Makoto Yamada

Makoto Yamada is the driver of the #22 Black Dog Home Security ARLA Elite Series entry for Big Mac Racing. Makoto, or referred to my friends "Mako", Yamada hails from Osaka, Japan. He is a second generation driver. His father raced super cars in Japan.

Pre ARLA Elite Series
Makoto's father was a very popular driver in Japan, and later a successful businessman. Due to this Makoto grew up in a upper class household as an only child. Makoto moved into go kart racing at the early age of nine, at his father's insistence. His mother made him focus on his studies during this time, so Makoto had a lot of work to juggle. This left him with little free time. While not very successful to begin with, Makoto consistently improved each year. At the age of 16, Makoto Yamada began to race in the same open wheel division as father.

In this open wheel division, Makoto was expected to do well right off the bat, but failed to meet high expectations of his fans and his father. However, Makoto started to gain a lot of skill on road courses, particularly the high speed ones, where he gained his first win in his third season. Makoto won the champtionship the following two seasons. This attracted the attention of Thomas Mac, owner of Big Mac Racing.

2010 Round of Dwyer
Big Mac Racing was looking to expand into ARLA competition full time in 2011, so they decided to enter two cars in the 2010 Round of Dwyer. The second car was set up to gauge Makoto Yamada's abilities in a stock car. His relief driver was Meghan Gallagher. Shockingly, Yamada qualified for the race in his somewhat underfunded equipment. While he drove around near the back during the race, he impressed onlookers and Thomas Mac. His race ended when his relief driver, Meghan Gallagher, was involved in the famous "Dwyergate". No matter, Mac was impressed enough to make Makoto Yamada his 2011 driver.

2011 ARLA Elite Series
Makoto Yamada had a fairly mediocre 2011 season. The team surprisingly ran well on superspeedways, where Makoto grabbed his best career finish of 4th place. The team ran about midfield on road courses, but mediocre everywhere else. Makoto Yamada also had many DNF's, mostly consisting of wrecks. Though Yamada and Mac had several arguments near the end of the season, the team maintained Yamada as their driver for 2012.

2012 ARLA Elite Series
Makoto Yamada started the season just like the last one ended, with several wrecks. Yamada DNF'd the first four races of the year, in which he ran solidly in most of them. Makoto finally broke the DNF streak with a 7th place at four corners. Yamada improved as the season on all types of tracks and gathered a solid top ten finishes, though no top 5's. He left his home country with 2 top tens.

Interesting Facts/Trivia
+Makoto is an avid gamer (particularly fighting games), anime viewer, and manga reader. He unsuccessfully tried to get good friend Thomas Moore into his hobbies. He does not plan on trying this on Sara Gallagher and Meghan Gallagher.

+Though his parents have been very strict, he and his family are very close.

+Makoto keeps a Bulbasaur plush in his car during all of his races for luck.