Nissan Withdraws from Speed World Challenge

[Layla's Keeper]

After two years, one win, and a lot of money poured into one factory Sentra SE-R, Nissan announced in Autoweek magazine that they are pulling out of the SCCA Speed World Challenge touring class. It's a shame as the Sentra SE-R had become a regular front runner.

Hopefully Petey Cunningham will gain a ride with another top team and Nissan will reconsider withdrawing factory racing in Speed World Challenge. It's always a shame to lose a factory team.


So long Nismo. Come back when there's a new GT-R.

[SniperX13]

what........ why??? did they give any reason at all? were they losing their funding?

this makes no sense to me.

[Layla's Keeper]

I haven't been able to find any reason in all my research. My best guess would be that Nissan simply wasn't happy with the results. They've only picked up one win as a top-spending factory team in two years.

Nissan has nailed down wins in Grand Am Cup with factory supported 350Z's, they've picked up wins in CORR's Lite class, are the exclusive engine supplier for the Infiniti Pro Series, and have started a Grand Am Daytona Prototype engine program.

So, looking at the whole picture of Nissan's involvement in American motorsport, it seems to me that Nissan took one look at what was (in their eyes) an underperforming program that was going to need a massive influx of cash (i.e. competing this season with the new forced induction rules package for cars like the Mini Cooper S and SRT-4 Neon) and said "Well, screw it."

[kfoote]

This year, Cunningham will be driving an Acura TSX for Realtime Racing, which he owns.

Note that there were a total of zero Nissan 350Z's in the Grand-Am Cup opener at Daytona, and I don't expect there will be any at the Dominican Republic.

[Layla's Keeper]

Well, I found out why there weren't any Grand Am Cup 350Z's at Daytona.

Apparently, Performance Nissan Racing (the team that campaigned the championship contending 350Z's last year) sold two cars in the off-season to new teams that are preparing for competition (and, for a new team, sitting out Daytona is typically a good idea since it's traditionally VERY hard on equipment). In the meantime, PNR and Unitech will campaign the team's remaining car and Unitech will attend to one of the two "second-hand" cars.

The reason PNR sold the majority of their Grand Am Cup team is because they're preparing a GARRA GT class 350Z. They say themselves they intend to debut it this year.

http://www.performancenissanracing.com/news.html

[kfoote]

Originally Posted by Layla's Keeper

Apparently, Performance Nissan Racing (the team that campaigned the championship contending 350Z's last year) sold two cars in the off-season to new teams that are preparing for competition (and, for a new team, sitting out Daytona is typically a good idea since it's traditionally VERY hard on equipment). In the meantime, PNR and Unitech will campaign the team's remaining car and Unitech will attend to one of the two "second-hand" cars.

Yep, for the California events. After that, there has been no official announcement yet , but I expect to see at least one of those cars at several of the East coast races as well.