The Toyota Gazoo Racing Indonesia team is officially the overall champion of the 2023 Asia Cross Country Rally. The team conquered the race with a 1-2 finish using heavily modified rally-spec versions of the Toyota Fortuner GR Sport.
Takuma Aoki's Toyota Fortuner AXCR [Photo: AXCR]
Piloting the winning Fortuner (car #105) was Takuma Aoki, a former motorcycle road racer who competed at the World Superbike Championship. Of note, Aoki is a Person with Disability (PWD) as he is paralyzed below the waist. Despite that, he managed to finish the 6-day battle and came on top of the 2023 AXCR with a total time of 11 hours, 46 minutes, and 22 seconds.
Aoki’s Fortuner also saw problems since the start of the race. In fact, he was racing AXCR’s Special Stage 1 and Special Stage 2 in 4x2 mode. The team only managed to fix the issue on the third day of the race.
Coming in second place at this year’s AXCR is Tubagus Moerinsyahdi also with the TGR Indonesia’s Fortuner (car #121). Moerinsyahdi in turn, completed the cross-country battle with a time of 11 hours, 50 minutes, and 50 seconds.
Interestingly, Aoki’s #105 Fortuner was far more heavily modified than Moerinsyahdi’s #121 Fortuner. It had more underbody protection, whereas #121 looked closer to a stock Fortuner.
Aoki and the TGR Indonesia team [Photo: AXCR]
With all that said, the TGR Indonesia team managed to defeat Mitsubishi Ralliart and their 2024 Mitsubishi Tritons, last year’s AXCR overall winners and the defending champions. Mitsubishi Ralliart’s Chayapon Yotha did come out of the competition in third place, and the team also managed to get the AXCR Team Award since all three of its trucks completed the race intact.
For those unaware, the AXCR is a grueling, multi-day rally spanning the jungles and various climes of Thailand and Laos. It covers a whopping 2,033 kilometers including six special stages. This year was particularly challenging as the Thailand stage saw dry weather. This resulted in high average speeds. The Laos stage meanwhile bogged down a bit due to swollen rivers.
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