His tragic death in an Aida testing accident in 1999 meant Shingo Tachi’s true potential was never fully realised. British Formula 3 observers in 1996 were afforded brief glimpses of the Japanese driver’s talent when, aged 19, he raced a two-year-old Dallara-Toyota run by Alan Mugglestone under the Team Magic Racing banner to second in the Class B standings. In his obituary, Autosport remarked that “the ever-smiling Tachi made a big impression on everyone he met in Britain”.
But it was in his homeland where Tachi truly shone. He earned a top GT500 seat with Team Le Mans in the All-Japan GT Championship by winning the 1998 GT300 crown for Team Taisan aboard a Toyota MR-2. He had spent that year racing in Japanese F3 too and it was at the TOM’S squad owned by his father Nobuhide where Tachi encountered Peter Dumbreck.
The Scot was a wide-eyed newcomer to Japan in 1998, the 1996 Formula Vauxhall champion arriving after a single season in British F3 with Paul Stewart Racing that yielded third in points behind Jonny Kane and Nicolas Minassian, and went to spend a further five seasons there either side of a stint in the DTM. That he was asked back to race in Super GT midway through the 2005 season owed much to the success he enjoyed in 1998, winning the Japanese F3 title, then for good measure adding the Macau Grand Prix.
For Dumbreck, Tachi’s willingness to assist in adapting to Japanese culture was an important factor in his prowess. Therefore, despite their brief time together, Tachi was an immediate pick for his favourite team-mate.
“I got on especially well with Shingo,” says Dumbreck, who had graduated from Vauxhall Junior for 1995 when Tachi arrived on the UK scene in that series with Rowan Racing. “He smoothed the way for me really.
“Shingo certainly made it very easy for me to get used to everything, find my feet and be confident. Then likewise I had the experience in F3 that I would help him with my data and we’d talk things through and try and move the team forward.
“He was living in Gotemba and he’d come and hang out with all the foreign drivers anyway because he spoke good English. He was such a well-mannered, genuinely nice guy, that you just wanted to spend time with him anyway. We always travelled to the tracks together, and hung out and played pool together.”
Dumbreck believes that Tachi’s grounding in Europe meant he was able to sympathise with the new arrival’s travails in an unfamiliar setting.
Source: Autosport