As the season's finale closed in, the sixth round of the FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship (APRC) series took place in Malaysia. The headquarters of the rally was located in Johor Bahru, which is well-know to Japanese football fans because it was the place where the Japanese national team grabbed its first ticket to the World Cup soccer finals in 1997.

In this Malaysian round of the APRC, 14 special stages were arranged through the thick forest of plantation palm trees and the total competitive distance was 226.74km, out of a total distance of 694.08km.

Even in October, the temperature exceeds 30℃ at nine in the morning because the country has a tropical rainforest climate. On top of this, it was the second rainiest month of the year, so naturally the rally was hit by heavy squalls more than once.

There were three ADVAN supported cars in this round. After skipping the previous round in Indonesia, Hiroshi Yanagisawa of the Cusco World Rally Team entered this event along with his teammate and Asia Cup contender, Yuya Sumiyama. Takuma Kamata drove the latest model of the Subaru Impreza prepared by Subaru Team Arai.

Although it rained on Friday night after the ceremonial start, the competition started under a clear sky the next morning, on Saturday, October 11th.

After a modest start, Yanagisawa gradually gained his pace with steady driving under very hot and humid conditions. To prevent heat stroke and dehydration, the crews in the competition cars made all kinds of efforts, such as using the 'cool suit' kits often seen in the circuit races in midsummer or taking salt tablets or even Umeboshis (pickled Japanese apricots) in the case of the Japanese crews! But even in such torrid heat, they had to use heaters at full power to avoid fogging up the wind screens, which made the crews' tasks tough beyond imagination.

But Yanagisawa was hit by bad luck in SS5 (28.67km), one of the longest stages of the rally. Just after he started the stage, rain began to fall and it soon turned into a heavy tropical squall. However, with his perseverant driving, the Japanese ace managed to cut the deficit to only 50 seconds against his rivals who had finished before the rain came.

Due to the rain, the surface conditions completely changed and the teams responded to it by manually making additional cuts on their tires. At the same time, Yanagisawa started to kick back and put in the second fastest time on the SS6. After scoring a stage win in SS7, he marked another second fastest in the last stage of the day, SS8, to finish Day 1 in second.

The rain had gone by the morning of Sunday, October 12th, and it stayed away during the competition but the road surfaces were still muddy. While many crews, including Sumiyama, prematurely ending their races under very tough conditions on Day 1, Yanagisawa drove steadily throughout the two days and finished in second overall. Another ADVAN equipped driver, Kamata, was only one step away from the podium and finished the demanding rally in fourth.

"The rally was extremely tough and almost every driver said that it was really difficult just to stay on the road.
"The biggest factors in such difficult conditions were the muddy soil and squalls that always came suddenly. Making additional cuts on tires to cope with muddy surfaces wasn't an easy task but our effort was rewarded by a stage win.
"As with any other rally, we realized again that it was important to control the pace while realizing competitive stage times.
"The data we collected here will be utilized for the next Chinese round and its similarly muddy surfaces. Building on the momentum of this result, we will try to get an overall win and the Asia Cup crown."