Round 2 of the 2018 Pirelli Super Taikyu Series takes the long-running pro-am endurance championship to the rural town of Murata, just 30 kilometers south of Sendai, and the challenging Sportsland SUGO circuit for two three-hour races around the 3.7 kilometre circuit.

The entire 54-car entry for this weekend’s event has been split into two groups, which will each run their own separate races this weekend: Group 1, which features ST-X, ST-TCR, ST-1, ST-2 and ST-3, will run their race after Group 2, which comprises of the ST-4 and ST-5 classes. 30 cars in Group 1, and 24 cars in Group 2, with plenty of great drivers and teams in both groups.

At the first round of the season at Suzuka Circuit, it was Nissan who took the overall victory after five hours with the #99 GTNET Motor Sports GT-R of Teruhiko Hamano, Kazuki Hoshino, and Kiyoto Fujinami.

GTNET Motor Sports came out the victors in a dramatic race, ahead of the Kondo Racing team, and their #24 ThreeBond Nissan Gakuen GT-R (Yuudai Uchida/Tomonobu Fujii/Kazuki Hiramine), who were the winners at Sugo last season in yet another race with some contact and controversy.

Nissan’s trio of GT-Rs have been strong to start the season and are poised to be the favorites to win this event for a third straight year. But the #777 D’station Porsche (Satoshi Hoshino/Seiji Ara/Tsubasa Kondo) was a competitive third place at Suzuka earlier this month, and Phoenix Racing Asia’s trio of Audi R8 LMS GT3s also put in a respectable showing in their series debut, they’ll be cars to look out for to challenge Nissan’s grip on the top of ST-X.

ST-X is short one car with Rn-sports skipping this event to prepare for June’s Fuji Super TEC 24 Hours, but in ST-TCR, the field grows by one this weekend.

Audi Team Mars make their debut at Sugo, with the #65 L&JR Watch Audi RS3 LMS driven by Daisuke Imamura, Masanobu Kato, and Hiroki Kokuzawa. This gives Audi a fourth competitive entry that could finally push them to their very first ST-TCR victory after several near misses.

But the Honda Civics are still the force to be reckoned with in the class. Last year, Shinji Nakano led the #97 Modulo Civic to victory at Sugo. This year, with his new co-pilots Tadao Uematsu and Hiroki Otsu, they aim to open 2018 with back-to-back victories in class.

There’s intrigue in the lower classes as well, with another good battle on the cards for ST-1 honours between the Porsche Cup cars of D’station Racing (Tatsuya Hoshino/Manabu Orido/Kenji Hama) and Nissoku apr Racing (Jack Ogawa/Masami Kageyama/Ryuichiro Tomita). ST-2 meanwhile will see the dominant TOWA INTEC Racing Subaru WRX STI (Manabu Osawa/Hitoshi Goto/Takuto Iguchi/Mizuki Ishizaka) try and fend off their chief rivals, the dual Lancer Evos of Shinryo Racing Team.

ST-3 has a surprising addition to the grid in the form of Nissan GT500 star Katsumasa Chiyo, who takes over from the injured Yusaku Shibata in the #9 MP Racing Nissan Fairlady Z33!

Chiyo will have his work cut out for him with a new team and an aging vehicle, but historically, Sugo has been a strong track for the Z-cars. The top squads in ST-3 still remain the #38 Advics Tracy Sports Lexus IS350 (Makoto Hotta/Ryohei Sakaguchi/Morio Nitta) that won at Sugo, and the #62 Denso Le Beausset Lexus RC350 (Koki Saga/Kenta Yamashita/Ritomo Miyata), plus the two Nissan Z34s of Okabe Jidosha Motorsport, who won here a year ago.

On down to Group 2, and the talk of the group has been the #86 TOM’s Spirit Toyota 86 which has been the standard bearer in the ST-4 class.

Last year, TOM’s Spirit won at Sugo to kick off what is now a six-race winning streak that has extended into the season-opening round at Suzuka earlier this month. Can the all-star trio of Takamitsu Matsui, Sho Tsuboi, and Yuichi Nakayama bring their red, white and silver Toyota 86 to ST-4 victory for a seventh consecutive race?

Another long streak in ST-4 to watch for involves the #13 Endless 86 (Ryo Ogawa/Tsubasa Takahashi/Masaya Hanazato/Ryosuke Kure), which has racked up 16 consecutive podiums in class dating all the way back to the end of 2015. They’re going to be a genuine threat to win, so too will the #54 TC Corse iRacing Mazda Roadster NC (Teruaki Kato/Yuui Tsutsumi/Yuya Hiraki), with two stellar young drivers and a capable car.

They’re joined in this group by the ST-5 class, where the current-gen Mazda Roadster NDs are favoured to win, led by the reigning series champion #88 Murakami Motors Roadster (Hiroyuki Murakami/Takeshi Wakitani/Kuninori Nakane), and the Suzuka class winners, the #2 Team221 Roadster (Katsuhiko Tsutsui/Ryuichiro Otsuka/Junichiro Yamashita/Masaki Tanaka).

There’s always a Nürburgring-like vibe to every Super Taikyu event. And with 8 drivers in this race also entered in this year’s 24 Hours of the Nürburgring (Takeshi Tsuchiya, Takamitsu Matsui, Yuichi Nakayama, Takuto Iguchi, Hideki Yamauchi, Junichi Umemoto, Kouichi Okumura, and Yutaka Seki) this will certainly be a fun warm-up for the great race in Germany.

The Group 2 race starts on Saturday at 2:30 PM JST (local time), and the Group 1 race starts Sunday at 2:00 PM JST – with both sessions carried live and with limited interruption on Super Taikyu TV, the series’ official YouTube Live streaming channel.

Images courtesy of the Super Taikyu Organisation (STO)