Yoshihara Debuts Honda Civic Type R TCX at 2023 TC America Sonoma Raceway

Adding to his impressive list of driving credentials, Team ENEOS ambassador Dai Yoshihara made his driving debut for the Pit+Paddock Honda Civic Type R TCX at the 2023 TC America season opener at Sonoma Raceway.

The TC America Powered by Skip Barber Championship is a professional touring car series with three competition classes — TCX, TC and TCA — all utilizing factory built or supported turnkey race cars.

Yoshihara is competing as part of the Victor Gonzalez Racing Team (VGRT), now in its fourth year of competition in the TC America series with several wins, podiums and a second place finish in the TCR Championship. Dai’s VGRT teammates include Ruben Inglesias Jr in TCA and Michael Hurczyn in TC.

The Sonoma race was a storybook start to the season: Yoshihara took pole position by a narrow margin of 0.241sec on the final lap of the 15-minute session against Kyle Loh and LA Honda World Racing with 1:51.003.

During Race 1, Yoshihara launched into action to build a healthy gap between himself and Colin Garrett, who gave chase in the BMW M2 CS Cup. After leading the field for the first 15 minutes, Dai slowed to a stop with gearbox issues, although his impressive pace still earned him the Crowdstrike Fastest Lap award and P1 for Sunday’s rematch. Unfortunately, the mechanical problems couldn’t be repaired in time.

“I’m very thankful to my team and sponsors for preparing the fastest car at my first TC America race,” Dai said. “We started out great in qualifying, and during Saturday’s race. I was leading until the sequential transmission had a mechanical failure. We tried everything to repair it but couldn’t make it to the second race. I was bummed, but we’re excited and will be ready for NOLA!”

NEXT RACE

Rounds 3 and 4 of the TC America series take place at NOLA Motorsports Park from April 28-30, 2023.

Photos: courtesy of Pit+Paddock