During the press conference on the 14th, Hino's president, Mr. Ichihashi, emphasized the significance of Hino taking on the challenge of the Dakar Rally -known as the most extreme rally in the world- as a manufacturer of commercial vehicles. The company has raced in this rally a total of 23 times since 1991. He declared the company's commitment to bring all of "Team Hino's" resources together for the 2014 race and stated the team's goal to" win its fifth straight championship in the Under 10-litre Class and finish withhigh rankings in the overall Trucks category." Also known as the "Iron Man of Dakar," Yoshimasa Sugawara, team director and driver of Car 1, as well asholder of the Guinness Book record for the most consecutive entries (30) in the Dakar Rally, was next on the podium describing his team's visions and goals in taking on the challenge of the Dakar Rally 2014.

Aside from the times at which the press conference and exhibition run were in progress, both of the team's HINO500 Series trucks were on exhibitionin front of the Hino booth, giving visitors the opportunity to take photos of the trucks; some of the visitorswere overheard commenting, "This is amazing. They are much larger than I thought!" A long queue formed throughout the day for another program where visitors were offered the opportunity to sit in the actual driver's seat of the racing trucks, showing the great interest the visitors had in the Dakar Rally trucks. In the booth, a "flag of support" was made available on which visitors were invited to write their messages of support. By the end of the event, the flag was filled with messages such as "Give it your all!" and "Aim to finish!"

We have a clear reason for continuing to take on thechallenge ofthe Dakar Rally. Our mission at Hino is to "enable the transport of people and goods, and by doing so, contribute to realizing a world of abundance where people can live in comfort. In order to fulfill this mission, it goes without saying that we must produce vehicles that are of high quality, durable, and reliable, but we must also provide a servicing system that helps our customers eliminate downtimes. Our participation in the Dakar Rally is directly connected to efforts to hone our technological capabilities for making good vehicles and providing excellent services, both of which are needed to fulfill our mission. The year 2014 will be the culminating year of our three-year project thatwe started in 2011 to develop a new racing truck, and we will be going full steam ahead to win our fifth straight championship in the Under 10-litre Class as well as achieving high rankings in the overall Trucks category.

In the 2013 race, we gave one of our trucks a fuel-injected engine, which I drove as a test truck. We found no problems with this truck so we gave the engine more power and rechristened it Car 2 for the upcoming race. This will be the culminating race in our three-yearproject to develop a new racing truck, and I believe we have a good shot at aiming for high rankings in the overall Trucks category. Car 1 has been given more power in the form of a 9-liter engine, which is a first for us. During the development process, Hino engineers collaborated well with third parties across the organizational borders between them. I was very happy to see how they started with a blank slate in taking on the challenge of developing new technologies. I do this for the love of motor sport, and I think it is a very positive thing that-owing partly to my continued entry in the race-people much younger than myself who have joined Hino dealerships in many parts of the country are raising their hands to be chosen as team members in the race, which in many cases means that they will have spent over 10 years in preparation by the time they make the team. While we were quite tight for time in terms of shipping our trucks to South America, I am very happy that we were able to showcase our trucks and team at Motor Sport Japan at the request of Mr. Ichihashi, who insisted that we show the Japanese motor sport fans the actual new racing trucks. We will be racing this rally with "all-Japanese trucks and team," and I would like to thank you in advance for your support.

The 2014 race will be held in Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, but the Trucks category will race in only Argentina and Chile without entering Bolivia. The primary theater of the race will be the Atacama Desert, which is said to have received no rain for 400 years, and this is a region that we have some experience in. Car 2 underwent a test run at the Rally Mongolia in August and we got a real sense that the truck is in really good condition. We believe the truck has seen a 10% improvement in terms of overall potential, so we have our sights set onhigh rankings in the upcoming race. Car 1 has been mounted with a new 9-liter engine. We have also been able to clarify our roles-where my father leverages his extensive experience to take his truck to the finish and feed the data back to me-so our vision is that if we are able to fully mature these trucks over the next two to three years, we will be able to aim for a position in the top five in the overall Trucks category. This is a very exciting prospect as it will prove to the world that even small trucks have a chance at aiming for high rankings overall. So I would like to thank all of you in advance for your support and let you know that you can expect great results from our team moving forward.