For many in Japan, mid-November is the signal that winter is just around the corner. For a select few, however, it marks the countdown to the start of a new time attack racing season. In just a few weeks, the Tsukuba Circuit will host the second HKS Hiper Challenge meeting of 2024 – the first major time attack event of the 2024/2025 season. If the weather holds, fast lap times on the legendary TC2000 course are virtually guaranteed.
While certain chassis dominate time attack racing, not all competitors follow the conventional path in their personal quest for speed. Five years ago, Dino introduced us to a wild SW20 Toyota MR2, spotted in the pits of Attack Tsukuba. Today we’re revisiting his 2019 spotlight feature for this week’s throwback post.
2019 Feature
I had been hearing about a mysterious time attack SW20 Toyota MR2 for a while, first told by the guys at Pit Road M in Hyogo-ken, just south of the Kansai region, who are famous for making wild Mitsubishi GTOs.
Pit Road M was called in to help with engine tuning on an &G Corporation customer project, specifically an MR2 built for grip. Like many projects, this started as a bit of fun and became more serious as construction progressed. The owner and driver, ‘Samohan’ Nakajima, has managed to create one of the coolest versions of an SW20 I’ve ever seen, and it got a lot of attention at Attack Tsukuba 2019.
The car features a one-off fender conversion, molded and faded into the front bumper, with an extended splitter/diffuser section linked to a pair of canards on each corner of the nose. It also has extremely high and sharp corner extensions that extend to the outer surface of the fender and curl upward in the manner of Super GT racers.
The rear fender extensions are bolted to the underlying cut-out side panels, matching the significant flares and skirt sections along the profile.
There are huge openings to feed the turbo engine and smaller openings that may be used to direct air to the rear brakes.
Like the &G Samuhan Nakajima Racing logo, the black, white and red livery is a nod to Toyota’s GRMN motorsports subsidiary. This gives the MR2 a very modern look, a contemporary take on an old and favorite modern classic.
The handling is courtesy of Öhlins dampers at each corner, while the deep-dish RAYS Volk Racing TE37Vs are shod in the time-attack favourite: the Yokohama Advan A050s. The tires are 265/35R18 at the front and 295/30R18 at the rear.
The aerodynamic treatment is completed at the rear with a massive flat carbon fiber diffuser with fins, which acts as an additional mounting point for the high struts that hold the wing up with one plane. Look at those menacing dual exhausts.
What has been done to the mid-mounted 3S-GTE that was factory fitted in the GT-S versions of the SW20?
A lot, as it turns out. The fully tuned four-cylinder generates around 450 hp, depending on the boost level, and perhaps a little more if the nitrous oxide atomizer you see in front of the throttle body is called upon.
Considering this was the car’s first outing at Tsukuba, the best lap of 1:01.047 was not a bad result.
Even though the Japanese attack cars are about 10 seconds faster, people seem to forget how fast a 1 minute lap around Tsukuba is.
I would like to see this car evolve, and the team is getting the setup right for this demanding circuit. I have no doubt that there is one lot of potential in this cool little forward.
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Dino Dalle Carbonare
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dino@speedhunters.com