All Japan Sports Prototype Championship

All Japan Sports Prototype Championship
Vehicle type	Sports car
Country or region	Japan
Previous names	All Japan Endurance Championship All Japan Sports Prototype Car Endurance Championship
First season	1983
Last season	1992

The Zen-Nihon Sports Prototype Senshuken ( Japanese 全 日本 ス ポ ー ツ プ ロ ト タ イ プ 選手 権 , English All Japan Sports Prototype Championship , abbreviated to JSPC ) was a national championship held in Japan for prototypes of the Group C and IMSA-GTP series . It was founded by the Nihon Jidōsha Renmei ( 日本 自動 車 連 盟 , English Japan Automobile Federation , JAF) and in its early years also offered vehicles based on touring car regulations .

history

The racing series began in 1983 under the name Zen-Nihon Taikyū Senshuken ( 全 日本 耐久 選手 権 , English All Japan Endurance Championship ) as a long-distance championship that was to replace the Japanese touring car championship. For the introduction of the racing series, four vehicle classes were represented, named A, B, C and D. Classes A and B were intended for touring cars that were defined according to FIA regulations ( group A and group B ). The heart of the racing series were classes C and D, in which vehicles from the Camel Light class of the IMSA and group C2 of the Sports Car World Championship (WEC) or from the GTP class (IMSA) and group C1 (WEC) competed. In the first season there were three races on the racing calendar, one of which was part of the sports car world championship. This meant that drivers who only competed in the national series were also counted in the world championship.

In 1987, the touring car classes were spun off from the racing series, as from now on they only competed in the championship for touring cars called All Japan Touring Car Championship, which was founded two years earlier . With this step the aim was to better delimit the championship called Zen-Nihon Sports Prototype Car Taikyū Senshuken ( Japanese 全 日本 ス ポ ー ツ プ ロ ト タ イ プ プ カ ー 耐久 選手 権 , English All Japan Sports Prototype Car Endurance Championship ).

During its ten-year existence, the racing series gained fame through the competition between the various Porsche 956 / 962C and the Japanese manufacturers Toyota , Nissan and Mazda with their own works teams . Because of the declining popularity, the skyrocketing costs and the dying group C and IMSA-GTP class, the JAF dissolved the series at the end of the 1992 season. As a replacement, the All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship (JGTC) was established, in which Group C cars were allowed to compete for another two years before they were finally banned.

In 2006 there was another Japanese racing series for sports car races, the Japan Le Mans Challenge .

Champions

The Yokohama Advan Porsche 962C , which has won the championship three times.

year		master	Manufacturer
1983		Naohiro Fujita Vern Schuppan	Porsche
1984		Naoki Nagasaka Keiichi Suzuki	Lotec- BMW
1985		Kunimitsu Takahashi Kenji Takahashi	Porsche
1986		Kunimitsu Takahashi Kenji Takahashi	Porsche
1987		Kunimitsu Takahashi Kenny Acheson	Porsche
1988		Hideki Okada Stanley Dickens	Porsche
1989		Kunimitsu Takahashi Stanley Dickens	Porsche
1990		Masahiro Hasemi Anders Olofsson	Nissan
1991		Kazuyoshi Hoshino Toshio Suzuki	Nissan
1992	Class C	Geoff Lees Jan Lammers	Toyota
	Class C1	Kazuyoshi Hoshino	Nissan

Web links

Commons : All Japan Sports Prototype Championship  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Bridgestone: Results Zen-Nihon Taikyū Senshuken , Zen-Nihon Sports Prototype Car Taikyū Senshuken (Japanese)