Hiro Matsushita
ヒロ松下
Matsushita in 2018
Born	Hiroyuki Matsushita (1961-03-14) March 14, 1961 (age 63) Nishinomiya, Japan
Other names	King Hiro [1]
Alma mater	Konan University
Occupation(s)	Businessperson, former racing driver
Title	Chairman & CEO – Swift Engineering [2] Chairman & CEO – Swift Xi Inc. Chairman & CEO – Matsushita International Corp
Spouse	Mitsuko Matsushita
Children	1
Parents	Masaharu Matsushita (father) Sachiko Matsushita (mother)
Relatives	Yamagata Isaburō (great-great-uncle) Toshio Iue (uncle) Maeda Toshisada(great-uncle)
Family	Kōnosuke Matsushita (grandfather) Hirata Shodo (grandfather) Hirata Tosuke (great-grandfather)
Signature

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.

Early life

Matsushita was born in Nishinomiya, Hyōgo Prefecture as the youngest son of Masaharu Matsushita, who was the second president of Panasonic for sixteen years from 1961. He graduated from Konan University. His elder brother, Masayuki Matsushita served as a vice chairman of Panasonic for over a decade.

Racing career

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.

By the time he retired in 1998, Matsushita had started 117 Champ Car races for Dick Simon Racing, Walker Racing, Arciero/Wells Racing and Payton/Coyne. He holds the record for most starts in American Championship Car Racing history without scoring a Top 5.

In 2001, Matsushita competed in the Baja 1000 off-road race, in a Mitsubishi Montero.

Racing record

WCAR/SCCA Western Formula Atlantic Championship results

Year	Team	Points	Car	races	wins	podiums	pole positions	Pos.
1988	Panasonic Racing	118	Swift DB4	10	1	4		3

IMSA Camel Lights results

Year	Team	Points	Car	races	wins	podiums	pole positions	Pos.
1988	Downing/Atlanta Racing	64	Argo JM19 Mazda	6		3		11

Toyota Atlantic Championship (pacific) results

Year	Team	Points	Car	races	wins	podiums	pole positions	Pos.
1989	Panasonic Racing	141	Swift DB4	9	4	8	3	1

Lady Wigram Trophy results

Year	Team	Car	race	Laps	Pos.
1989	Team Panasonic	Swift Cosworth	1	8	1

American open–wheel racing results

Indy Lights

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	Rank	Points
1989	Panasonic Racing	PHX	LBH	MIL	DET	POR 13	MEA 12	TOR 6	POC	MDO	ROA	NAZ 8	LAG	18th	14

CART

Year	Team	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	Rank	Points	Ref
1990	Dick Simon Racing	Lola T89/00	Cosworth DFS V8 t	PHX	LBH 19	INDY DNQ	MIL	DET 19	POR 12	CLE	MEA 16	TOR	MIS	DEN 15	VAN 23	MDO 17	ROA 18	NZR 21	LS 23				31st	1	[5]
1991	Dick Simon Racing	Lola T90/00	Cosworth DFS V8 t	SRF 21		PHX 14		MIL 10	DET 14	POR 14													23rd	6	[6]
		Lola T91/00			LBH 13						CLE 14	MEA 12	TOR 15	MIS 19	DEN 14	VAN 16	MDO 14	ROA 12	NZR 12
			Buick 3300 V6 t				INDY 16
			Chevrolet 265A V8 t																	LS 20
1992	Dick Simon Racing	Lola T92/00	Chevrolet 265A V8 t	SRF DNS	PHX 16	LBH 10	INDY DNS	DET	POR	MIL	NHM	TOR	MIS	CLE 24	ROA 14	VAN 13	MDO 18	NZR 14	LS 15				27th	3	[7]
1993	Walker Racing	Lola T93/00	Ford XB V8 t	SRF 11	PHX 10	LBH 14	INDY 18	MIL 13	DET 13	POR 21	CLE 12	TOR 16	MIS 14	NHM 13	ROA 13	VAN 12	MDO 13	NZR 21	LS 19				26th	7	[8]
1994	Dick Simon Racing	Lola T94/00	Ford XB V8 t	SRF 15	PHX 27	LBH DNQ	INDY 14	MIL 23	DET DNQ	POR 21	CLE 15	TOR 18	MIS 6	MDO 18	NHM 17	VAN DNQ	ROA 14	NZR 16	LS 23				26th	8	[9]
1995	Arciero-Wells Racing	Reynard 94i	Ford XB V8 t	MIA 26	SRF 11	PHX 22	LBH 19	NZR DNS															28th	5	[10]
		Reynard 95i							INDY 10	MIL 19	DET 14	POR 17	ROA 13	TOR 19	CLE 13	MIS 20	MDO 15	NHM 22	VAN 17	LS 22
1996	Payton/Coyne Racing	Lola T96/00	Ford XB V8 t	MIA 18	RIO 24	SRF 10	LBH 28	NZR 26	500 14	MIL 28	DET 19	POR 21	CLE 17	TOR 27	MIS 15	MDO 19	ROA 15	VAN 15	LS 23				28th	3	[11]
1997	Arciero-Wells Racing	Reynard 97i	Toyota RV8A V8 t Toyota RV8B V8 t	MIA 21	SRF 25	LBH 20	NZR 25	RIO 23	STL 15	MIL 17	DET 19	POR 15	CLE 20	TOR 22	MIS 9	MDO 19	ROA 24	VAN 14	LS 28	FON 23			27th	4	[12]
1998	Arciero-Wells Racing	Reynard 98i	Toyota RV8C V8 t	MIA 23	MOT 16	LBH 19	NZR	RIO 15	STL	MIL	DET	POR	CLE	TOR	MIS	MDO	ROA	VAN	LS	HOU	SRF	FON	30th	0	[13]

24 Hours of Le Mans results

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
1999	Team Goh David Price Racing	Hiroki Katoh Akihiko Nakaya	BMW V12 LM	LMP	223	DNF	DNF

Hiro Matsushita
Matsushita in 1990s
Retired	2001
CART, Championship Car, Indy Car, American Racing Series, Champ Car Atlantic Series, Lady Wigram Trophy
Years active	1987–2001
Teams	Dick Simon Racing Paragon Racing Walker Racing Arciero-Wells Racing Payton/Coyne Racing
Starts	158
Wins	6
Podiums	16
Poles	3
Fastest laps	0
Championship titles
1989	Champ Car Atlantic Series Lady Wigram Trophy [14]
Awards
1998	Champions Club

Nickname

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]

Business career

Matsushita, who is also a successful businessman, owns Matsushita International Corp, a firm that specializes in real estate, finance, and insurance. Among the company's holdings is Swift Engineering, an American engineering firm that is known for producing racing cars for a variety of open-wheel racing series, including Formula Ford, Formula Atlantic, the Champ Car World Series, and Formula Nippon. Matsushita purchased Swift Engineering in 1991 and added it to his business portfolio. ^[17]

Private life

Matsushita resides in San Clemente, California. ^[18]

Awards

In 1998, Nov 2, Hiro Matsushita was awarded Champion Culbs during the CART Year End Banquet at the Century Plaza in Los Angeles, California. ^[19]

Matsushita family tree

Matsushita Uemon

Yasuda Koichiro

Tokue Matsushita

Masakusu Matsushita

Hirata Tosuke

Maeda Toshiaki ( 前田利昭

Mitsui Takamine10th head of the Mitsui family

Tetsujiro Nakao

Yasue

Jun Iue

Yurou Iue

Toshio Iue

Mumeno

Konosuke Matsushita

Hirata Shodo

Shizuko

Maeda Toshisada

Keiko

Mitsui Takakimi11th head of the Mitsui family

Satoshi Iue

Matsushita Sachiko

Masaharu Matsushita

Hirata Katsumi

Nobuko

Iue Toshimasa

Hiro Matsushita

Masayuki Matsushita ( 松下正幸)

Atsuko

See also

• Konosuke Matsushita
• Panasonic
• Masaharu Matsushita
• Swift Engineering
• Swift Xi

References

External links

• Hiro Matsushita career summary at DriverDB.com
• MOTORSPORT STATS(in English)
• Hiro Matsushita driver statistics at Racing-Reference
• RacingSportsCars(in English)
• Hiro Matsushita on Twitter
• Hiro Matsushita at IMDb
• Hiro Matsushita on Facebook

Sporting positions
Preceded by Dean Hall	North American Formula Atlantic Pacific Division Champion 1989	Succeeded by Mark Dismore
Preceded by Dean Hall	Lady Wigram Trophy Winner 1989	Succeeded by Craig Baird