| Honda Motor Co. has opened
one of the world's biggest motor racing
complexes. Twin Ring
Motegi, in Tochegi Prefecture about 100 km north
of Tokyo, is a 400 hectare complex featuring 14
tracks. They include a 2.4km American style
banked superspeedway for CART and NASCAR racing,
and a 4.8km Grand Prix style road racing circuit.
Go kart circuits, dirt
speedways, a trail bike track and a
state-of-the-art driver training facility are
also included in the project.
Facilities include a Honda
museum and an event hall for corporate events,
with a hotel due for completion before the first
Japanese PPG CART World Series race - the
Budweiser 500 - in March next year, and an
entertainment theme park is planned for stage 2.
The "Twin Ring"
name is derived from the two main tracks, or
"rings", in the complex.
A subsidiary of Honda, Twin
Ring Motegi Co Ltd, has laboured for three years
on the project in a secluded valley near the
village of Motegi. Tunnels and bridges have been
built, millions of cubic metres of earth and rock
moved, and many kilometres of paved roads and
tracks laid.
The facility was officially
opened in a ribbon-cutting ceremony on the
superspeedway start-finish line, followed by
demonstration runs by a variety of racing cars
and motorcycles, including a CART Reynard-Honda
driven by 1996 IndyCar World Series champion
Jimmy Vasser.
Honda used its many years
of experience in running Japan's Suzuka grand
prix circuit in designing the new complex for
maximum racing excitement and spectator comfort.
Visitors are invited to
hire no fewer than five types of go-karets and
midget racers, learn advanced driving skills,
tour the Honda Collection of historic cars and
motorcycles, dine in restaurants and stay
overnight at the camping ground.
Would-be racing drivers are
invited to join Motegi's sports driving club and
experience first-hand the superspeedway and road
courses from the driver's seat. Alternatively,
people can buy a thrill-a-minute ride in an
American NASCAR stock car with a professional
driver.
Apart from the CART and
NASCAR races planned for the superspeedway,
events scheduled for Twin Ring Motegi include
touring cars, GT sports cars, Formula Nippon,
superbikes, a fuel economy challenge and drag
racing.
Twin Ring Motegi is in the
same prefecture as Honda Research and
Development's Tochigi research centre and proving
ground.
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