition races at Suzuka Circuit (Suzuka Thunder 100) and at Twin Ring Motegi Superspeedway for the 1998 NASCAR-sanctioned exhibition and 1999 NASCAR Grand National Division, AutoZone West Series races at the circuit, both named the Coca-Cola 500K.

Drifting career[link]

When Tsuchiya was a freshman in circuit racing, he got his racing license suspended because of the illegal racing he was still doing. In the movie series Shuto Kousoku Trial, he advised street racers to leave the illegal racing scene if they want to become involved with professional racing. ^[2]

After his retirement[link]

After his retirement, he remained in racing and is now an official Drift Muscle(He Quit D1 in January 2011) judge and was Team Director for both GT500 (for one year) and GT300 Class of ARTA JGTC Team until the team disbanded their GT300 operation at the end of the 2005 season. He owned the aftermarket suspension company Kei Office until he sold the business in 2005. His trademark color is jade green which appears on his overalls and helmet and is the adopted color of the company he used to own, Kei Office. It was also the color of the D1 Grand Prix Kei Office S15 Silvia of driver and employee Yasuyuki Kazama who also wears a suit similar in pattern.

He also hosts the video magazine "Best Motoring" which features road tests of new Japanese cars including a special section called "Hot Version" which focuses on performance-modified cars. He is a guest presenter in Video Option, a monthly video magazine, similar to the Hot Version which also regularly covers the D1GP and its sister video magazine Drift Tengoku which deals purely with drifting.

He has been an editorial supervisor on the televised anime Initial D and Wangan Midnight. He appeared in episode 23 of Initial D First Stage as a special guest. He also appeared in the semi biographical film Shuto Kousoku Trial 2,3,4,5 and was also featured in the Super GT magazine show in Japan. His life in driving is parallel to that of the Initial D main character, Takumi, as both of them started exploring their local touge while doing regular deliveries for their family businesses. In Initial D 1st Stage episode 23, he was alluded to when Takumi's father was having a conversation on the phone with someone referred to as "Mr. Tsuchiya" who addressed Takumi's father as "Bunta," adding that the memories of his drifting still "scared the shit" out of him. In the Initial D 3rd Stage, the color can also be seen on the overalls and helmet of the sportsbike rider who overtook Takumi as he was en route to an initiation battle with Ryosuke Takahashi. The color of Tomo's racing suit from the Initial D 4th Stage is jade green and has a similar pattern to Tsuchiya's suit. Lastly, Keiichi himself is featured in one episode of Initial D right before the battle with Ryosuke Takahashi when he calls Bunta (Takumi's father) to inquire about the young man. Here he is shown wearing a similar race suit design.

He also made an appearance opposite Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson in a Motorworld in Japan special showing drifting competition in the late 1980s in Japan.

After 1995, he sometimes appeared as a Formula One guest commentator in Japanese Fuji TV. He now owns a new suspension company called DG5.

In 2006, he made a cameo as a fisherman in the movie The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift in which he was also stunt coordinator and stunt man. Although he only had two lines, it is considered to be an inside joke to the drift racing community.

AE86 Specs[link]

Quotes[link]

• "I drift not because it is a quicker way around a corner but the most exciting way."

• "Speed isn't everything; you gotta look cool on the touge too."

• "This is fun! I wish that Toyota could make cars like this again!" (on the Toyota AE86)

• "Yeah! How come this car gets me fired up all the time?" After winning a downhill touge against a Skyline R34 with the Toyota AE86^[3]

• "カウンターステアが遅いんだな？ (Countersteer is late, huh?)" (from The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, dubbed as "You call that drifting?")

• "Men with guts attack those corners!"^[3] - it was a reply to Nobuteru Taniguchi who, driving a more powerful car on the touge, said " I'll get away with turbo power on the straights."

• "The most important thing is balance." (Tsuchiya says this word in every race action.)

• "There's tension on the track; now you see how hard it is. You may be fastest on the street but, unless you know the track, you're not good enough to sit behind the wheel." (Tsuchiya speaking to Shikiba, subtitled portion, Shuto Kusokou Trial MAX)

• "I'm afraid that if I raced you on the street I'd push you to your death." (Tsuchiya speaks to Takahiro Yamanaka, subtitled portion, Shuto Kusokou Trial 2)

• "What is power without control?"

• "It's so fast it will make a dead man scream" (Tsuchiya describing the performance of the Mines R34 Skyline)

• "This is a Cefiro!" (Tsuchiya negatively describing the performance of the V35 Skyline)

• "The important thing is to keep trying"

Career results[link]

• 1977 Debut in Fuji Freshman series.
• 1977-1984 Ran selected entries in All Japan Touring Car championship.
• 1984 Fuji Freshman series race (Toyota AE86)= 6 wins
• 1985 All Japan Touring Car championship (Toyota AE86) 1st in Class 3
• 1986 Corolla Sprinter Cup-2 podium places
• 1987 All Japan Touring Car championship (Honda Civic) -1 win
• 1988 Toyota Cup-1st overall
  • All Japan Touring Car championship (BMW E30) -3rd in Class 2
• Macau Guia race (BMW M3) -4th overall
• 1989 All Japan F3 championship
  • All Japan Touring Car championship (Ford Sierra Cosworth) -1 win
• 1990 All Japan Touring Car championship (Ford Sierra Cosworth)
  • Macau Guia race (Ford Sierra Cosworth)
  • New Zealand Touring Car series (Toyota)
• 1991 All Japan F3 championship (Ralt-Mugen)-10th overall
  • All Japan Touring Car championship (Nissan Skyline GT-R) -5th overall
• 1992 All Japan Touring Car championship (Nissan Skyline GT-R)
• 1993 All Japan Touring Car championship (Taisan Nissan Skyline GT-R) -1 win
  • Japan Endurance series (Honda Prelude) -2nd Tsukuba 12 Hours
• 1994 All Japan GT championship (Porsche 911T) -1 win
  • All Japan Touring Car championship (Honda Civic)
  • Suzuka 1000 km (Porsche 911T) -1st in class, 2nd overall
  • Le Mans 24 Hours (Honda NSX) -18th overall
• 1995 All Japan GT championship (Porsche911TRSR)
  • All Japan Touring Car championship (Honda Civic)
  • Suzuka 1000 km (Honda NSX) -5th overall
  • Tokachi 12 Hours (Honda NSX) -1st overall
  • Le Mans 24 Hours (Honda NSX) -1st in class
• 1996 All Japan GT championship (Honda NSX) -13th overall
  • Entered NASCAR Thunder Special race at Suzuka
  • Le mans 24 Hours (Honda NSX) -3rd in class
• 1997 All Japan GT championship (Porsche 911/Dodge Viper)
  • Fuji InterTec race (Toyota Chaser)
  • Suzuka 1000 km (Lark McLaren F1 GTR) -9th overall
  • Entered NASCAR Thunder Special race at Suzuka
  • Le Mans 24 Hours (Lark McLaren F1 GTR) -qualified 10th, retired from race
• 1998 All Japan Touring Car championship (Toyota Chaser) -7th overall
  • All Japan GT championship (Toyota Supra) -8th overall
  • Le Mans 24 Hours (Toyota GT-One) -9th overall
  • NASCAR at the California Speedway.
• 1999 Japan Touring Car Championship (Advan Altezza Touring car).
  • Le Mans 24 Hours (Toyota GT-One) -2nd overall
• 2000 Le Mans 24 Hours (Panoz LMP-1 Roadster-S) -8th overall
• 2000-2003 he joined team ARTA racing an NSX once again in the All Japan GT championship.
• 2004-2005 studied in Australia to complete inter-2 course.

References[link]

1. ^ http://driftjapan.com/blog/drivers/keiichi-drift-king-tsuchiya/
2. ^ Books LLC, Books LLC (2010). Drifting Series: D1 Grand Prix, Formula D, Red Bull Drifting World Championship, Keiichi Tsuchiya, Nz Drift Series, D1nz, Option, Video Option. Drifting Series. General Books LLC. ISBN 9781158069118. 
3. ^ ^{a b} "Touge Showdown 2 - AE86 vs Skyline GT-R - Hot Version International" on YouTube

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Keiichi Tsuchiya

• (Japanese) Official site
• IMDb profile
• AsianAthlete.com profile
• (Japanese) Bridgestone Automobile Radio
• Best Motoring International
• Drift Japan » Keiichi 'Drift King' Tsuchiya - Driver Profile and Overview