On 9 October (Mon), a ‘Rally Japan 2023 One Month Countdown Event’ was held in Nagoya City as part of the COPPA CENTRO GIAPPONE festival, attracting a large crowd.
On this, the last day of the three-day weekend, a number of programs were prepared to greatly promote Rally Japan. The event started with a talk show at Hisaya-odori Park in Nagoya City. Motorsport commentator, Pierre Kitagawa welcomed Toshihiko Ota, Chairman of the Rally Japan Commission, and Takamoto Katsuta from TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRT to the event.
During the talk show, details of the highlight of this year’s event, the Toyota Stadium SSS course , was unveiled. The unveiling of the course on the stage was the first time Katsuta had seen it, and he appeared to be very enthusiastic about it. The winner’s trophy of this year’s Rally Japan was also unveiled. The trophy, which was unveiled by Chairman Ota and Katsuta, is made of ceramic and has a design unique to the Japan event. It will be exciting to see which team will receive the trophy at the rally.
On the next stage, following the Rally Japan PR event in June, female announcers from five stations in the Tokai region, who are members of the Media Partner Support Group, came to the event again to help promote Rally Japan. The announcers had attended Rally Japan last year, and spoke about the appeal of the dynamic rally driving, and other topics of interest.
In the final talk show, members of pop group, SKE48, Hiroka Asai and Natsuki Kamata also appeared with Katsuta. Katsuta gave the two SKE48 members a fun lecture on rally terminology and the highlights of Rally Japan, and the two SKE48 members promised to come and support the event in November.
Afterwards, the event moved to the Meijo Park South Playground, where rally cars, including the Toyota Yaris WRC, performed demo runs. Norihiko Katsuta appeared for the first run, followed by Takamoto Katsuta for the second and third runs. He drifted through the mud, which was wet from the rain that had fallen until that morning. It was a truly world-class display of skill and excitement.
