Nobuhiko Akiyama

The leader the Northwest Saitama Alliance, Nobuhiko Akiyama (秋山 延彦 Akiyama Nobuhiko, "Nobu") is very intelligent and analytical. His skills as a driver, however, are not very good. Because of this, he usually recruits other highly skilled drivers and uses his technical data to further tune their cars according to each course. Nobuhiko did race against Takumi once on the downhill, but was left behind after the first hairpin and only because Takumi was letting him keep up, upon Ryosuke's instruction. It is revealed that Nobuhiko is Wataru Akiyama's cousin (as they share the same surname and looks pretty similar). Kazumi mentioned he lives in Higashimatsuyama, Saitama. He also recruited Sakamoto to the Northern Saitama Alliance

Trivia

 * In the Fourth Stage anime, Nobuhiko, alongside his cousin Wataru and fellow Northern Saitama Ally Sakamoto, watched Project D's battle against Sidewinder.
 * It is unknown what happened to Kyoko during the Sidewinder battle, but it can be presumed that she couldn't watch the battle alongside Nobuhiko for unknown reasons.