2010 FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship(APRC) round 2,”Rally Hokkaido” (also round of Asia Cup, Japanese Rally Championship) was took place from 21-23 May, based around Obihiro, Hokkaido. From CUSCO RACING, Hiroshi Yanagisawa/Yoshimasa Nakahara (Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X) entered as an APRC register. Also Asia Cup driver Yuya Sumiyama/Naoki Kase(Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X) was accepted to APRC point scoring as Wild card entry by recommendation from ASN. Additional to them, national championship crew Akira Bamba/Takahiro Yasui in Suzuki Swift Sport temporally entered APRC category this time.
After bitter tasted opening round in Malaysia, CUSCO RACING determined to revenge at this home event with well preparation. For Japan round, team welcomed Bamba and become three cars array. Team also had high motivation with this circumstance. On pre-event test, Bamba who would face to first gravel rally with Swift tasted newly designed gravel suspension. He got very well feeling with saying “It made performance very stable”. Two Lancer drivers, Yanagisawa and Sumiyama also made very promising start.
This year’s Rally Hokkaido again set its service park at Kita-Aikoku in Obihiro City where formerly used for WRC round. Remote service for Day 1 was set at Rikubetsu, 100km North-East from Obihiro. This season’s calendar made this Hokkaido round change from previous July to end of May which offered better condition as average air temperature was comparably lower. However, in term of weather, the difficulties still remain from usual Rally Hokkaido as it was quite changeable. On Day1, drivers saw partial heavy rain sometime, and also overnight rain on Saturday left some wet on Sunday morning’s loop. Even it was foggy in early morning on this day. Additionally, “Perhaps because road in this North region just after thawing of snow, wet gravel came up after road was rutted.”(Sumiyama). It proved that Hokkaido round was still formidable event.
The event was kicked off by Ceremonial start in Kita-Aikoku on 21 May followed by first run of Super SS(1.20km) which was set in adjacent to the service park. Proper competition was started from following day. The route which was consisted by total 220.97km, 18 stages including four run of Super SS used similar area with previous year, however each stage had slight changes which made stages higher speed range as some area had speed over 200km/h. From the result, number of crew retired. However, CUSCO RACING had kind of strength this time.The opening Super SS on Friday, Yanagisawa made well start with setting identical third fastest time with Alistair McRae in Proton Satria Neo S2000. The second day of Day 1 on Saturday, Sumiyama had brake trouble just after start SS3, second stage of the day. His machine lost all of brake oil. Having this problem, Sumiyama completed the stage, but lost almost two minutes. He made quick maintenance with onboard spare parts and run SS4 of short stage at dirt-trial circuit with having brake for only three wheels. This was only problem which team had through the whole of this event. In term of battle for APRC victory, two of Proton S2000 retired in early of the day. In other hand, three drivers including Yanagisawa made close battle within 10 seconds. Yanagisawa finished the day in 3rd place, 8.4 seconds adrift from APRC leader Gaurav Gill and 5.1 seconds from Taguchi in 2nd. Even lost some time in early, Sumiyama also finished the day in 4th place. Bamba in Swift showed well performance and placed 15th overall and top among N2 class.
The battle among top 3 went to Day 2 with huge gap to fourth place. However rally leader Gill who started having differential problem from end of previous day went back due to hitting rear to pole which damaged rear suspension. Now the battle went to straight fight between Taguchi and Yanagisawa. After SS15, their gap was only 9.9 seconds. Yanagisawa took 1.4 seconds back from Taguchi on SS16, but Taguchi regained 0.3 seconds on SS17. At that time, remaining stage was only 1.2km long Super SS which meant almost the battle was decided. Yanagisawa eventually finished in 2nd, only 9.9 seconds slower than the winner.
Meanwhile, Sumiyama had trouble free day on Day 2 and consistently set strong time behind tops or S2000 machine who restarted using Superally. He finished the event in 4th among APRC and again gained points for Asia-cup. Bamba also completed the event with 12th overall which resulted top of N2 class and 2WD NA engine under 2000cc machine. 
Hiroshi Yanagisawa
“To stop bad cycle from Malaysia, I thought that I had to complete the event, so I was too cautious on first loop of Day1 perhaps. The gap which I had from the tops on the first day was too large. I should to set good time from the first, however one of my target at this rally was building my mental up, so I really need to avoid retire. But even the event had many retirement, I had trouble free run through the weekend, so overall, it was good event.”
Yuya Sumiyama
“I have been getting close to top drivers year by year, so now my main task is going that how improve my time further more. Not making mistake, recovering from mistake, and also in term of machine development, we have got many things to do. We only can found those facts when we completed the event, so I really learnt that how completing the event was important from the event.”」
Akira Bamba
“This was my first gravel rally with Swift, but my feeling from the machine was really comfortable in honest. The new gravel suspension for Swift was really stable and was able to absorb input from gaps well. As driving 2WD NA machine, running ascent road was tough, but on decent section, I was able to made hard push thank to advantage of the suspension. I was checking national championship drivers, and my time was quite competitive with them. With having three machines, team was really motivated, so I really enjoyed this rally.”」
