Takuma Aoki is the second son of the three Aoki brothers who made a name for themselves in Japan and international road racing in the 1990s. After winning the All Japan title, he moved up to the 500cc class of the World Grand Prix, and was just about to make his move when an accident during testing in 1998 left him with no freedom in his lower body.
He then switched to four-wheel racing and recently participated in the Le Mans 24-hour endurance race. He also enjoys riding hand-shifted motorcycles on the circuit, and his activities on two wheels are once again attracting attention. In this series, Takuma Aoki will talk about his passion for motorsports, which continues to overflow even today!
The first race of my life, there were 6 entries and my brothers and I came in 4th, 5th and 6th (lol).
Hello, everyone. My name is Takuma Aoki. I'm sure there are many riders of the Showa generation who may have missed me. I am the second son of the three Aoki brothers who were active during the heyday of the motorcycle boom. I was born on February 24, 1974. This year I turned 47 years old. Time flies, doesn't it?
Looking back on my involvement with motorcycles, I first rode a motorcycle when I was 8 years old. I think my dad got a pocket bike for some reason. He hid it in a warehouse or something before showing it to my brothers and me, but my three mischievous brothers and I found it on our own and started it up and tried riding it (lol). (laughs) Before we knew it, we had one of each of our brothers and sisters, and in the beginning we used to play with them in a large parking lot. At that time, it was still a generous time when such things were allowed.
At first we just had fun running them, but eventually we decided to try racing them. So my brothers and I went on to a glorious history from our debut.... How could it possibly go that well? At the time, Pokébike racing was in the midst of a boom, and was even being made into a manga. The first race of my life was terrible. We were 4th, 5th, and 6th out of 6 entries in the so-called small children's first class race. We lost miserably. However, I think continuity is power. As we continued to race, our results improved. At first, we mainly raced at the circuit in Nikko, which is no longer there, but eventually Haruna Motorsports Land was opened in our hometown and we continued to hone our skills there.
About three years later, I graduated from pocket bikes because of my size, and moved up to mini bikes, and when the NSR50 came out, I was allowed to race with the adults, and I won the race by a landslide! I guess this is where I got it all wrong. I thought, "I'm going to win this race, I'm the fastest! But now that I think about it, I weigh about 30kg less than an adult, so it's no wonder I could run fast (laughs). (laughs) But that was a big catalyst for me to really enjoy bikes and racing, and it became so much fun that I entered my adolescence.
▲The boy on the far left is me. Photo courtesy of Young Machine
Two consecutive victories in the All Japan Superbike in '95 and '96 to aim for the world
I switched to a full-fledged racing machine such as the RS250 when I was a high school student at the age of 16, and at the age of 17 I was given a special promotion to International Class A, which allowed me to challenge the All Japan GP250 class. During this period, I actually rode my bicycle from my hometown Haruna Village in Gunma Prefecture to Tsukuba Circuit to practice. At that time, my team "TS Kanto" was just a stone's throw away from Tsukuba Circuit. The machines and equipment were kept at the team, so I could leave the house in the morning, pick up my machine, practice in the afternoon, and come home just in time. People around me would say they couldn't believe I was doing this, but at the time I was training and I loved biking, so it didn't feel hard at all.
I became aware of myself as a professional racer when I signed a contract with HRC as a works rider in the All Japan Superbike class in 1994 after turning 20 years old. I had been featured in a lot of media, but it wasn't until I signed with HRC that I realized that there was a profession in this world where I could make a living racing. Up until then, I was just doing it because I enjoyed racing. I was still a pure motorcycle enthusiast when I turned 20.
It was around this time that I started to be aware of the world. When I was riding the All Japan GP250, I thought the WGP was still a distant world in a tube. But when I saw my older and younger brothers taking on the challenge of racing overseas, and when I was able to take 3rd place in the 500 class of the 1995 Japanese GP as a wild card against Grand Prix riders, I felt a strong desire to participate fully. So, in order to get my ticket to challenge the world, I won the All Japan Superbike championship two years in a row in '95 and '96. Especially in '96, I was serious and set my sights on winning races in any conditions. The previous year we had won so many races in the rain that some people thought it was because of the tyres, so we wanted to get rid of that.
▲1996 All Japan Superbike Class. Photo courtesy of Young Machine.
February 5, '98 is my second birthday.
Finally, in 1997, I was able to start competing in the WGP500 class. However, I rode a two-cylinder machine called the NSR500V, which was different from the four-cylinder NSR500 ridden by M. Doohan and his team. The two-cylinder machine was inferior in power to the four-cylinder machine, and the development resources for the machine were also prioritized for the four-cylinder machine, so we often struggled, but we steadily worked our way up, and by the end of the season we were fifth in the world rankings, which was a very satisfying result considering the machine handicap and the fact that it was our first year. Considering the machine handicap and the fact that it was my first year, I was very satisfied with the result. At the end of the season I was 5th in the world ranking, which was very satisfying considering the machine handicap and the fact that it was my first year. At the time of the contract renewal, I heard that Doohan had made it a condition that he would not give me a four-cylinder car, and I thought, 'What the hell is that? ' The following year, the pre-developed 500V, which I fought for the victory in the final round of 1997 and finished 3rd, perfectly matched the aim of this machine, which was to win with lightness and turning speed even if it lost in power. With this machine, we were confident that we could be involved in the battle for the championship all season long in 1998. But....
February 5, 1998, a day I will never forget. That day came suddenly. I was testing for the '98 season when I had an accident that left me with a spinal injury and no freedom in the lower half of my body. I was devastated that I couldn't ride the bike I loved, but I had no choice. I positioned this day as my second birthday, and the first thing I thought about was how I could continue to race even with this body. I was discharged from the hospital driving a car with a device that allowed me to control the accelerator and brake with my hands only.
He then searched for a race that he could compete in even with his current body, which led him to enter the Asian Cross Country Rally and the Dakar Rally. My first car was a four-wheel drive, so I was quite fond of off-roading. It took some time to get a competition license for a paralyzed driver, which was unprecedented, but nine years after the accident, my dream of competing in the All Japan GT Championship finally came true. I've learned that if you keep on believing in your dream and keep working hard, one day it will come true. Thanks to this, I was finally able to challenge the world's highest dream stage, the Le Mans 24 Hour Endurance Race, in August of this year.
When I was driving at extreme speed on the track in the middle of the night at Le Mans, I realized something new. When I was younger, I used to race with the sole purpose of winning, but what I really loved was not winning or losing, but the moment of racing itself. I've been organizing "Let's Rent-a-Bike" for 17 years now, a race for beginners using rented mini-bikes, and it's because I want to share the fun of bikes and racing that I experienced with everyone. I want to share the fun of biking and racing with you.
And in 2019, with the help of my brothers and all of you who supported me, I was able to ride a CBR1000R with a hand shift built in and ride the Suzuka Circuit on a pure two-wheeled motorcycle for the first time in 22 years. Since then, I have been blessed with the opportunity to ride the latest model of the CBR, the 217ps RR-R, and the RC213V-S, the public road version of the MotoGP machine, and I am now in the midst of re-living the excitement I had for motorcycles when I was an active WGP racer. I have been touring around Kumamoto and Aso with my friends on the Can-Am Spyder many times now, even though it has 3 wheels on public roads.
There is something about motorcycles that you can't find on four wheels. Now I sometimes ride with the other participants in the Let's Renda race on a Monkey 125 or Grom 125 with the same hand-shift system as the CBR, and although the speed is different from WGP or MotoGP, the underlying enjoyment of bikes and racing is the same. It's a lot of fun. I can find myself riding for an hour straight! I never lost my passion for motorcycles, but now that I can ride again, it's even stronger.
I'd like to share the fun of bikes and racing with you through Webike. Please follow me.
▲1997 Japanese Grand Prix. Photo courtesy of Young Machine.
