General News
28 August 2006

	Copyright © STI

SUBARU Tecnica International (STI, President: Masaru Katsurada) will continue the Ryuichiro Kuze Memorial Award for SUBARU entrants in WRC Round 11 Rally Japan 2006, to be held in Tokachi, Hokkaido from September 1 to 3.The late Ryuichiro Kuze made an enormous contribution to the development of rally sports as the founder of STI, which manages SUBARU's motor sport activities, not only forming the Subaru World Rally Team (SWRT), SUBARU's works team, but also committing himself to the development of Japanese rally drivers. While maintaining his enthusiasm for making SUBARU the best in the world, he also had a strong desire to hold WRC event in Japan, starting with SUBARU's WRC program. In Rally Japan 2004, the first WRC race ever held in this country, SWRT's Petter Solberg was overall winner and SUBARU driver Toshihiro Arai won the Group N category, to the absolute delight of Kuze.

Kuze passed away on March 9th last year, after which his family made a donation for the purpose of establishing the new award at last year's Rally Japan. This year, STI have decided to continue the award, as Kuze would have wished.The Ryuichiro Kuze Memorial Award is for drivers and co-drivers of SUBARU cars entered in the Production Car World Rally Championship (PCWRC) and Group N Category of Rally Japan 2006, and will be given to the top three crews in each category. The award is a specially designed acrylic plaque that has an image of Kuze's smiling face, with a supplementary prize for the team of various STI goods and parts.The award ceremony is scheduled to be held in the evening of Sunday, September 3, the day the final results of Rally Japan 2006 are announced, at the SUBARU hospitality booth in Kita Aikoku Hiroba (on the outskirts of Obihiro City) where the rally's service park is located.