In 1982, the abolishment of the Group 5 class brought about many changes to the world of motorsport, one in return being the birth of the fabled Group C category. A class which produced some of the wildest racing thoroughbreds capable of exceeding four-hundred kilometers per hour 30 years before the Bugatti Veyron made it accessible to the public domain. Unlike the regulations presented during the final years of Group 5 where a vehicle must at least have its original hood (or bonnet), roof, doors, and rail panels intact, Group C wasn't tied to any design limitations, with the only restrictions being a minimum weight of eight-hundred kilograms and a fuel tank capacity of one-hundred liters, which could only be filled up five times during the course of an ongoing race. With almost unlimited freedom, manufacturers toyed with technology in hopes to create the best rendition of a racing-focused sportscar. Huge spoilers, sleek aero, excessive use of turbo fans, and massive turbos all played key roles in the story of Group C.
With the rising fame of Group C racing, particularly with FIA's creation of the World Endurance Championship (or WEC in short) series, Japan took advantage of the booming situation and in 1983 created its own rendition of the titular endurance racing series. Dubbed the All Japan Sports Prototype Endurance Championship (JSPC), it was a way for JAF to introduce sports prototype car racing to the motorsport fans of Japan, and with Japan experiencing the bubble boom during that time period, it couldn't have gone any better. Initially the competition comprised of a cocktail of newly formed Group C, ex-Group 5, and open-top Group 6 race cars, with the races being held in two major Japanese circuits; Suzuka Circuit and Fuji Speedway, where the former would host national 500 km and 1000 km endurance races, while the latter would be integrated into international WEC calendars instead, a return for Fuji Speedway after 16 years of absence in the international motorsports world.
Since the very beginning, Japanese manufacturers battled to overthrow the then reigning Porsche 956 and 962 Group C prototypes, a car synonymous with the motorsports scene of the 80s. In 1983, Japan has already made efforts to try and counter the Stuttgart behemoth, Nissan came up with a heavily-revised version of their Group 5 Skyline "Super Silhouette" car, now chopped and dropped to make it eligible for Group C regulations. Meanwhile the Toyota-affiliated TOM'S teamed up with DOME to create the 83C (also known as the RC-83) where for JSPC specifications, was powered by Toyota's own home-brewed 4T-G race engine. However, during this period of time, Japan was still in a trial and error state when it comes to Group C, and hence for the first year, all three races were dominated by nothing but Porsche 956s, with both the Suzuka 500 KM and 1000 KM Endurance being won by drivers Vern Schuppan and Fujita Naohiro in a TRUST-backed Porsche 956, while the international Japan WEC Endurance race at Fuji being won by the factory entered Rothmans Porsche 956 driven by 956 maestros Stefan Bellof and Derek Bell. The season itself ended with Schuppan and Fujita scoring a 1-2 victory with the TRUST Porsche team.
1984 saw the brief addition of Tsukuba Circuit into the JSPC calendar, where due to its small and complex nature, was favored for smaller Group C Junior and Group 5 racecars instead (seen in video below). Although still far from a outright championship victory, Japan started to move up the ranks, with the aforementioned RRC Tsukuba Circuit 4 Hour Endurance race being won by Mazda and their 83C Junior Group C prototype (not to be confused with the TOM'S DOME 83C). Nevertheless, the crown champion for the Suzuka 500 KM Endurance was still held on to by Schuppan and Yoshimi Katayama in the TRUST 956, meanwhile its longer 1000 KM counterpart was won by a different Team Nova, albeit using the same vehicle as the former. WEC endurance results also show a win for the factory Rothmans team yet again. However, it was during this year that Lotec claimed their only seasonal victory with their BMW-powered M1C, driven by Nagasaka Naoki and Suzuki Keiichi with a 1 point lead over Schuppan and Katayama in the TRUST Racing Porsche. All in all the first two years didn't seem too bright for Japanese manufacturers, but they weren't far off.
1985 saw a total of six rounds from the previous three, with the three new additions being a variation of domestic Fuji Speedway endurance races; the Fuji 500 KM Endurance, the Fuji 500 Mile Endurance, and the Fuji 1000 KM Endurance, in some ways mirroring the 500 and 1000 KM endurance race style of Suzuka Circuit in the years past. Meanwhile, the previous year's Tsukuba Circuit 4 Hour Endurance was abolished. For the first time in 2 years, two Japanese manufacturers managed to snatch victory for two of the six rounds of the championship. With the first victory being DOME and their 84C prototype snatching first at the Suzuka 500 KM Endurance race, driven by Brit Geoff Lees and Swedish Eje Elgh, finally defeating the 2-year reign of the TRUST Racing Porsches. WEC Japan also saw a win from a Japanese manufacturer in the form of a March 85G driven by Nissan royalty Hoshino Kazuyoshi, the late Hagiwara Akira, and Matsumoto Kenji. However, even three years on, they still haven't be able to defeat the reigning Porsches, with the late legend Takahashi Kunimitsu scoring the championship win in an Advan Nova Porsche 962C, a feat which he would maintain consecutively for the better part of 2 years, thus cementing the car as the most successful racer in the history of JSPC.
1987 still saw the same number of races being held at the same venues. However, Sendai Hi-Land was considered to be an extra venue for the sport at the time, before somehow being cancelled for unknown reasons. In this season, Toyota Team TOM'S managed to score victories for two of the Suzuka Endurance races in their 87C Prototype driven by Sekiya Masanori, Geoff Lees, and Alan Jones. Despite winning two out of the six races, and despite conquering the whole entirety of the Suzuka endurance set, Porsches still had the upper hand with the overall first and second championship wins being taken by none other than the Advan Nova Porsche. However, with second place being claimed by Toyota in the manufacturer's championship, it wasn't long before Japan finally fulfills its goal of dethroning what was arguably the sportscar endurance king of the 1980s. But...
When the 1988 season rolled around, things took quite the turn for Japanese makes, as almost none of them won first place in any of the six events in the championship. All Suzuka, domestic, and international Fuji Speedway races were all dominated by Porsche 962s from either the From-A team, Advan Nova, or the eccentric Leyton House Racing Team. Even then, Japan still manages to hold out on the competition by placing second, third, and fourth on the manufacturer's championship with Nissan-March, Toyota, and Mazda respectively. It was also at this year when Toyota upped their game with a newly revised 88C-V, now using a R32V 3.2L turbo V8 engine as opposed to the old 4T-G turbo 4-cylinder, hoping that with a newly developed carbon monocoque body made by DOME, that the 88C-V would soon become the answer to defeat the reigning Porsches. The 1989 season marked the first time where the JSPC calendar wasn't integrated to the international WSPC (the new name of WEC since 1986) schedule, as the WSPC race was shifted to April in Suzuka instead, making it an entirely stand-alone competition. By this time the Porsches were soon getting outdated, and it became the last time where Takahashi-san's Advan 962C would claim the driver's championship victory.
As the saying goes: Seven's the lucky number, and finally, after almost seven years of research in development, 1990 saw the first time a Japanese make winning the coveted Group C racing league. With the addition of SUGO International Circuit into the race calendar, the total number of events grew to seven (coincidentally) races in total. However, heavy downpour during the second round of the Fuji 1000 KM Endurance Race caused the event to be cancelled, turning down the event count down to six. Nevertheless, all six races were conquered by TOM'S Toyota and Nissan Motorsports works teams with their 90C-V and R90CP prototypes driven by the likes of Sekiya-san, Hoshino-san, and Hasemi-san respectively. It signaled a huge improvement in the development of Japanese racing sports cars, and one which would continue to develop over the remaining two years of the championship's life, dominated by nothing but Japanese brands.
However, by this time the regulations of Group C has been altered by the FIA, now in an attempt to convert the class into a formula series, teams were now allowed to use F1-sourced 3.5 L engines. This soon caused financial problems with many teams, as many were unable to keep up with the exorbitant maintenance costs, and hence, Group C's popularity, which at the time was almost equal to Formula One, quickly skydived. By 1993, due to the severe unpopularity of the class, the World Sports Prototype Championship was abolished, and only remnants of still-willing-to-run Group C cars ran at Le Mans of the same year. This in turn caused the abolishment of JSPC as well in 1992, considering that their main international racing series was laid to rest. However, JAF was keen to keep the series alive, and in an attempt to do so, they renamed the series to "Inter Circuit League", which didn't work out as planned. As a last ditch attempt to slowly fade the at-that-point obsolete Group C cars, the racing event would later be dissolved into a series mixing in prototype C-cars with GT cars coming from the BPR Global GT Championship. That series would later be known as the All Japan Grand Touring Championship, or by its shorter abbreviation, JGTC.
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