Carlos Checa stole the headlines during the 'Special Stage' ahead of this weekend's Coca Cola Zero Suzuka 8 Hours, pushing earlier pace-setter James Toseland back down the starting grid.
The Spaniard posted a best time of 2m 07.587s aboard the Honda Team HRC 33 he is sharing over the course of the weekend with Tadayuki Okada, some eight tenths of a second quicker than Toseland's earlier effort for Honda Team HRC 11. Indeed, the World Superbike Championship leader was only able to lodge the fourth-quickest lap in the Special Stage, and he and team-mate Ryuichi Kiyonari will consequently begin the endurance event behind the Yamaha Racing 21 entry of Katsuyuki Nakasuga and Nobuyuki Osaki (2m 07.806s) and the Yoshimura Suzuki with Jomo 34 of Yukio Kagayama and Kosuke Akiyoshi (2m 07.969s).
Like Superpole, the Special Stage featured the two riders from the ten-fastest teams in Friday's qualifying session going head-to-head on one flying lap against the clock to determine the leading grid positions for the race.
The session's biggest gainer was the Honda FCC TSR 778 of Yusuka Teshima and Shinichi Itoh, with the latter setting a time more than a second quicker than the team's best Friday effort to shoot five places up the order into fifth as the squad bids to add a second consecutive victory in the race to its laurels.
The Kyubo.com team HARC-PRO wound up sixth in the hands of Takashi Yasuda and Yoshiteru Konishi, followed by Kazuki Tokudome and Gaku Kamada aboard the Masked Rider Den-O Honda Dream RT machine, the Team Sakurai Honda 2 entry ridden by Chojun Kameya and Russell Holland, Norick Abe and Jamie Stauffer on the Yamaha Racing 81 bike and the Yoshimura Suzuki with Jomo 12 of Atsushi Watanabe and Dausaku Sakai rounding out the top ten. A total of 70 bikes will begin the race.
“This is a very special and important moment,” Checa remarked afterwards, “but right now we must focus on the race which will be something completely new for me. There are many things to learn ahead of it – the tyres, the philosophy of the race track, the stopping areas. I hope I can give my best without making any major errors.”
