The day of the rally brought fine weather. Morizo spoke at the event’s opening ceremony, having been selected as a “Toyota City athlete.”

This time around, he would be performing a demo run rather than competing, another sign of his kindness to Kamui.

“Since Kamui Kobayashi was keen to take part in the rally, I lent him my beloved GR Yaris, and asked Shinya Yamamoto, who usually pairs with Hayakawa, to be co-driver. Then I lent Hayakawa my own co-driver, Nori (Norihiko Katsuta), which meant that I couldn’t race myself (laughs),” Morizo explained, drawing a big laugh from the crowd and a cringe from Kamui.

After the ceremonial start, the competition got underway with SS1, a short course along the river next to Toyota Stadium. Though the course itself was not difficult, Kamui got his first taste of rally by going off course on the figure-eight turn immediately after the start…

“It was a figure-eight pylon slalom using the handbrake, and you were telling me I was doing such a great job that I got carried away and went for an extra turn (laughs).”

Yet even factoring that in, our time wasn’t too bad—with the off-course penalty, the official record put us 10 seconds behind the slowest time.

SS2 was a specially prepared dirt course within the Toyota Technical Center Shimoyama. While the layout here wasn’t particularly difficult either, undulations made it hard to see what lay ahead; together with the irregular corner radii, this made for a tricky course.

Since we were nearly last in the starting order, the track condition was pretty rough, with the starting point being so dug up it was full of ruts and humps.

And yet, Kamui posted the best overall time, almost two seconds ahead of second place! Considering that he lost time after messing up the handbrake on a 360-degree turn, the result might have been even better.

Because the course was short, I kept the pace note directions to a minimum, which gave me time to fully appreciate the driving.

Kamui’s style is never forced and always attuned to the car he is driving.

His steering angles are precise, taking the tires skillfully to the verge of sliding—everything is done with complete efficiency. If I had to describe it, the way he handled the dirt felt like driving on paved roads.

SS3 offered up the event’s only forest section. The narrow road and back-to-back tight turns astonished Kamui during recce. “Do they really race in places like this?”

But once we started driving such concerns were nowhere to be seen. On his first outing on forest roads, Kamui ended up among the top 10 stage times.

It was truly exhilarating to see how expertly he controlled a car that didn’t handle well on asphalt, without having to wrestle it into submission. Of course, I’d like to think my late-night work on the pace note directions also played a part…

On the way back to the service park after SS3, Kamui turned to me. “Shinya, do you mind if we stop off somewhere during the liaison?”

As long as we reached TC (time control) on schedule there wouldn’t be a problem, and I couldn’t find any mention of it in the rulebook. I figured he meant a toilet break, but Kamui had other ideas: “Feel like swinging by McDonald’s? I want to try the Gurakoro burger that just came out (laughs). We can grab lunch for the rest of the team as well.”