Race day at Tsukuba - PH in Japan

An unfortunate translation of 'PistonHeads' gifts comedy gold to Japanese radio's talk show star

We've already marked the 25th birthday of the original MX-5; now Mazda has launched the all-new fourth generation car with simultaneous events in all the key global markets. PH has gone straight to source though and will be in Japan to see the new car and also take part in a four-hour MX-5 endurance race at Tsukuba. Catch Dan's latest blog here; archived updates listed below.

Whether it was misaligned body clock or simply nerves I arrived at Tsukuba with barely a couple of hours of sleep under my belt, which wasn't exactly ideal. Indeed, I felt fairly zombie like as the gear was unpacked and pit prepared for the race ahead. Enough that I went back and attempted to get some more kip in the CX-5. Oppressive heat/humidity and proximity to a tannoy didn't help but I managed a quick power nap before returning via a number of vending machines and exploring the options therein. An iced 'Boss' coffee and an excessively sweet ice cream thing seemed to perk me up a bit.

Peter (r) introduces Dan to Mr Piston...

I then amused myself by taking a picture of a paddock full of MX-5s and Tweeting a "Wish you here?" at Harris. He replied "Isn't that the place Dante wrote about?" having already been set-up earlier in the day at an event at Goodwood where the Mission Motorsport gang had prepared his paddock garage with a sign saying 'Driver: Chris Harris, Car: Mazda MX-5'.

OK, so this was 'just' a club race in pretty much stock MX-5s but everyone was taking it pretty seriously. Waiting our turn to be called up on stage and presented to the expectant crowds Peter introduced me to a chap who calls himself Piston Nishizawa. His livewire personality was explained by his job as host of one of Japan's most popular phone-in radio shows, the Saturday edition concentrating on his passion for cars. Well, I say that. When I was introduced as being from PistonHeads he roared with laughter, thrust his pelvis, pointed to his crotch and made it clear what he thought his Piston was.

Party atmosphere on the grid after the race

I'll write more about the race itself in due course but club motorsport or not it was a very competitive event, there being a few pros from Super GT, 'drift king' Keiichi Tsuchiya and other serious drivers from the various Japanese motoring press. Meaning my 1min 12s pace was precisely two seconds off most of the other teams in quali. Back of the pack then but, hey, endurance racing isn't all about grid position is it. Or so I tried telling myself.

When the flag dropped on the rolling start I set about making up some ground and by the time I handed the car over some overtaking and the fact a few cars pitted ahead of us had us in third spot. Pretty chuffed, and relieved to be handing over an intact car, things didn't go so well after that, second driver Yagi-san going into the big foam bales on the outside of turn one. Recovered, the car seemed OK and Peter made up our two lap deficit and got us back into the race with some metronomic consistency in his lap times.

Even our tame 'hand' Mizuno-san - who'd won his class in his MX-5 sprint race earlier - couldn't claw back any ground and, well, we finished dead last. Not the result we were hoping for but it was at least a result and in the scheme of things we'd all had a great time.

And provided Piston-san with some quality material to share with his listeners about the day he had racing against an Englishman from a website that as far, as he was concerned, translated as DickHeads.com...

Dan