He’s done it! Under Suzuki has smashed the long standing Tsukuba lap record set by Nobuteru Taniguchi back in 2007.
Since 2007 Taniguchi’s lap record was the benchmark against which all serious time attack cars were compared. Driving the the all-carbon-fibre body HKS CT230R Mitsubishi Evolution, Taniguchi set a blistering time of 53:589.
In 2010 Garage Revolution came very close (53.673) in their GT-inspired Mazda RX-7 FD but the team has failed to improve on that time. For a while it looked like Taniguchi’s record was safe again. Then along came a privateer known as “Under” Suzuki.
With a car he built in his spare time (yes he does have a full time job) and with the help of Scorch Racing and his friends, Suzuki quickly became a crowd favourite at all events he competed in. But labelling him as the proverbial “underdog” would be a huge mistake. From his first outing Suzuki was very fast, and got progressively faster every year. At the 2012 WTAC he narrowly missed out on the podium finish, beaten to the third place by few tenths of a second in the dying minutes of the last session.
Displaying a true warrior spirit, Suzuki went on to make more improvements to his car and hone his driving skills even further, confident he can go faster.
The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. And the pudding in this case is the title of the Tsukuba Lap Record holder. Lapping Tsukuba at 52:649, Suzuki wrestled that title from Taniguchi by smashing his record by almost a full second!
Suzuki-san – we salute you!
