2006 Japan Le Mans Challenge


The 2006 Japan Le Mans Challenge season was the first ever season for the Japan Le Mans Challenge, a series created by SERO and run under sanctioning from the ACO to follow 24 Hours of Le Mans rules. It began May 14, 2006 and ended October 29, 2006 after 3 races.

Pre-season

In the buildup to the first season of JLMC, it was apparent from the start that unlike the Le Mans Series in Europe, JLMC would not start off with great success. A lack of commitment from major Japanese teams, especially those involved in Super GT, meant that the entry list for the season was small. An official pre-season test at Sportsland Sugo saw only 8 cars showing up. Even with this, more teams promised to eventually make it to the JLMC grid, including Team Goh, who had earned fame when they won the 2005 24 Hours of Le Mans with the conquering Audi R8.
However, of the teams that did show up, few had quality machinery. The entire LMP2 class was small sportscars that did not actually fit LMP2 regulations. LMP1 was able to boast some machinery that fit LMP rules with a Zytek 05S while there was promise of a new Courage LC70 for Mugen Motorsports on the way as the season went on.
GT classes was made up of a large amount of machinery from Super GT, with an ex-Prodrive Ferrari 550-GTS and JLOC's Super GT Lamborghini Murcielago RG-1 joined by a privateer Mosler MT900R in GT1. GT2 was also only able to claim a few competitive entries, with some two Porsche 911 GT3s being mixed with a privateer cars that did not fully reach ACO GT2 specs.
These competitors allowed for the entry list of a mere 12 competitors for the first round at Sportsland Sugo.

Schedule

RndRaceCircuitDate
1Sportsland Sugo 1000 kmSportsland SUGOMay 14
2Motegi 1000 kmTwin Ring MotegiJuly 2
3Okayama 1000 kmOkayama International CircuitOctober 29

Season results

Overall winner in bold.
RndCircuitLMP1 Winning TeamLMP2 Winning TeamGT1 Winning TeamGT2 Winning Team
RndCircuitLMP1 Winning DriversLMP2 Winning DriversGT1 Winning DriversGT2 Winning Drivers
1Sugo #66 Jidosha Koubou Myst #18 Aim Sports #20 Hitotsuyama Racing #27 Team Kawamura
1Sugo Takahiko Shimazawa
Masaya Kono
Kenji Takeya
Shinsuke Yamakazi
Yuji Aso
Masaru Tomizawa
Tatsuya Kataoka
Naoki Hattori
Eiichi Tajima
Koji Aoyama
Shinichi Takagi
Morio Nitta
2Motegi #66 Jidosha Koubou Myst #4 MYZ #20 Hitotsuyama Racing #27 Team Kawamura
2Motegi Takahiki Shimazawa
Hiroshi Ohta
Kenji Takeya
Yuya Sakamoto
Yoshihisa Namekata
Tomonobu Fujii
Tatsuya Kataoka
Naoki Hattori
Eiichi Tajima
Koji Aoyama
Shinichi Takagi
Morio Nitta
3Okayama #16 Team Mugen #4 MYZ #88 JLOC #930 Sunburst Rush
3Okayama Seiji Ara
Haruki Kurosawa
Yuya Sakamoto
Yoshihisa Namekata
Tomonobu Fujii
Koji Yamanishi
Yasatuka Hinoi
Wada-Q
Yutaka Matsushima
Takeru Inui
Masashi Kakuichi

Drivers' Championship

LMP1 standings

LMP2 standings

GT1 standings

GT2 standings

Teams' Championship

Points are awarded to finishers based on how many cars were entered in each class. For classes with a lower car count, the top five were awarded points in the order of 5-4-3-2-1. Classes with more entries were awarded points for the top eight in the order of 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1.
Only the top finishing car in a team scores points towards the championship.

LMP1 standings

LMP2 standings

GT1 standings

GT2 standings