Kunimitsu takahashi ae86
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Global
On the Passing of Kunimitsu Takahashi
On Wednesday March 16, Kunimitsu Takahashi, a major contributor to motor sports, passed away at age 82.
Takahashi joined Honda in 1960 as a factory rider, debuting in the world motorcycle grand prix that year. In the following year, he won his first race at the West Germany Grand Prix, not only giving Honda its first world grand prix victory in the 250cc class, but becoming the first Japanese to win a grand prix in either the two or four wheel categories.
Since then, Takahashi concentrated on four wheel racing in various Japan national categories, and in 1977, raced in the Formula 1 Japan Grand Prix as a wildcard, finishing ninth.
In 1995, Takahashi won the Le Mans 24 hours GT2 class driving a first generation NSX-based car with teammates Keisuke Tsuchiya and Akira Iida. He continued his racing career at the top class until 1999.
Since 2020, he concentrated his efforts on managing Team Kunimitsu, competing in the Japanese GT category with NSX-GTs and HSV-010 GTs. In 2018 and 2020, his led his team to victory in the SUPER GT
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Kunimitsu Takahashi
Japanese motorcycle racer and racing driver (1940–2022)
Kunimitsu Takahashi (Shinjitai: 高橋 国光, Takahashi Kunimitsu, 29 January 1940 – 16 March 2022) was a Japanese professional motorcycle road racer, racing driver, and team manager. Nicknamed "Kuni-san", he is known as the "father of drifting".
His racing career lasted from 1958 to 1999.[1] He competed on motorcycles between 1958 and 1963, during which he became the first Japanese rider to win a World Grand Prix, taking four world-level wins in total. Injuries sustained in a crash in 1962 led to him switching to four-wheels in 1965, after which he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in class, become a four-time All-Japan Sports Prototype Champion, and won in Japanese Top Formula, JTC, and JGTC. His final victory as a driver came in 1999 at the age of 59.
His racing team, Team Kunimitsu, has won multiple championships in Super GT. He was the chairman of the GT Association, the organizers of the Super GT series, from 1993 to 2007.
Motorcycle racing
In 1961, Takahashi became the first Ja
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29/1/1940
Record updated
Takahashi began his career on two wheels as a motor cycle racer, gaining the distinction of being the first Japanese rider to win a World Championship Grand Prix on a 250 cc Honda in 1961, when aged just 21. A serious accident in 1962 during the Isle of Man TT races halted his progress and he eventually switched to four wheels. A regular competitor in the Japanese sports car series in the 1970s, he raced the old Tyrrell that had been used by Hoshino the previous year in the 1977 Japanese GP and took a distant ninth place, though satisfyingly he was ahead of the Kojima driven by Hoshino. He subsequently joined the Kojima team for the domestic Formula 2 series and later also ran a Toleman TG280 with backing from Yokohama tyres. Takahashi was Japanese sports car champion four times in the eighties: 1985 and 86 (with Kenji Takahashi), 1987 (with Kenneth Acheson) and 1989 (with Stanley Dickens). He subsequently competed regularly in the Japanese F3000 championship and in recent years has formed his own GT team to successfully race
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