As the 2010 Super GT series has stepped well into the season's second half, the sixth round, "Pokka GT Summer Special", was held at Suzuka Circuit. The event had been known as "Suzuka 1000km race" for decades and attracted much popularity through its long history but it had been shortened to 700km and renamed last year. Still, it was a unique event in the series because the race distance was more than twice as long as most of other events, which was very tough for the cars and crews, especially in the torrid head of mid-summer.

HIS ADVAN Kondo GT-R was hit by a problem during the qualifying session before presenting any proper performance and a great catch-up race was expected. However, it turned out to be even tougher for the team. The car had difficulty with gear shifting due to an electrical glitch and then it was doubled with a drive system problem, which resulted in a premature retirement after completing 59 laps, before reaching the half distance of the race.

But the car's early pace, until being bothered by problems, was comparable to those of leading cars and its brand-new engine ran without any trouble. So one can expect to see their full-blown performance in the next Fuji round, on September 12th, as the car will have less handicap weight - the coefficient for points between weight is to be halved from two to just one for all handicapped cars - there.

In the GT300 class, the pole sitting Cine Citta' Taisan Porsche led the early stage of the race. While the car initially looked to be in excellent condition, despite a crash in the warm-up session in the morning, its pace gradually dropped off and gave way to a Toyota Corolla (car no.74) on Lap 15. The Porsche further slipped down the order and eventually retired from the race after completing its 47th lap.

Although many other ADVAN shoed cars also suffered by unexpected problems or accidents, R&D Sport Legacy B4 (car no.62) was steadily moving up through the field, after starting from the 11th grid. Being driven by Tetsuya Yamano and Kota Sasaki, who have good reputations for their ability in development work, the car had been converted to more common rear wheel drive configuration for this season, after spending a year as the unique all-wheel drive car in the series. In addition, the team decided to skip the Malaysian round to modify the car extensively and the revised car had shown a sign of improvement in the last Sugo round which was the first race for the new version.

And now the harvest time came in this first anniversary race for the R&D Sport's Legacy B4. Last year, the car had struggled in its debut and the qualifying time was something around 2'15" but it registered the fastest lap time (GT300 class, 2'09"639) during this year's version of the tough and long race. This fact clearly told the extent of improvement the team and crew had made so far.

The car didn't have a great qualifying session and started the race from the 11th grid. However, Yamano pushed very hard in the early stage and was already in second on Lap 19. Whereas many cars were delayed by mechanical trouble or driver's errors, which weren't rare happenings in this grueling endurance race, the veteran kept his cool and drove consistently and cleverly until he came in the pit at the end of Lap 29 to change to Sasaki, as scheduled.

Sasaki followed in Yamano's path and, after making a very fast out lap, gradually closed in the class leading Corolla. On Lap 60, the Toyota and Sasaki's Subaru pitted in on the same lap and, although their relative positions remained same, Yamano continued to cut the gap with his main rival slowly but surely throughout his second stint.

On Lap 83, the Corolla made its final pit stop but fell into a sluggish pace after resuming the race with new tires. Meanwhile, Yamano brought back his Subaru to the pit to change to Sasaki again one lap later and, when the Corolla crossed the control line to complete the lap, Sasaki had already left the pit lane and rejoined to the race as the new leader, being cheered by the Subaru fans in the grand stand.

From the out lap, his pace was fast enough to pull away from the Corolla, thanks to a good warm-up characteristic of ADVAN racing tires. On the next lap, Sasaki delivered a final blow by registering the fastest lap of the race, which virtually decided the duel. Now his job was just to bring the car home to score the maiden win for their Legacy B4.

Some of other ADVAN equipped cars were burdened by a heavy weight handicap or fell back due to unexpected problems during the race. But big smiles of Yamano and Sasaki on the podium shone under a spotlight in the dust, which might soothe the colleagues' grief to some extent.