Masahiko KondÅ
Masahiko Kondō (Japanese近藤 真 彦, Kondō Masahiko; born July 19, 1964 in Yokohama ) is a Japanese singer, actor, race car driver and team owner.
At the age of 15 years was Kondō whose nickname in Japan Matchy (マッチ, matchi ) is - a short form of his name Masahiko - professional singer. With his first single, the number 1 was immediately in the Japanese charts, he broke all previous sales records. At 23, he won the Japanese Record Award and was in his home country, a very popular singer. He stepped 1981-1988 on every year and most recently in 1996 in Kohaku Uta Gassen. He had with "Midnight Shuffle" in 1996, then began to concentrate fully on his racing career, his last major hit single. In 2005, he was making a comeback as a musician and has since been in many Japanese television and music shows.
In the 1990s, Kondo was so popular that he was able to drive on public roads hardly without being detected. However, since he was already interested in vehicles of all kinds, it was obvious to race in order to move at all cars can. From this circumstance was a decent racing career in a short time.
In 1991 he went into the Japanese Formula 3 Championship and in 1994 came the first time to Europe to participate in the 24 - hour race at Le Mans. About the Japanese Formula 3000 Championship, he came into Formula Nippon. For a championship it had not been enough and the end of the 1990s, he moved his activities to the sports car.
In 2001 he was in Le Mans factory driver at ORECA and drove its new prototype, the Chrysler LMP. Since 2000, he has been involved with his own racing team Kondō racing both as a driver and as a team leader in the Super GT Championship.