Shinichi Ito | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Nationality | Japanese | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born |
Kakuda, Miyagi, Japan |
December 7, 1966 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Shinichi Ito (or Itō) (伊藤 真一 Itō Shin'ichi?) born December 7, 1966 in Kakuda, Miyagi, Japan) is a retired professional Grand Prix motorcycle road racer. He has raced extensively in Japanese and International championships. Ito has competed in the All Japan Road Race Championship, and won the Japanese 500 cc Championship, and is also 3 times Japanese Superbike Champion. In the prestigious Suzuka 8 Hour Endurance Race he has qualified on pole 5 times and won the race 3 times. Ito has also raced in Superbike World Championship. His considerable experience on different types of racing machine has earned him a reputation as a premier development rider.
Ito competed in the All-Japan 500 cc Championship on a Honda NSR500 from 1988 to 1992, always finishing inside the Top 7 and winning the title in 1990. He raced in the Suzuka 8 Hour for three of these years and had two 7th-place finishes in 1988 and 1991, partnered by Masumitsu Taguchi and Daryl Beattie respectively. Ito has also competed in the 500 cc World Championships as an occasional wild card from 1989 to 1992. He showed impressive form, consistently finishing among the established Grand Prix riders. Ito scored a best finish of 4th at Suzuka in 1992.