Hiroyuki Matsushita (松下弘幸, Matsushita Hiroyuki), also known by Hiro Matsushita (ヒロ松下), is a Japanese businessman and former racing driver. He is the grandson of Kōnosuke Matsushita, the founder of Panasonic. In 1989, Matsushita won the Toyota Atlantic Championship (Pacific), becoming the first and only Japanese driver to do so. He was also the first Japanese driver to race in the Indy 500.
Despite being the grandson of the founder of Panasonic, he refused to be labelled as a rich kid who could buy his way into anything. He instead worked his way up from the bottom, starting his career racing motorcycles in his home country between 1977 and 1980, before switching to four wheels. He retired from Motocross racing by becoming Champion in Kansai region in 1980 at the age of 19.
In 1987, Matsushita started racing Formula Fords - the Class A of auto racing - In the following year, he teamed up with Jim Downing in a Camel Lights car and secured a second-place finish in class at the 24 Hours of Daytona and a third-place finish at the 12 Hours of Sebring. In 1989, Matsushita fearlessly entered the Formula Atlantic series and, by the end of that year, he had claimed four victories and the Toyota Atlantic championship (Pacific division) with the largest point margin of all time. He then tried Formula Pacific in New Zealand and became the first Japanese driver to win the prestigious Lady Wigram Trophy Race.[3]
He graduated to Champ Car in 1990, scoring one point in his debut season. He became the first Japanese driver to race in the Indianapolis 500.[4]
In 1991, and followed that achievement with a top-ten finish at Milwaukee. Matsushita missed the 1992 Indy 500 after suffering a broken leg during a practice crash. He was sidelined for several weeks and missed the next six events.
At the Phoenix race in 1994, Matsushita endured a horrific crash in which his car was cut in half by Jacques Villeneuve's car travelling at nearly full speed. He emerged from his destroyed car with only minor injuries. The same year, he earned his best career finish of 6th position at the Marlboro 500 at Michigan International Speedway. This result was made possible by an extraordinarily high rate of attrition that saw only 8 cars finish the race. Matsushita was 11 laps behind the leader at the drop of the checkered flag.
Matsushita earned the nickname "King Hiro" from Emerson Fittipaldi, who was complaining about Matsushita's reluctance to cede track position when getting lapped by the leaders.[15] The nickname came about as a result of the voice-activated microphone ("vox") Roger Penske's team was using. Fittipaldi's epithet was said so quickly that the circuit cut off the first syllable of the first word he used. Fittipaldi, allegedly, had intended to say "Fucking Hiro!"[16]
^Oreovicz, John (August 22, 2001). "Tora Finding His Form". ChampCarWorldSeries.com. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved July 24, 2007.
Ikkei Watanabe - Drama "Soichiro Tahara's Human Discovery Special Approaching the Management Strategy of the Late Konosuke Matsushita" (TV Asahi (2001)
Tatsuya Nakadai portrayed Kōnosuke Matsushita in "陽はまた昇る (The sun rises again)" (Film, 2004)
Shunji Fujimur portrayed Kōnosuke Matsushita in "100 Japanese Who Change the World (JAPAN ☆ ALL STARS" TV TOKYO) (2008)" (Documentary,2008)
Akira Takarada portrayed Kōnosuke Matsushita in "The Men Who Brought Life to Hakone" (Film, 2008)
Kunihiko Mitamura portrayed Kōnosuke Matsushita in "Rubicon's Decision" (2009)
