The Nissan Skyline GT-R Story: Sebring Debut

[igor@af]

With only days to go until the April 1st race on the streets of St. Petersburg, the race report for the AutomotiveForums.com Nissan Skyline GT-R at Sebring is here.

We ventured to Roebling Road in Savannah, Georgia on the Friday before the race week for a final shakedown of the car before our first race in World Challenge.

With no issues, we rolled off with the 75ft race support rig containing the spare car and an uncountable amount of spare parts.

Upon arrival at Sebring, we had a test day on Tuesday, followed by an official SCCA practice on Wednesday, with qualifying following on Thursday, and the race itself in mid-afternoon on Friday.

As expected, everything went wrong with the car the first time I took it out on the track on Tuesday, and the entire team scrambled to resolve all the issues one at a time before qualifying on Thursday. Sean Morris, our crew chief, did an incredible job troubleshooting the major issues before qualifying. The entire crew - Josh, Victor, Merritt, and Sean barely got any sleep the entire week leading up to the race, opting to stay in our team truck (we have beds) rather than going back to 2 hotel rooms we had booked for the event at a Woman Athletes' College Dormatory. All the problems gave us incredibly little track time during the practice days to setup the car, as we had no baseline to go off of for a track as rough as Sebring. We qualified 25th with a 2:17.2 time.



The pre-race ceremony is not for the feint-hearted. As a first time driver in a series of this caliber, my entire body was imploding. As the red lights turned on, signaling a countdown for the standing start and all 32 cars began to rev their engines, I did my best to keep my heartbeat low and my body relaxed. The Viper in front of me seemed so close, I actually did not wish to risk rear-ending it off of the launch, since the GT-R is All-Wheel-Drive. We had practiced standing starts and I had it down to a science, but once the lights went off, I wanted to stay on the safe side for our debut standing start and slipped the clutch a bit more than usual, causing the car to bog off of the line. With our starting position being so far in the back, this strategy also made sense - I wanted to keep my nose clean in the beginning when so many crashes take place. Sure enough, plenty of cars went off and crashed out very early on. I also got hit by a Porsche going into turn one, or should we say he "leaned" on me. Our car is so many hundreds of pounds heavier, that I barely felt the nudge - it was more a sound than a physical jerk.

Once the dust cleared, I settled into a good mental zone and kept running consistent times through the race. Our car is down by such an ungodly amount of power compared with the Corvette, Viper, and CTS-V, even though we are heaviest, that it made no sense to go 10/10s. The objective was to finish the race. The power difference was so great that I recall a red Viper spinning out 2-3 times in front of me, and everytime he came back into the rear view mirror like a bullet. That was rather amusing, actually. Also, when I talk of the acceleration deficit, I mean 100% full throttle acceleration from the same speed on the straights.

On lap 12-13, I reported white smoke creeping through the passenger (left) window into the cockpit back to my crew chief. Everything still felt just fine on the car, so I was hoping that maybe it was just some marbles caught on fire inside the wheel well. We quickly got black flagged over the radio and I pitted. As soon as I came to a stop, Sean and Josh went to the left side of the car, followed by Sean running back to the wall and grabbing a fire extinguisher. You had to see him throw that pin like a champ. He quickly extinguished the fire around the downpipe - one of our oil supply lines failed and began to dribble oil onto the downpipe, causing the oil to smoke while the car was in motion. As soon as I pitted, with lack of strong breeze, the oil caught fire. And it was just a small dribble, no major failure and nor has this ever happened before on a GT-R race car in all of racing in Japan or the drag racing here in the US. But this is how it goes in racing - we are writing new records for parts that fail - which had never done so before in over a decade of racing.


All in all, our debut race went extremely well - the interest in this car was phenomenal - hundreds of people stopped by our paddock to let us know that they came out to Sebring for the sole purpose of seeing the GT-R race.



We also made numerous friends and I want to especially thank Randy Pobst and Chip Van Vurst for all of their help. Randy - you are what young drivers such as myself aspire to be both in and out of the cockpit.

Oh, and check us out in AutoWeek!

[igor@af]

Next race is April 1st at St. Petersburg: Who is coming out?!

[massai]

Great job Igor and team 69!, I watched the entire race and plan to watch all races aired this year. I commend you guys for finishing the race safely and not coming in last!! I was wondering what you think it will take to compete with the vipers and vettes? Around or about how much horsepower do you think the vettes and vipers are making compared to the GT-R. As far as weight, how much lighter are the faster cars. Im not too familar with the rules of world Challenge, but do you guys think you can possibly take a podium or a top 10 finish this year? Just to let you guys know you have plenty of fans who support you and the GT-R wholeheartly. Not all of us are Gran-Turismo GT-R Fan boys. Bye the way please stop calling the car a Z-Tune LOL!! Good Luck and godspeed team 69!!!!!!!!!

[ZedEx]

Sounds like your first run went as expected... Filled with problems, haha.

It's always hard getting started, you guys will find your footing, and I'm sure we can be expecting some very impressive results soon to come.

Are you guys coming to the South East at all this season? NC, SC, VA?

-Wes

[igor@af]

The almighty schedule:
http://www.world-challenge.com
Booya

[BLU CIVIC]

coming near NC anytime...i doubt it

[beef_bourito]

well, if i go to the univeristy of ontario for automotive engineering next year, ill drop by your mosport race, it's right by oshawa. great job, hopefuly you'll do even better next time. is there anything you can do to increase the power of your car or decrease the weight? like can you turn up the boost or something and swap out some panels for carbon fiber? or are you basicly at the limit that the rules will give you?

[TatII]

so igor, are you guys planning to up the power in the car to compete or you don't want to risk reliablity.

[igor@af]

We will do whatever is necessary until SCCA deems the car to be competitive, especially in the area of acceleration, compared to other cars in the class.

[81Z28]

I love the car it looks great and I think it could be competitive if you fixed all of the bugs and please try to get the car on tv i can't wait to see it actually racing around a track.

[freakmech]

Congrats on a job well done. And glad to here from you personally, hope the season is a good one!

[LowFlyin']

Igor, I'm with the rest of the crew. Keep pluggin'! The car will come around. Thanks for bringing this car to the GT series. I hope to one day be racing in that series, too!

[Dreamspawn]

Igor i watched st.pete today but i didn't see the skyline or your name in the running order? Was i not looking close enough? I just caught the last few laps though wated the 3 wide with caddy,porsche,and vette. And watched angelili *sp* caddy quit on him in the lead.

[..CUERacing>>S14]

hey man I love the car. I stopped by the Paddock as you were heading to the grid man, then went and druled a little bit while it was on the grid. What happened in the race? I read on world-challenge.com it was a Mech. Failure, what was it? IM sure youll get all the bugs worked out soon. It was great to see a Nissan on the track at St. pete this weekend. So are you guys @ your -100 lbs limit now?

[ballz3]

awesome job, Igor and team! I'm glad to see you out there! I am new to watching these races, so i'm sorry (along with every one else) for all the silly questions...i'm trying to understand all the rules/listings. I was having trouble with the (r) next to your name when it looked like you were still showing up on the standings board, but i think it was because they were showing the previous lap.

anyway, i am now watching all your races (and the Speed Challenge as well now) and am loving it! I can't wait to see more of your action on the track either! great job out there and i think it's going well.

I hope you can figure out ways to make the car even faster without getting any restrictions placed on you. It's strange how we all thought this would have plenty of power, but i guess those v8 and 10's are just pushing WAY too much power! give them resrictions! hehe