Keiji Matsumoto

This article is about the racer. For the writer of the same name, see Keiji Matsumoto (writer) .

Keiji Matsumoto ( Japanese 松本 恵 二 Matsumoto Keiji ; born December 26, 1949 in Kyoto Prefecture ; † May 17, 2015 ) was a Japanese racing car driver .

Career in motorsport

Matsumoto, who began his racing career in 1977, was active both as a monoposto racing driver and sports car driver. In the monoposto he achieved his greatest successes in the Japanese Formula 2 championship , the overall ranking of which he won in 1979 and finished second in 1985 and fourth overall in 1986. He was also successful in the follow-up series, the Japanese Formula 3000 championship . In 1987 and 1990 he was fourth in the final ranking.

In the sports car, he drove for many years in the All Japan Sports Prototype Championship . Overall, he won nine sports car races in his home country. Among other things, he was victorious in the sports car world championship races in Fuji in 1983 and 1989 . The Japanese competed twice as a works driver for Nissan Motorsport in the Le Mans 24-hour race . Both times, in 1986 and 1987 , it failed due to technical defects.

Matsumoto survived two serious accidents almost uninjured in Fuji . In 1983 he lost control of his MCS 4 in the 200-mile race at Fuji on a wet road in the Panasonic corner before the start and finish . The car turned towards the guardrail, then overturned several times and flew over this into an adjacent forest. Matsumoto got away with the shock and bruises.

Two years earlier he had been very lucky on the same racetrack a few hundred meters away. At the 250 km race in Fuji , the rear suspension broke just after the pit on the MCS 2 . The open Spyder spun at the boundary of the track, took off, rolled over twice and remained in the run-off zone with the wheels up . To this day it remains a mystery how the driver, sticking his head far out of the car, was able to get out of the wreck completely unharmed only a few seconds after the accident.

After participating in the Suzuka Million Card Cup on November 15, 1992, he retired from racing.

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1986	Nissan Motorsport	Nissan R86V	Aguri Suzuki	Kazuyoshi Hoshino	failure	Gearbox damage
1987	Nissan Motorsport	Nissan R87E	Kenji Takahashi	Kazuyoshi Hoshino	failure	Engine failure

Web links

• Keiji Matsumoto at Racing Sports Cars
• Keiji Matumoto at the Driver Database

Individual evidence

1. ^ Fuji 1000 km race in 1985
2. ↑ Fuji 1000 km race in 1989
3. Jump up ↑ 1983 Fuji 200 km race
4. ↑ 250km Fuji Race 1981
5. ↑ 谷川 左 知 子 : 松本 恵 二 選手 、 F3000 引退 . (No longer available online.) In: Motorsports Forum. November 8, 1992, formerly in the original ; Retrieved March 5, 2013 (Japanese).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )