Yukio Kagayama and Kohsuke Akiyoshi win Suzuka 300K race

Last year’s Suzuka Eight Hour winners Yukio Kagayama and Kohsuke Akiyoshi have won the 300K race at Suzuka this weekend with the Yoshimura Suzuki team ahead of the big endurance race in Japan next month.

The Japanese pairing beat the official HRC team including one half of last year’s 300K winning team, Riyuichi Kiyonari, and his current World Superbikes Ten Kate Honda team-mate, Carlos Checa, by just over two seconds.

The 300K race reflects which riders will represent which teams in the Eight Hour race on July 7, which will include three British riders.

Jonathan Rea, who rode for one of the HRC outfits in 2007 and won the 300K race with Kiyonari last year, finished fifth after a lap one high-side damaged the number one bike.

Leon Haslam, who had been testing out in Suzuka during the week to potentially run as the second rider to Rea, joined the Team Sakurai Honda team for the 300K race but a lap one incident involving his team-mate, Chojun Kameya, meant the team could only manage a total of nine laps, 43 shy of the winners, after repairing the bike.

Haslam’s British Superbike team-mate Cal Crutchlow also did his part to impress with the Moriwaki squad, finishing eighth overall in his first visit to the circuit with Moriwaki’s All-Japan Superbike representative Tatsuya Yamaguchi.

To get the full reaction from the 300K race pick up Wednesday’s MCN.