Twin Ring Motegi

Twin Ring Motegi (ツインリンクもてぎ) is a motorsport circuit located in Hiyama Motegi City, Haga District, Tochigi,, Japan. This circuit was built by Honda in 1987 to bring the IndyCar Series to Japan and is also used as a laboratory for Honda.

Design
The name "Twin Ring" was given to this circuit because it contains two racetracks. The first is an oval used for Indy racing with a length of 2.4 km, and the main circuit area with 14 bends with a length of 4.8 km. Apart from these two main circuits the Twin Ring Motegi also has two other configurations called the East Road Course, which is 1.4 km long and has 6 bends. The other configuration is called the West Road Course which is 3.4 km long with 11 turns and there is another circuit outside the main circuit area called the North Short Course which is used for karting racing. The racers circle this circuit clockwise (clockwise). The Twin Ring Motegi is also known as the stop and go circuit because it has a series of long straights and slow turns where at some point the racer will press down on the brake lever once at top speed on the straight track. This is because the Twin Ring Motegi is used as a test track or laboratory by Honda in developing its racing motorbikes. So this circuit must be able to thoroughly test the entire motorbike (chassis, engine, brake, transmission, tire and others).

MotoGP Championship
The Motegi circuit was first included in the MotoGP championship calendar in 1999, when Kenny Roberts, Jr. came out as the winner on this circuit. Suzuka Circuit then held a Japanese MotoGP 2000-2003, but was banned by Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) which stated that it was not safe for Suzuka to hold a Motogp after the death of a Japanese racer, Daijiro Kato at the circuit Suzuka in 2003. Therefore, since 2004 the Japanese MotoGP was moved to the Twin Ring Motegi circuit.

Although the Twin Ring Motegi is owned by Honda, from 2004 to 2012 Ducati was the manufacturer who won the most times on this circuit. Ducati has recorded winning 4 times (Loris Capirossi in 2005,2006,2007 and Casey Stoner in 2010), Honda three times, and Yamaha only able to win twice, Honda in 2004, 2011 and 2012 and Yamaha in 2008 and 2009.

The implementation of the season at Twin Ring Motegi was delayed due to  in Tohoku and the leakage of the nuclear plant in Fukushima which is located adjacent to the circuit. The race which was supposed to be held on April 24, 2011 was moved to October 2, 2011. Dani Pedrosa won the race.

NASCAR history
Mike Skinner won the only NASCAR Cup Series exhibition race held at the track in 1998, the Coca-Cola 500. Skinner won driving the No.31 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing. The race was most noted for being the first oval track NASCAR race in Japan as well as being the first in which Dale Earnhardt and his son, Dale Earnhardt Jr., competed with one another, driving No.3 and No.1 Coca-Cola Chevrolets, respectively. The track also held the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West in 1999 with Kevin Richards getting the win.

Other facilities
In addition to the main racing complex, Twin Ring Motegi features a second road course (called the "North Short Course") for karting and Formula 4 events, as well as a 1/4 mile dirt track for modified and sprint car racing. In addition, the FIM Trials series visits the track every year for the world trials championship. Therefore, an outdoor trials course exists on the facility.

Outside of racing, Twin Ring has the Honda Collection Hall, which features historic Honda racing and production cars and motorcycles, and Honda Fan Fun Lab, which features Honda's next generation technologies such as robotics, fuel-cell vehicles and aviation. Honda also operates a technology demonstration center on the site, as well as educational centers.

In 2009, a cafe opened which was named after the Gran Turismo video games.

Track difficulties
Twin Ring is a separate-but-combined road-and-oval track (as opposed to the "roval" tracks common in the United States), and the decision to include a full road course contained largely within the oval necessitated design compromises. For spectators, sightlines can be extremely poor for road course races, as the grandstands are much further back than usual. The oval course blocks the view of much of the road course, including the best passing point on the track, and several large-screen televisions are needed. Seating outside the grandstand is limited to areas of the infield and along the 750-metre backstraight of the road course.

Track access is a major concern, with only two entry and exit points by a two-lane public road. Motegi is not a particularly large town, and accommodation is virtually non-existent close to the track, except for the on-site hotel. Train links to the area are extremely limited (the major regional lines, JR East and Tobu Railway do not service the area), nor has a planned superhighway been completed. Thus the stated track capacity (about 65,000) is dictated largely by traffic flow, not by actual seating capacity (estimated to be nearly 100,000 for road-course events, 80,000 for the oval).

In 2011 Casey Stoner and Jorge Lorenzo proposed to boycott the MotoGP race out of fears for their health from radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant even though all the independent scientific experts including the World Health Organization and Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency had stated that it is safe to live permanently 80 km or more from the plant. Motegi is more than 120 km from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. In the end, all the teams showed up for the race.

In popular media
As a large recently constructed Japanese circuit, Twin Ring Motegi has and continues to be utilised virtually in a large number of electronic video games, both in arcade machines and in PC and console games for home use.
 * In Honda's 2005 Clio Awards winning commercial "Impossible Dream", the sequence in which the BAR Formula One car is driven into the bridge was filmed at the circuit.
 * During the opening sequence of Kamen Rider Agito, the three main Kamen Riders are shown riding around the circuit, as Honda is the series sponsor.
 * During the ending sequence of Engine Sentai Go-onger, the series' characters are shown dancing on the main straight of the road course. The racetrack is revealed in the series as the primary Go-onger team's origin (it is known that Saki Rouyama, Go-on Yellow, works there), and was used (along with the Honda Collection Hall) in the final scene from "Road Of Justice", the final episode of the series.
 * In Super Hero Taisen GP: Kamen Rider 3, a race called the Rider Grand Prix will take place in a variation of the Twin Ring Motegi, owned by Shocker in the altered timeline.
 * The track is available in racing games such as Forza Motorsport 2, Forza Motorsport 3, Forza Motorsport 4, Gran Turismo 4, Gran Turismo for PSP, Gran Turismo 5, Gran Turismo 6, iRacing.com and RaceRoom Racing Experience.
 * During the first tankery battle in Girls und Panzer Das Finale Part 1, Ooarai Girls Academy against BC Freedom High School, members of Leopon Team, the VK 4501 (P) reference the track, saying they wished they re-opened the oval layout.