The Asia Pacific Rally Championship (APRC) which consists of seven rallies has reached the midpoint of the series. The Pacific Cup, a sub series of the first three APRC events, was won by Dean Herridge of Cusco Rally Team and now the Asia Cup starts from this fourth round.

The Japanese round was held at Tokachi, Hokkaido, which is well known as a regular venue of international rally events. Eighteen special stages (SS) including "gallery stages" were set up in the spectaculor nature of Hokkaido. The total competitive distance was 230.80km.

On Friday (July 11), the ceremonial start and Rally Show took place at a horse race track in Obihiro which was the host town of the rally. Even though the Rally Show had to be held in the rain, many Obihiro citizens and rally fans crowded to see it. There were a lot of supporting events including a traditional horse race, Ban-ei Keiba, which is a race of locally bred dobbins (known as 'Dosanko') towing heavily weighted sleighs. In the exhibition race, some of the top rally drivers had an opportunity to taste this dynamic horse race, riding on the sleighs along with the jockeys.

After sunset, the ceremonial start began under spectacular fireworks. The four Subaru Imprezas competing in the APRC with ADVAN, three from Cusco Rally Team and one from SUBARU Team Arai, departed for the fight, being cheered by the home crowd.

On Saturday (July 12), the competition started at the SS1 in Rikubetsu, 100km away north from Obihiro. The stage consisted of the combination of a logging road and a dirt track and included a famous water splash known as "Rikubetsu Jappaan" that was very popular in this gallery stage.

The stage surfaces were wet because of rain the previous night, but the Cusco drivers made ground in the longer stages of the day. Hiroshi Yanagisawa set the fastest stage time of the APRC registered drivers in the SS2 (29.55km), while Herridge stayed in the upper ranks, putting the second fastest time in the SS4 (22.43km).

After the first loop of the stages, the weather turned and the rain started to fall when the competitors headed to the afternoon session which was basically a repeat of the first loop. As the rain was so heavy, the surface conditions became very wet, accompanied by thunder. Under such difficult battle, Yanagisawa won the close competition between local drivers and took the top slot of the APRC division at the end of the SS6.

Eventually, three of the eight scheduled stages of the day were cancelled due to the bad weather, but the sky was clear in the morning of second day, being favoured by strong summer sunshine.

After a solid battle with his rivals, Yanagisawa narrowly missed the win at the end of Day 2 and finished in second place of the APRC division on his home soil. As Herridge followed him in third, two Cusco drivers got on the podium on Sunday afternoon.

　[Result: Runner-up in the APRC division]

As I registered a pretty good time at the second stage of Day 2, I continued to push hard.

But my main rival was catching up gradually and I had to settle for second in the end.

But I think we had a very good race and I really enjoyed it."

"It was a tough rally due to the choppy weather, but our stage times mostly matched those of our main rivals."

"I think the soft compound performed very well on the wet surfaces and the medium compound did similarly on the dry surfaces."

"We really wanted to win this Japanese round because it was the home event for Cusco, Subaru and ADVAN. The final results were the second and third with only a small gap to the winner, but I am sure that the results will have great significance in view of the championship contention."