In this week’s blog post, I would like to write about our experience at ANRI GP 2022 – a 3-hour-long go-cart invitational endurance race. The event took place at New Tokyo Circuit located in Chiba prefecture, about 6 hours from our office in Aizuwakamatsu.

It was organized and sponsored by RDS, an awarding winning company whose core business consists of design, clay modelling, CFRP modelling, 3D printers, 5-axis machining, and consulting, in addition to such operations as 3D modeling data production, structure analysis, various model production, and coating.

The schedule was packed with great motoring exhibitions since 8:00 a.m. ’til 5:00 p.m. but we started with a driver’s meeting at 8:30 during which we were briefed about the course, smaller events throughout, as well as the course safety.

ANRI GP 2022 Schedule

The driver’s meeting was mostly presented by Anri-san himself ; (brightly coloured jacked in the video below)

After the driver’s meeting, we were shown around the pits, where we were assigned a table with all the necessary goodies. 2 helmets, 2 racing suits, a pair gloves and our transponders used to track each team member whether in pits, on track, etc.

Eyes, JAPAN was represented by 3 drivers: Julia, Peter and Georgii.

Eyes, JAPAN drivers, from left to right – Julia, Peter, Georgii

Additionally, our team had 3 more drivers:  Satou-san, Tannosuke-san and Fujimoto-san.

Team RDS

After trying out all the equipment, we had 1 hour to practice and drive on the track in whatever order we pleased. Unfortunately, the track was still wet from the morning rain that day, which proved to be a challenge, especially for some of our drivers that did not have prior experience driving a go-cart. As famous Colin McRae used to say: “When in doubt, go flat out!” ; which in case of go-carts on wet surface is especially true. If one lifts their foot of the throttle and applies brakes after entry into the corner but before its apex, the front wheels will lose all their grip making it almost impossible to steer. For inexperienced drivers, this is counter intuitive and honestly, quite scary, considering that on this 1km long track, our average speed was 63 km/h.

Even though the practice sessions were quite challenging, we worked out our strategy for the actual race, and each of us got some seat time to familiarize themselves with the track and go-cart. We all drove one go-cart, number 2, Evangelion R. (A bit of a hidden reference for anime fans)

EvaR Go-cart

Therefore, we also had to come up with strategy for switching drivers throughout the race. It was a 3-hour-long race after all. We agreed on 15 minutes, per driver and then fast driver swap in the pits. Also, as per the rules, it was required for each team to pit-in at least 6 times throughout the race. In the end, we agreed to swap 12 times in total, each driver experiencing the race for 30 minutes, in two 15-minute blocks.

One of our driver changes can be seen in this video:

In between the practice sessions in full set-up (picture below), we enjoyed an exhibition race of professional go-cart drivers in their 2-stroke racing machines, exhibition drive from a motocross rider and some tasty catering.

Georgii’s practice run

During the side-events, the weather was getting better, warmer, and the track was becoming drier. So regrettably, the seat time we got earlier that day was not so useful for the main race as the conditions changed significantly enough, that we could just forget about the previously found grip and speed limits of the track.

I was appointed to be the first driver of the race, so I had the honours to launch off of the starting grid.

Team ready to race!

During the first two hours, we experienced couple of issues ; I spun out on the second lap of the race, avoiding a possible collision with another driver, which cost us precious time. Other drivers also had small mishaps, spin outs and occasional “body-checks” with others. All within motor sport’s racing spirit though!

The biggest bummer was that for about half an hour of the race, we didn’t notice that 2 of our transponders were not working, hence the scoring system wasn’t counting any of the laps we did during this time. We fell into the last place, then caught up to second last place without using the dysfunctional transposers, sharing 4 of them between the 6 of us. And we continued racing that way until the end.

The driver to cross the finish line under chequered flag was Georgii, and he did it in style! Check out the last 15 minutes of the race captured in these two videos:

Overall, we finished 13th, after receiving some bonus laps for our issues with the transponders. Considering all in all, I personally think that is pretty decent, but feel free to disagree 🙂

In conclusion, the CEO of RDS, Anri Sugihara-san, a good friend of our CEO, Jun Yamadera-san organized a great event which we thoroughly enjoyed and we hope that a small present from us was at least as enjoyable as this extraordinary experience.

Eyes, JAPAN drivers and Anri Sugihara – CEO of RDS

Thank you very much for the invite, Anri-san! We hope we can participate next year as well, and improve our go-carting skills further!