A few posts back I mentioned a little bit about the China Touring Car Championship, and proceeded with a blah blah blah about how much I loved watching Super Touring on tv as a kid. As I had stated, the series still lives on through other series internationally.

Recently, I’ve been watching some videos of the Super Taikyu series on YouTube. It has some pretty interesting regulations. Basically modifications can be done to suspension and body, but drivetrain must be left relatively stock, with the exception of exhaust and intake modification.

As it was explained to me, the series is more of a stepping stone for drivers looking to advance to other series of racing. Super Taikyu, which translates to “Super Endurance”, is an entry-level endurance race with several classes in between (ST1 through ST5) with classification based on engine displacement and drivetrain layout. Sounds fairly straightforward.

Here is a video that I found online

And another one of the Fujitsubo GDB-E Super Taikyu car

So I guess for me the appeal is that there is no major focus on power adders. At least for the ST5-ST3 category, that is. It’s no different than taking a stock showroom model, stripping it down, putting in a cage and a few necessary interior parts, fitting slicks and adjustable suspension, an exhaust and an intake, and that’s it.

For ST1 & ST2, they also allow performance clutch and lsd’s. Although extra power can be had from ecu tuning, it is still very limited. Factory force-induction cars can benefit from aftermarket intercoolers. wow.

They run somewhere around 60 laps for each event.

I suppose it’s not in every privateer’s budget to build such a car. But the ST4 & ST5 categories are well within reach. Again, simple modifications (there’s nothing simple about racing, however) and less of a focus on high power sounds pretty fun and somewhat of a challenge. I wouldn’t mind building up a Honda Fit or Toyota Yaris/Vitz to putt putt around the track.

Really wish we still had the TEIN Yaris…