Apr.26.2001　Visit by Peter Brock




Mr. Peter Brock (left) and Minoru Hayashi (right)

I don't know how many of you know Peter Brock, but when I was young this was the name of my superstar or, more likely, god. Peter, currently a journalist writing for Racer magazine, contacted me through a friend of mine saying that he would like to visit Dome to gather material for an article he was thinking of doing. Overjoyed I invited him for a VIP tour of the place.
Simply saying that he is the designer of the Hino Samurai Prototype would be the easiest explanation, but he is also the one behind the Daytona Cobra, the King Cobra, the Triumph TR-250K, the De Tomaso Ghia and the Toyota JP-6.
Impressive eh? But I'm not the one that can boast about this. Anyway when I was around 20 years old he was the superstar I dreamt of becoming one day.
As he was such a superstar at the time I was under the impression that he was much older than me, so I had kept the schedule for each day as short as possible. However upon meeting him in person, I saw someone who look a lot younger than the 66 years he claimed to be. In fact he was so energetic I think that he was rather upset at being dropped off at his hotel so early every day.
Although this was the first time we met face to face, our paths had in fact crossed before.
That was when Peter had a revelation from god, quit being a racing car designer and started making hand gliders. (Actually I was told later that it wasn't a revelation from god, but simply because he though it would be better business.) This was just before I established Dome as a company and was half out of a job. Due to a series of coincidences I got the opportunity to sell Peter's hand gliders.
If the hand gliders being flown in Japan at the time were the bargain bicycles you see housewives go shopping in, Peter's UP would be the equivalent of a Ferrari MTB. The difference was astounding. We had a lot of fun demonstrating it and looking at the surprised faces of the people that were there. I started becoming a little more busier with the start up of Dome and had to force the hand glider business onto a friend. Soon after the UP trademark with it's arrows became a big hit and my friend made a fortune selling them. I was left in the dust to regret the bad timing and rotten luck.
Peter visited our headquarters, Furyuusya (the Dome Tunnel) and also the opening race of the JGTC at the TI Aida circuit. Whist at TI we and another of my friends accompanying us Shoichi Hayashi, the owner of Hayashi Racing, realised that all three of us were in our third marriage. We formed the "Third Marriage Club" so I will have to visit Seattle, which is where Peter lives, for the second gathering of the club.
It seems that some of Peter's vigour and undying enthusiasm for racing has rubbed off onto me during his visit here and made me reflect how I had merely been thinking about how to keep things simple and easy after I retire. Although I regret to say I have not done anything about it yet.

Minoru Hayashi