This prequel to the 1966 third Japanese Grandprix held at Fuji International Speedway is a great rendering of the era back then: no fear, real men with big engined cars, the Prince r380 and, of course, the big rival Porsche!

I also found it a bit weird that the Jaguar E-Type got so much attention compared to the Honda S800 and Toyota Sports 800. Then again: the Nissan Skyline C10 still had to arrive...

Half a year ago I already featured another Suzumebachi attack! post, also with videos by JRotaro and ae86lan. Difference is that this time they have been shot from the inside of one of the hachis:

At first only two hachis make their drifts on the Mount Fuji drift course (next to the Fuji International Speedway) but slowly more and more hachis join in.

Here is another video with 10 minutes of those suzumebachi hornets going sideways:
Click here to watch the other three videos as well!

I found a couple of old 70s videos of the Gran Prix Touring Car races at Fuji International Speedway of which this 1972 race is one of the best!

It starts off with showing the thorough process of inspections and approvals on a Toyota Corolla Levin TE27 and a Toyota Sprinter Trueno TE27 in the first part:

Funny to see the whole parkinglot is full of the cars that are going to race at the track!

In the second part the race actually starts and several accidents happen:
The two other videos on the next page!

One of the most famous parts of the old Fuji International Speedway was the 30 degree banking. Due to the track layout changes made in the middle of the construction the banking was actually the wrong way around. At the end of the straight cars would dive into a banked corner which suddenly ended. This resulted in one of the most dangerous corners ever made and had many casualties over its 19 years use.

When in 1986 the the Group 5 era ended and also the infamous banked corner was closed down on Fuji International Speedway, but never actually demolished. There is still a large piece left of the banking and apparently this Group 5 fan wished to say goodbye to the 30 degree bank:

Fuji International Speedway 30 degree bank
I would certainly love to have such a picture in my family album! Whenever I visit Fuji International Speedway I'll certainly make a similar picture! :)

Found at [Feel the beat @ Livedoor blog]

Rocketpencil uploaded another astonishing video: the 1971 Japanese Grand Prix held at Fuji International Speedway!

It consists out of three races: the Touring A (1600cc) class, Touring B (2000cc) class and the Grand Touring class, translating into Bluebird, Skyline and Fairlady Z.

All non-Nissanians will complain I over simplified it a bit. Yes there are indeed other cars (like the Mazda RX-2) but that's what the main field and winners looked like... Only later that year the Mazda RX-3s broke the winning victory streak of those menacing Skylines...