The 2007 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series, which consists of nine rounds, entered its closing phase. The eighth round was held at AUTOPOLIS, Ohita, on October 13th and 14th.

Since this was the season's penultimate round, one of the main concerns was naturally the point situation for the championship. Among the ADVAN users, Privee KENZO Asset Shiden (Kazuho Takahashi/Hiroki Katoh) was top ranked in both the drivers' and team championships of the GT300 while WILLCOM ADVAN VEMAC408R (Shinsuke Shibahara/Haruki Kurosawa) and ENDLESS ADVAN Senzai-kakumei Z (Masami Kageyama/Tomonobu Fujii) were trying hard to reverse the situation.

Against this backdrop, a fierce battle was expected in this round. After fine weather on the official practice day, October 12th, the weather was looking worse for Saturday and Sunday and, actually, there was a drizzle during the qualifying session on Saturday. But the surfaces were dry throughout the weekend. As the surface temperature was much lower than predicted, there weren't perfect conditions for tires.

In the qualifying session, two ADVAN equipped cars in the GT500 class, WOODONE ADVAN Clarion Z and ECLIPSE ADVAN SC430, used medium compound tires. Given the low temperature of the track surface, the softer compound might suit the conditions, but the drivers preferred the medium ones due to their solid feel. On the other hand, most of the GT300 class drivers chose soft compound tires. The above-mentioned three leading ADVAN equipped cars took the second, third and fourth positions in the qualifying session and expectations for an interesting battle between them grew higher.

The race started on dry surfaces. In the opening phase, there were many battles and incidents all around. WOODONE ADVAN Clarion Z steered clear of these troubles and steadily moved up to fifth from the fourteenth grid but the car was suddenly involved in an accident on Lap 30. There was a car stranded at the second hairpin curve and, in the course of a close battle with another Z, WOODONE ADVAN Clarion Z couldn't avoid hitting the stationary car. It was a purely unfortunate accident because the driver couldn't see what had happened in that corner well before coming into it due to the undulation and banking of the track.

Meanwhile, ECLIPSE ADVAN SC430 continued a steady run staying away from those incidents and eventually finished in tenth. This meant that the car has scored championship points five races running.

In the GT300 class, the top ranked drivers in the point standings fought really exciting battles until the end of the race. In the opening phase, WILLCOM ADVAN VEMAC408R, from the second grid, pursued its main rival that had started from the pole position. Following the top two, ENDLESS ADVAN Senzai-kakumei Z passed Privee KENZO Asset Shiden and tookover the third position.

The point leading Shiden was followed by WedsSport Celica and RE AMEMIYA ADVAN RX-7. The latter two cars contended for fifth with a long lasting side-by-side battle, which fascinated the spectators beside the track. However, when the halfway point of the race had past, these two cars bumped each other and AMEMIYA's RX-7 was hit hard by a following car when it went sideways, resulting in retirement.

On the contrary, the top three of the class continued a rather quiet but tense competition. The situation changed during their pit stops in the middle phase of the race. After ENDLESS's Z came in the pit on Lap 30, WILLCOM ADVAN VEMAC 408R pitted in for routine work on Lap 35, one lap later than the race leader did. When all three cars went back to the track, WILLCOM ADVAN VEMAC 408R was leading the race.

Thereafter, the leading VEMAC gradually opened a gap to the other two and finally took their long-awaited first win of the season. With a big gain of 23 points (20 for the win, 2 for second in the qualifying session and 1 for third in the fastest lap during the race), the pair, Shibahara and Kurosawa, kept their championship chances alive for the season's final.

Although ENDLESS ADVAN Senzai-kakumei Z finished in third, the point leader Privee KENZO Asset Shiden added 3 points (1 for finishing in tenth, 1 for third in the qualifying session and 1 for the fastest lap) and this meant that the title hope for the ENDLESS car had now vanished. As a result, four GT300 cars, including ADVAN equipped Privee KENZO Asset Shiden and WILLCOM ADVAN VEMAC 408R, will head for the final race to decide the title winner among them.

　 [the winner of the GT300 class]
"As we needed to win the race to keep our title hopes alive, I thought we must go flat out from the start.
"Since we have got the new chassis, our results have been improving very much. After the third in round six, Suzuka 1000km, and the second in round seven, Motegi, I thought we should naturally be first today! We are happy to win here, because we couldn't afford to lose ground any more considering the championship.
"Today, I drove a bit longer stint than my teammate did but the tires were very consistent and I didn't feel any degradation until the end of my stint. Car no.46 was a little bit quicker in the qualifying trim but I didn't worry about that because we took the long stint in the race into account when we chose the tires.
"As our car should be fast in Fuji, we really want to take the championship title there. It will be a good reward for the team, if we manage to win it."