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  *Comments on Fuji International Speedway:*
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  1.   RaceFanX posted:
  05.10.2015 - 1:09 pm
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This was the first track in Asia to host a Formula 1 Grand Prix, the
famous 1976 Japanese Grand Prix. The Toyota car company has owned the
track since 2000.

Fuji was the first race track to be featured in a video game, it was the
basis for the track in the arcade classic "Pole Position."

The track was originally planned to be a high-banked oval for stock car
racing but that proved economically unviable to build so the plan was
abandoned after the construction of just one high banked turn, nicked
the Daiichi. The Daiichi proved to be too dangerous to race on and was
abandoned when the track was reconfigured in 1974.


  2.   RaceFanX posted:
  04.05.2020 - 5:32 pm
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The road cycling races during the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, now being
held in 2021 because of delays related to the coronavirus, will use this
race track as their finish line.


  3.   RaceFanX posted:
  04.13.2021 - 2:54 pm
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Fuji Speedway hosted a USAC Champ Car exhibition race in 1966 and almost
became the first Japanese track to host a championship IndyCar race two
decades later. CART announced its 1989 race schedule at the end of its
1988 season and it initially included a race at Fuji scheduled for the
following March as its season opener. Almost immediately after the race
was announced some off-track political battles between Formula 1 and
CART led to its cancelation. FISA threatened Fuji with sanctions if the
race went ahead and it was canceled against CART's wishes. F1 was making
a push to prevent the series it competed with from racing
internationally but even its best efforts could only keep the
then-growing CART at bay temporarily; the American series started racing
in Australia in 1991, added Brazil in 1996, and finally started racing
in Japan with an event on the Twin Ring Motegi oval in 1998.

Had the track been built as an oval as initially planned it would have
been the centerpiece of a new Nippon NASCAR series that would have
launched in Japan alongside it. The series would have featured NASCAR
surplus stock cars but it never got off the ground after the track's
financial woes and the change to building a road course.


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