1999 Le Mans Fuji 1000 km

The 1999 Le Mans Fuji 1000 km was an endurance race backed by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO), who ran the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and the Japan Automobile Federation (JAF), who ran the JGTC race series. It was run on November 7, 1999.

Pre-race

Since the mid-1990s, a large number of Japanese automobile manufacturers had begun to compete at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, including Honda, Toyota, and Nissan. Japanese constructors and engine builders were also competing as well, such as Dome, Tom's, and Mugen Motorsports. The ACO therefore was interested in the idea of creating a new sportscar series in Japan similar to the one that had recently been created in the United States, the American Le Mans Series. Thus, the Fuji 1000 km would serve as a one-off experiment to see how well a series would perform in Japan in the future, similar to the one-off 1998 Petit Le Mans for the ALMS.

With an agreement between the ACO and JAF, the race was agreed to take place at Fuji Speedway, and to combine the ACO's LMP, LMGTP, GTS, and GT class with the JAF's JGTC series GT500 and GT300 classes. The addition of JGTC machinery was done not only to entice Japanese teams into possibly moving into the ACO's sportscars, but also to help fill the field and to bring a crowd. However, the race did not count as part of the JGTC season, thus a full JGTC field was not expected since the race was optional. For the ACO classes, an incentive to bring competitors not only from Japan but also internationally was added in that, like Petit Le Mans, the winners in each class would earn automatic entry to the 2000 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Official results

Class winners in bold. Cars failing to complete 70% of winner's distance marked as Not Classified (NC).

Pos	Class	No	Team	Drivers	Chassis	Tyres	Laps
					Engine
1	LMP	23	Nissan Motorsports	Érik Comas Satoshi Motoyama Masami Kageyama	Nissan R391	B	228
					Nissan VRH50A 5.0 L V8
2	LMGTP	1	Toyota Motorsport Toyota Team Europe	Ukyo Katayama Toshio Suzuki Keiichi Tsuchiya	Toyota TS020	M	227
					Toyota R36V 3.6 L Turbo V8
3	LMP	61	Team Goh Dome Co. Ltd.	Hiroki Katou Juichi Wakisaka	Dome-BMW V12 LM	M	222
					BMW S70 6.0 L V12
4	GT500	35	Matsumoto-Kiyoshi Team Tom's	Pierre-Henri Raphanel Shinichi Yamaji Takeshi Tsuchiya	Toyota Supra	M	211
					Toyota 3S-GTE 2.1 L Turbo I4
5	GT500	6	Team Le Mans	Hideki Noda Wayne Gardner	Toyota Supra	B	209
					Toyota 3S-GTE 2.1 L Turbo I4
6	GT500	32	cmda One Toyota Team Cerumo	Takayuki Kinoshita Masahiko Kondo Hironori Takeuchi	Toyota Supra	B	208
					Toyota 3S-GTE 2.1 L Turbo I4
7	GTS	60	Team Goh Chamberlain Engineering	Seiji Ara Hideki Okada	Chrysler Viper GTS-R	M	203
					Chrysler 8.0 L V10
8	GT500	11	Endless Sports	Takao Wada Mitsuhiro Kinoshita Yasushi Kikuchi	Nissan Skyline GT-R	Y	200
					Nissan RB26DETT 2.8 L Turbo I6
9	GTS	16	Freisinger Motorsport	Ernst Palmberger Yukihiro Hane	Porsche 911 GT2	D	198
					Porsche 3.6 L Turbo Flat-6
10	GT	81	Team Taisan Advan	Hideshi Matsuda Dominik Schwager	Porsche 911 GT3-R	Y	197
					Porsche 3.6 L Flat-6
11	GTS	69	Proton Competition	Gerold Ried Christian Ried Manfred Jurasz	Porsche 911 GT2	Y	185
					Porsche 3.6 L Turbo Flat-6
12	GTS	15	Freisinger Motorsport	Wolfgang Kaufmann Bob Wollek	Porsche 911 GT2	D	180
					Porsche 3.6 L Turbo Flat-6
13	GT300	91	910 Racing	Masamitsu Ishihara Keiichi Takahashi Tomohiko Sunako	Porsche 911 3.8 RSR	Y	178
					Porsche 3.8 L Flat-6
14	GT	65	Roock Sport System Japan	Manabu Orido Takashi Suzuki Tomiko Yoshikawa	Porsche 911 3.8 RSR	Y	176
					Porsche 3.8 L Flat-6
15	GT	17	Freisinger Motorsport	Katsunori Iketani Hiroyuki Nodi	Porsche 911 GT2	D	167
					Porsche 3.6 L Turbo Flat-6
16 NC	GT300	70	Team Gaikokuya	Yoshimi Ishibashi Patrick van Schoote Jun Harada	Porsche 911 GT2	Y	157
					Porsche 3.6 L Turbo Flat-6
17 NC	GT	80	Team Taisan Advan	Eiichi Tajima Hiroaki Suga Morio Nitta	Porsche 911 3.8 RSR	Y	155
					Porsche 3.8 L Flat-6
18 NC	GT500	28	Tomei Sport	Kazuyuki Nishizawa Takuya Kurosawa Peter Dumbreck	Porsche 911 3.8 RSR	Y	115
					Porsche 3.8 L Flat-6
19 DNF	LMP	24	Autoexe Motorsports	Yojiro Terada Keichi Satou Franck Fréon	Autoexe LMP99	Y	158
					Ford (Roush) 6.0 L V8
20 DNF	LMGTP	21	Hitotsuyama Racing	Akira Iida Yasushi Hitotsuyama Mikio Hitotsuyama	McLaren F1 GTR	D	147
					BMW S70 6.0 L V12
21 DNF	GTS	10	Ability Motorsports	Hidehiko Asou Yasutaka Hinoi Atsushi Yogou	Porsche 911 GT2	Y	74
					Porsche 3.6 L Turbo Flat-6
22 DNF	GTS	56	Chamberlain Engineering	Vincent Vosse Xavier Pompidou	Chrysler Viper GTS-R	M	40
					Chrysler 8.0 L V10
23 DNF	GTS	64	Roock Racing System Japan	Hisashi Wada Stéphane Ortelli	Porsche 911 GT2	Y	40
					Porsche 3.6 L Turbo Flat-6

Statistics

• Pole Position – #1 Toyota Motorsport – 1:16.349
• Fastest Lap – #1 Toyota Motorsport – 1:18.806
• Average Speed – 180.792 km/h

Post-race

Although the race was very competitive for Japanese manufacturer's Nissan and Toyota, the event was not considered a major success. Only twenty three entrants showed in total, with just sixteen being in the ACO's classes. Although Nissan and Toyota both had more cars they could have entered, each chose only to compete with a single car. A large number of European teams which had been on the entry list also failed to show up, most notably BMW Motorsport with their V12 LMR prototypes.

Toyota and Nissan had both decided to abandon their sportscar efforts after 1999, meaning neither team took their automatic entries for Le Mans in 2000. European interest in the series was also lacking, especially since teams like BMW and Audi seemed more interested in competing in the American Le Mans Series. This left the proposed series with no major manufacturer involvement to help bring in fans as well as other competition.

Consideration for a Japanese series was revived once again in late 2000 when Don Panoz and the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) announced their intentions to expand upon their American Le Mans Series, a series endorsed by the ACO. Panoz would plan an Asian-Pacific Le Mans Series (APLMS), competing throughout the entire Pacific rim. An exhibition event was held in Australia at the end of 2000 with mixed success, with another event played for Malaysia in 2001. However Panoz's other expansion outside the United States, the European Le Mans Series, would suffer from small fields and lack of competition throughout 2001. With a continued lack of interest from major manufacturers in teams in the ELMS as well as the APLMS, both series would be cancelled.

In 2006, the ACO was finally able to create a new sports car series in Japan with the launch of the Japan Le Mans Challenge. The series has already announced that for 2007 they will return to Fuji for another 1000 km event.

External links

• Le Mans Fuji 1000 Kilometers Results