Suzuka 8 Hours: Musashi RT HARC-Pro Honda win again

After heavy showers delayed the planned 11:30AM local time start of the 2014 Suzuka 8 Hours endurance race to 12:35AM (resulting in a shortened race duration of 6 hours, 55 minutes), the 37th running of the event got underway under a light rain and a wet circuit. The conditions changed from wet to damp to dry and back many times during the race, causing a lot of crashes and electrical issues with teams (in addition to the safety car coming out numerous times to allow some incidents to be attended to). But at the end of that nearly seven hours of racing, it was the Musashi RT HARC-Pro Honda team of Takumi Takahashi, Leon Haslam and Michael van der Mark once again emerging victorious to take their second straight win at Suzuka. Coming in second some 59 seconds behind was the pole-sitting Yoshimura Suzuki Shell Advance team of Takuya Tsuda, Josh Waters, and Randy de Puniet, with the Team Kagayama & Verity squad of Noriyuki Haga, Dominique Aegerter, and Yukio Kagayama also repeating last year's finish with another third place result.

Another repeat of last year’s race was the misfortune that struck the F.C.C. TSR Honda team, who were leading by over a minute and a half with four hours of the race in the books. All Japan superbike contender (and HRC test rider) Kosuke Akiyoshi crashed heavily in the very fast 130R turn, fracturing his leg and severely damaging the bike (last year, WSBK/BSB star Ryuichi Kiyonari crashed out of the lead while riding the F.C.C. TSR bike). Akiyoshi bravely managed to pick the bike up and get it back to the pits for repair, but the team lost a lot of time to repairs and ended up 40th, 15 laps out of the lead.

Even worse luck befell the Legends of Yoshimura Shell Advance team of Kevin Schwantz, Satoshi Tsujimoto, and Nobuatsu Aoki. Aoki crashed in the 130R turn just five laps into the race, severely damaging the bike and injuring Aoki enough to require a trip to the hospital for observation. The team had to retire from the race after determining that the damage to the bike was too extensive.

2014 Suzuka 8 Hours race results: