The inaugural GT LIVE was teamed up with the Japanese GT Championship racing series which provided the nucleus of the event. At the time, JGTC (now called Super GT) had aspirations to internationalize the series. Unfortunately, those plans are currently in a state of flux and after much discussion, it became apparent that Super GT had no immediate plans to make another U.S. appearance while sorting out their expansion strategy.

Coincidentally, the Grand American Road Racing Series, one of the fastest growing sports car racing series in the U.S., was looking for a partner to help them mold their professional road racing series into something that the youth market would take an interest in. Grand Am features awesome race cars battling in four different classes, from the exotic Daytona Prototypes powered by Porsche, Pontiac, Toyota and Ford engines to the high-tech GT Class cars which enjoys an enormous field of 400- to 450-horsepower Mazda, Pontiac, BMW, Porsche and Ferrari machines. The Grand Am Cup series (Grand Sport and Street Tuner classes) consists of cars that enthusiasts can readily identify with including sports cars from Mazda, Acura, Ford, Nissan and Lexus.

With no Southern California stop on the 2006 Grand Am schedule, the next closest strategic market was chosen for the next installment of GT LIVE.

At the May 12th and 13th rebirth of GT LIVE, a successful introduction of a new form of interactive motorsports entertainment was debuted to local sports car and racing fans at Phoenix International Raceway.

Despite the thermometer hovering around the 105°F mark, nearly 8,000 sports car, import tuner, sport bike, and drifting fans braved the heat to enjoy two days of adrenaline pumping motorsports madness.

The opening of the Auto-X and Rally-X courses kicked off the event on Friday morning. By early afternoon, the Grand Am Rolex series cars hit the road course for a practice session while the XDL Stunt Team, featuring Nobuteru Tanaguchi in his HKS Toyota Aristo and Manabu Orido in his RS*R Nissan S15 Silvia, laid down the first of many professional drifting exhibitions that would take place over the course of the next two days. Later in the day the inaugural U.S. Stunt Riding Championship West Coast Invitational got underway as top riders risked life and limb to stake a claim to their a share of the $10,000 purse starting with the Team Battle competition.

Threaded between Grand Am series practice and qualifying sessions, the inaugural GT Track Attack and the fan favorite GT Sim Race, took to the 1.51 mile PIR road course to lay down some impressive laps.

The inaugural GT Track Attack featured several of Japan’s fastest time attack cars including the ZERO/SPORTS BTZ601R Impreza, piloted by Yasushi Kikuchi, and the Sun Automotive CyberEVO, driven by Eiji “Tarzan” Yamada. By Friday evening, the GT Track Attack was in full swing, with Tarzan and the Cyber Evo scorching the competition for first overall and first in AWD class with a 1:01.803 lap time, over 2 seconds faster than the next closest competitor. Full results are available at http://www.gtlivetour.com/results.html

Two sessions of the GT Sim Race on Friday and one on Saturday morning gave fans the unique opportunity to stand in line for a chance to ride shotgun in some of the dream machines featured at GT LIVE. There was no shortage of big grins at the GT Sim Race exit from the 150 or so lucky fans who got the ride of their life from some of the best drivers in the business.

On Saturday morning the vendor midway started filling in while the Auto-X and Rally-X once again opened up to those who were registered to run those courses. The crowds starting filing in as the GT LIVE Umbrella Girls greeted them at the gate with event schedules and photo opportunities. While the PIR road course would spend the better part of the day hosting Grand Am races, the XDL Stunt Team amazed the crowds with smoking, slideways, wheel-to-wheel action. Not to be outdone, the riders in the U.S. Stunt Riding Championship got in a couple practice sessions before launching into the Sickest Trick and Individual Stunt competitions. As the smoke settled, rider Kane Friesen took top honors with an overall score of 86. Sickest Trick honors went to Jason Pullen while the Team Battle trophy was awarded to Team Carne Asada.

The 2 hour/200 mile Grand Am Cup ST class race scheduled for a 4:00PM green flag featured none other than tuner industry favorites NOB Taniguchi and Tarzan Yamada who teamed up in the #67 SpeedSource Mazda RX-8 in the first-ever debut of an all Japanese team in the Grand Am series.

The experienced drivers both compete in Japan's Super GT series, yet they had never driven a SpeedSource car before this event. The duo qualified in seventh place and held excellent position during the competition despite fuel problems and overheating issues that dropped their position back to 16th by the end of the race. SpeedSource team principal Sylvain Tremblay expressed his appreciation and admiration for the Japanese drivers.

"I knew of both drivers from the JGTC series and looked forward to meeting them in person. They showed up with a great attitude, wanted to learn and look at data. They picked it up right away. We had an interpreter, so there was a little information delay, but both were professional and it was a pleasure working with them," stated Tremblay.

As fans made their way out to the parking areas after the Saturday night conclusion of the Grand Am Rolex series race, Taniguchi and Orido drew a crowd as they took center stage for one final XDL Stunt Team drifting exhibition. After allowing the smoke to clear the GT LIVE Umbrella Girls came on course to toss tons of great gifts to the crowd. The entertaining finale came when GT LIVE emcee Griff Allen asked both Taniguchi and Orido to reveal their birthdays to give audience members a chance to win one of two 1/10th scale HKS Taniguchi S15 RC drift cars or a $200.00 RS*R gift certificate. Kristopher Sargeant of Rancho Cucamonga, CA and Chad Wille of Glendale, AZ produced proof of birthdays on or near Taniguchi’s to take the RC cars home. Korey Jones, also of Glendale, AZ, shared a birthday with Orido and took home the $200 prize from RS*R.

The order for the two day period was “no down time” as the GT LIVE experience provided Phoenix fans with a successful blend of traditional sports car racing with motorsports oriented interactive activities, extreme drifting exhibitions and tuner, rally and stunting competitions.