The Tragic Story of Super GT’s Most Dominant Champion 

I hope videos like this become a fully fledged series on your channel. Videos about teams, cars and drivers that aren't talked about much or are slowly becoming forgotten. I love your Gran Turismo content but stuff like this is quickly becoming my favourite.

Shingo Tachi: The driver I want to be. Shingo Shoji: The driver that I am.

Hearing the story of Tachi, it draws comparason to Stefan Bellof. Whilst Bellof did make it to F1 in 1984 with an awful Tyrrell and overperformed in it (3rd place in Monaco in 1984), he was contacted by Ferrari in 1985 as Enzo Ferrari liked him and wanted to have him to drive the red car for 1986. However, Bellof was killed that same year in a Group C race at Spa aged 27 and was never able to fulfill his potential. Same goes for Tachi, who like Bellof, he was also taken too soon before everyone could see his full potential unleashed.

That mr2 was available in gt2 as a racing modification for the mr2 road version and it had both blue and silver options, i'm just surprised that such a successfull and dominant car didn't get a official livery in the game, specially after he tragically passad away at such a young age, it could've been a very kind tribute

As you can probably tell by my profile picture, i love the tsuchiya mr2, its great to see a video around its dominant 1998 season

8:38 Jesus Christ. That is one of the most horrifying airborne crashes I have ever seen, on par with Scott Dixon's 2017 Indy 500 flip, and Alex Peroni's 2019 crash at Monza's F3 race. RIP Takashi Yokoyama. Poor guy was only 25.

Surprised by how low-key his MR2's livery was compared to the other cars on the track. Almost looks like he just showed up in his street car and slapped a few stickers on the side.

i had never heard about shingo, such a sad ending to a really short but successful career

Today is March 11th 2024, it is now 25 years since Shingo Tachi left us, and left a gaping hole in the world of motorsports. One of the best rising talents, gone to the wind. May his spirit watch us race in happy and pure peace. RIP Shingo.

0:36 Fun fact/not so fun fact (depending on how one views this), from 2004 until 2021, the world of global motorsport was dominated by people named Sebastian. You had Sébastian Loeb putting clinics on the WRC from 2004-12, Sebastian Vettel whooping ass in F1 from 2010-13, and the presently mentioned Sébastian Ogier picking up where Loeb left off from 2013-21.

8:07 I thought that was supposed to be the scary incident. Seeing that helmet get pinned against the side of the cockpit definitely shook me. Then the real accident happened and I nearly pissed myself.

18:38 I know it's slightly off topic, but that is the most laser accurate apex I have seen in my life.

Wait a minute, was Tachi teammates with The Stig?

Rofl. What I appreciate with your content and especially this style of videos is that it's not a video on Group B, Formula 1 or Valentino Rossi for the 11th thousand time. It's something that very very few people on youtube cover. The esoteric topics you choose are a breath of fresh air the motorsport side of youtube needs. And the fact that you made this video out of preservation for something you are passionate about is something I can highly relate to. Big ups to you!

Great video. May Shingo-san find peace & be proud of those carrying on his legacy. I wish GT7 made his legendary Tsuchiya MR2 GT300 available to drive so we could honor his memory in-game.

While watching the video I was hoping the "tragic" part of the video title was because of the accidents that happened around him and not his own life. Motorsports and sports in general have so many stories that deserve to be turned at least into movies, so these documentaries highlighting lesser known heroes is the best part of YT for me. Also this guy was inverse Lance Stroll, even avoiding signing with his dad's team in Super GT. Anti nepotism driver, gotta love him even more.

Shingo Tachi's story reminds me of Jeff Krosnoff, which was also a rising star that passed too early.He was also a Toyota factory driver, and raced in JGTC for SARD in 1994-95, which can be seen as a prelude of Toyota's following GT success. With out Jeff's developing effort, it's hard to say whether Toyota would win those championships later on. He also participated in 1994 Le Mans driving a Toyota 94C-V, in which he was originally planned to partner up with the late Roland Ratzenberger. It was sad that he passed too early in 1996 when he was sent to Indy by Toyota. We would never get to see his potential and performance, and it's a shame that his legacy remained unseen and nobody would remember him apart from his horrific death. Stay Hungry, as Jeff would say.

Those beautiful 90s cars made even hotter with Super GT aero kits. And Japanese motorsport stories are always so interesting.

6:08 He beat the Stig!

Are you considering making these types of videos more often? As they refer to a broader audience than gran turismo videos. Also keep up the amazing content 👍👍👍

I wish there was artwork called " Young What if Round Table", of drivers who lost their lives entirely young who had such potential and natural gift to always be remembered by. Each with the vehicle that represented the very thing that showed that bright light of talent.

The Japanese Lost Generation. Shingo Tachi, Hitoshi Ogawa and Takashi Yokoyama. 3 talents that could have become household names in Japan, instead all met their ends in weird, tragic or violent ways

I'm a relatively new motorsports fan, so I don't know much about anything. I think the most tragic part is the lack of information. No one deserves to be forgotten, especially someone who showed so much promise.

My eyes are water-filled. Thanks for taking up the mantle of telling these stories and expanding on legends that would otherwise be lost to time

6:31 Mercedes testing the DAS Stefan, Shingo, Jules, Anthoine, & Craig are the biggest what-ifs race drivers BTW, I wonder if that's the reason why the tiger Supra didn't appeared in GT2??

I remember once looking at Tachi's Wikipedia page but I never had any idea he had a season this dominant in a series that does everything it can to limit the dominance of one driver. Who knows what he could've achieved if he hadn't died

May I be the first to say that you have once again delivered a true banger video in this one just as Tachi's dominant 1998 GT300 season was a true banger itself. Along with your Gran Turismo content, it is an absolute joy when you upload a new Super GT/JGTC related video much like your equally banger video on my favorite GT500 car and team, JLOC and their Diablo. JGTC as I like to still call it, played a huge part of my childhood in the form of the GT games like with many others and naturally, is one of my favorite racing series today. As for the Tsuchiya MR2, I've always loved it. It is such an iconic car in GT300 history for what it achived that will likely never happen again. As for Shingo himself, I like to believe that with his level of talent behind the wheel as his 1998 season showed us, that he was going to become one of the true greats of JGTC from 1999 in the No. 6 Esso Tiger Supra and beyond '99. And who knows? Maybe in all of motorsports as a whole. But as sad and tragic as it is, we'll never know for sure. RIP Shingo Tachi. Gone, but will never be forgotten 🙏

That NFS 3 Hot Pursuit Music in the introduction gave me goosebumps. I miss those times...

Makes me wish more car's wide body kits in GT7 were based on racing variations.

I've been playing GT4 lately, and I just bought the Castrol Tom's Supra last night. Impeccable timing with this video!

Shingo is a legend. This is a beautifully narrated about his racing career. The Tsuchiya SW20 is one of the coolest GT300 cars. Both the blue and silver were so simple and looked incredible.

He should be remembered more often, I am not if even in current GT7 has ever mention him yet, but then fans do recreate livery design that related to Shingo Tachi or even mention his name on decal as well, always remembering him.

It's tragic that Shingo Tachi have the bad ending and he deserved to be best racer

Me at the beginning: -Well, i suppose this guy did a "Verstappen" and won everything in Japan but not on international level, i wonder what he's doing now, maybe he's a team principal or something like that? Me at the end: -Bro................ we really did miss out on someone great that day. I cannot help but imagine him battling out on mid 2000's F1 with Schumacher-Alonso-Raikkonen-Button, and maybe later with Hamilton and Vettel This video was a reminder about how, and specially on modern times, we sometimes take for granted both archievements and safety on motorsport. Driving professionally is both hard and dangerous, and yet we have people complaining about how ( nsert driver name here ) doesn't know how to drive, or even worse (on F1's case), the actual F1 owners really pushing the limits of safety by wanting to race on literal street roads and not on real circuits, just for the money.

Super GT is a truly unique and underappreciated series that has to gain more popularity. Like most people in the rest of the world I learned about it from Gran Turismo and I have been watching races here and there when I feel like it. They're one of those great series that post whole race replays on RU-vid, so if you don't mind watching the race with Japanese commentators, I wholeheartedly recommend giving it a watch. I literally shaw the best overtake I've ever seen in one of those races.

Reminds me of Daijiro Kato. An upcoming championship-winning young star died tragically.

Great work. I one factor that's missing from GT7 is the numerous amount of JGTC/SuperGT cars that were found in older games. While I understand the effort and resources needed to scan a bunch of old GT300 cars, they surely could increase the "line up" we have by adding other team liveries to the existing SuperGT cars as paint jobs... An idea I would like to see is coverage on the GoodSmileRacing teams efforts and successes in this series. They have won3 championships and the concept of their team itself is already very interesting, even ignoring the surface level aspects. There's not that much information about them in the English speaking community so I think it would be interesting to see.

Where did you get the JGTC race footage from? The quality is fantatsic, would love to watch some of the races.

This is the content I strive for on YT. History that any other person would gloss over. Thank you Rofl, and may Takashi & Shingo both rest in peace.

The “With Shingo” stickers made me incredibly happy

I didn't know who Tachi was but thanks to this video, I know more about him now and honestly it's sad that he was taken away from us so early, imagine what he could've been if that fatal crash didn't happen.

I said it on Nomad video and I’ll say it again, I love that you aren’t afraid to try new things with your channel. I love the breakdown of GT that you’ve been doing, but I love these other videos too! Keep up the great work!

I keep noticing the occasional yakuza music in your videos, loving it!

Those jgtc mr2s look so good. Id say the best example of that chassis.🔥🔥

33:41 we in Argentina experienced something very similar. We had a driver by the name of Guido Falaschi. He was the top prospect, and many believed he would be the future of argentinian motorsport. But on November 13th, in a race of Turismo Carretera (the top touring car division) in Balcarce, he lost the car entering the penultimate corner of the last lap, crashed into the tyre barrier on the side, bounced back into the middle of the road and was hit by another driver. He had just turned 22 😥

how an impressive story like this is so unknow ?? That's crazy, this guy is the kinda driver where you can clearly see the pure talent. Thank you for the video !

Subbed. Not a lot of SuperGT/JGTC-related stories around...well in english at least, keep em coming.

I have no clue how I guessed the mr2 when you sent out the riddle but that's sweet. Great video as well. Really makes me want to watch SGT more and more...

Imagine: If the GT7 Cafe is not the silly hand-holding experience, but a series to showcase and honour the drivers, engineers and team owners who had a hell of a story to tell (and not being the blue-chip individuals like Enzo Ferrari, F. Porsche, most successful drivers at el). You don't need to be literally be them re-tracing their greatest moments, maybe just a fellow compatitor who had to defend said protagonist/ or just to achieve a certain goal (e.g. to defend Shingo for 5 laps from passing you before you had to pit)...that would've been so much better content-wise, and help all players appreciate motorsport as opposed to just trying to win every race.

Huge respect for one of the best 42:55 seconds in my life, incredible how well you interpreted this story, since there are not that much informations about JGTC in general on the net, amazing video man👍🏻

Tetsuya otas crash still scares the hell out of me. If it weren't for that rx7 driver...

I never heard of shingo before today. Thank you for telling his story. Made me cry a little... on a more positive note, your storytelling is great and very respectful towards all people involved. Can't wait for more racing stories, hopefully the next one will not be so tragic.

Note that I usually don't comment on RU-vid. I always only watched GT-themed videos in this channel and this is the first time watching your video like this―and it's far the BEST one. I thought all the time your storytelling was good and theme like this fits your ability just perfectly! Plus, the deeply digged information―I know every single team, driver, crash contained in this video but the infos below the surface were I have never known and this is the point standing very tall and still. I hardly find things I want more for works like this, if I really do, maybe less blacked out time or what, an expansion of theme outside JGTC? Oh yeah, most importantly, you keeping doing this!

I didn't know this but your story telling is so impeccable i can watch your videos for hours and hours on end. What an incredible channel absolutely brilliant. Thank you for your work🙏

Now this is a pleasant surprise of a video. Has always love your works, and this had to be one of, if not the best one yet.

Thank you for making this video - going to try and make/find Tachi's helmet livery in GT7 and rock that as a tribute

Yokoyama's crash is perhaps one of the worst crashes in motorsports history, on par with Russell Phillips, Gordon Smiley and Greg Moore

Thank you for this video. I've known about shingo, his tragic passing and his dominant season for years now (it effected me so much I have an sw20 under a cover waiting for the day I can build a shingo homage car) but due to the lack of information out there like you said its very hard to know much, this video filled some gaps in what I knew that I'm very grateful for

8:44 You know he must have died when his head hit the gantry. To be honest high speed head impacts in motorsports is one of the areas where it was really dangerous in open-wheel cars and why I think the Halo/aeroscreen really helped reduced after it was introduced.

Insightful video, I had initially viewed this was to be about TOMS, but very surprised the tragic demise of their top driver was omitted when mainstream sources (and Gran Turismo) cover the history of Toyota's success in racing ... it goes to show even in a competitive car and with much driving talent the sport can switch on you in a flash ...

This guy, no doubt, deserves waaaaay more subs than here currently has. Great video, nearly made me tear up

Super GT never disappoints, if you know winning a race isn't the key factor to grab the series champion. It took two years for Fuji Speedway to realize the danger then improve the safety measures to meet the increasing speed. Imagine how Japanese fans reacts seeing Tetsuya Ota appeared in Best Motoring issue September 2005, driving a Ferrari 430-his limbs are heavily affected even to this day. I have an suggestion for future ideas: a video on Vemac, Japanese's answer to British's Lotus Cars. I heard its existence was controversial/notorious during its run, yet rarely seen in any other competitions and only known internationally thanks to Total Immersion Racing.

We def need more stories about JGTC and Super GT in this platform. This series is just absolutely iconic, with the cars themselves. Great video!!

Hold up! I’m hearing need for speed 2 soundtrack there. Hits right in my nostalgia, hats off to you

ok ; im sorry but this needs to be said ; 6mn09 , Tachi runner up annd team mate was the STIG ! amazing doc man ; thank you !

You're masterclass at bringing not just your thoughts across, but also your honest heart. Thank you so much for your awesome videos.

this is an amazing video ill make sure people talk about shingo cuz my god he was really talented

Yup that was a banger to watch! Sadly an unfortunate story of what could’ve been, but also one of incredible skill and talent. Love those style of videos and the topic as well. Motorsport history is so interesting

Fantastic video!! The story is really fascinating!! 👏👏👏👏

Just like the JLOC video, as someone who does not follow motor sport, this was all new to me. Brilliant video, would argue it is even better than the JLOC one. More of these please! Not sure if it would interest people who follow motor sport, but breakdowns of some f1 seasons/careers would also be interesting to me in this format.

This is an outstanding essay video, really excellent work.

I really hope you make more videos like these. Fantastic job!

Man, I love this channel. Thank you so much for covering JGTC stories!!

Another great documentary. Good stuff, man.

This video was awesome. Thanks for gathering all these infos and pictures to make this documentary.

Your videos are my favorites, so much quality. I somehow never knew about all this, or even the Japanese motorsports scene. I learn a lot with your videos, please continue doing them!

Great video, really enjoyed it. What a sad story, what could’ve been.

I just want you to know that I ended up watching this video do to your recommendation in the year end recap. I guess the title didn't really draw me in at first, plus I have very little knowledge of Super GT so I didn't watch initially. That being said this definitely is one of your best videos and I'm glad I got to hear this story. Keep up the good work!

Make more of these videos, please!!! That's just awesome content for me it's a real pleasure to get to know these stories. With this video you showed me a person I never knew and made me sad about this fact. Keep going 💪🤟

Great Video!! this guy will never forget Tachi!

I love your videos about GT, but this kind of video is really awesome too. You're gifted, keep it up!

This content is really something else Roflwaffle. I have never cared to subscribe to anyone's patreon until now. I'll be subscribing the minute I paid my christmas pay check. Keep it up geeze! You really capture the felt sense experience of magic and nostalgia I get from retro car culture and the GT series ;)

Incredible piece of documentary. I would love more like this. I knew the cars, but nothing of the people. Thank you.

Phenomenal video. I loved it, really enjoyed it.

THANK YOU! I love JGTC and Super Gt and we need more videos about it! It's so underrated and you covered this so well. Please do more!

Excellent video thanks !!

What a beautiful video🥺👏🏼

Thank you for this great video!

I already luv your content but now you've got me crazy nostalgic woth that NFS3 background music 😀 I own V6-swapped SW20 MR2 for several years now & really loving it btw

Fantastic storytelling. A young driver that was taken too soon. Glad his legacy lives on.

6:10 3rd place Ben Collins. That Ben Collins, beloved The Stig

This is amazing. Thank you for keeping Shingo Tachi memory alive. We must never forget him. RIP (Race In Peace) Shingo

Truly well done video.

This kinda has parallels to Greg Moore.

awesome content man! pls make more videos on JGTC or Super GT teams and seasons

I'd love a video maybe about a famous car in the GT series that's been basically all by itself in the series. The Ford Falcon XR8 V8 supercar and how it wasn't the best race car

Next video sugestion: a full story on chaparral! i know almost nothing abaut then even if they are the most feared oponents from Gran turismo 4-6

Thank you for the video, i never heard of that sucessful and tragic story

Glad you made this, glad I watched it.

Awesome video!!!