The 2006 Suzuka 8 Hours has been won by the #778 FCC TSR Honda of Shinichi Ito and Takeshi Tsujimura, with the #101 Toy Story Honda of Yoshiteru Konishi and Tsuyoshi Yasuda in second and the #12 Yoshimura Suzuki of Nobuatsu Aoki and Atsushi Watanabe third.
39-year-old veteran Ito started the race from pole position and quickly established the order of play by leading a dramatic first hour, which began with
MotoGP star
Colin Edwards crashing - after being clipped by another rider - on the very first lap.
The Texan remounted and quickly worked his way past 20 riders, from 52nd position, but his R1 had been damaged in the initial incident and stopped on lap six. Colin's Yamaha Blue Racing team-mate Noriyuki Haga did not even get to ride.
Hours three and four saw the race pattern set with Ito and Tsujimura pushing hard to maintain their lead over the Toy Story Harc Pro pairing with Yoshimura holding a solid third place. The two Seven Star Honda teams were fourth and fifth, but the number 7 machine of Ryuichi Kiyonari and Makoto Tamada was experiencing 'front end judder' attributed to brake problems on the CBR1000RRW bringing Kiyo into the pits for two unscheduled stops, dropping them to 10th.
The top three held their positions through the next two hours, but Kiyonari and Tamada were fighting back and with two hours to go were up to fifth place and chasing their Seven Star team-mates, Okada and Deguchi, holding fourth - both teams one lap down on the leading trio.
Ito was chasing his third Suzuka 8 Hours victory and was in no mood to slacken the pace as the race entered its final hour, while Tsujimura had yet to win Japan's most prestigious two wheeled race and his determination matched that of his team-mate - the two men pushing running a fast pace through the final hour to win by over a lap from the Toy Story combination of Konishi and Yasuda, with Yoshimura riders Aoki and Watanabe completing the podium.
