sorry if this is a repost, searched "skyline" and didn't turn anything up

http://www.scca.com/News/News.asp?Ref=521



MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. (Feb. 15, 2006) – Bringing the Nissan Skyline GT-R to a North American road racing series for the first time ever, AutomotiveForums.com has announced its entry into the 2006 SCCA Pro Racing SPEED World Challenge GT Championship.

The team, based in the Los Angeles area, is preparing to make its debut March 15-17 at Sebring International Raceway, in Sebring, Fla., where SPEED World Challenge will begin its 17th season.

The Skyline GT-R is a front-engine, all-wheel drive, two-door coupe, and with deep technical support from Skyline GT-R teams from both Japan and around the world, the AutomotiveForums.com team expects to be competitive right out of the box.

“We are excited to have an opportunity to finally campaign the GT-R, a car with rich Japanese motorsports history, stateside against the likes of the Dodge Viper, Chevrolet Corvette and Porsche 911,” Crew Chief Sean Morris said. “We have been working toward this goal for quite some time.”

Making his SPEED World Challenge GT debut along with the car, Igor Sushko, 20, will pilot the GT-R.

And though another driver has not yet been announced, the AutomotiveForums.com team has reserved two numbers, 69 and 70, with plans of adding a second GT-R to the roster later in the season.

The 2006 SPEED World Challenge GT schedule could not be more perfect, giving the team an opportunity to contend at a variety of circuits and street course venues across the country alongside the American Le Mans Series, Indy Racing League, Champ Car, and NASCAR Nextel Cup.

“As the product planner of the Nissan Skyline GT-R R34, this car and its heritage have a paramount place in my heart,” Hiroshi Tamura said. “I am very excited to finally see the GT-R compete in a United States championship series.

“I am fully confident in Igor and his team's ability to make the GT-R community around the world proud and we wish them good luck.”

Associate and technical sponsors for this effort include Rays Engineering, Mackin Industries, Tilton Engineering and Brembo, with further support to be announced shortly.

Launched in November of 2000, AutomotiveForums.com is today a leader in connecting the auto enthusiasts via the Internet. Currently, more than 435,000 members enjoy AutomotiveForums, with 500 new users signing up daily.

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The driver is 20yrs/old, lucky bastard, I hate him. Anyone heard of him or know of other series he's raced in?
And when is honda-tech.com going to sponsor a car in SWC??

 

it will be interesting to see how it does.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by uncleben &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The driver is 20yrs/old, lucky bastard, I hate him. Anyone heard of him or know of other series he's raced in?</TD></TR></TABLE>

http://www.automotiveforums.co....html

He owns automotiveforums.com, so that answered the other silent question I had, heh

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by uncleben &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

http://www.automotiveforums.co....html

He owns automotiveforums.com, so that answered the other silent question I had, heh </TD></TR></TABLE>

He is a nice guy. Pretty down to earth fellow!

 

A GTR, that's awesome! Any history on the driver's experience? So I guess owning a web forum pays well. lol

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Hracer &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">A GTR, that's awesome! Any history on the driver's experience? So I guess owning a web forum pays well. lol</TD></TR></TABLE>

From what I've been reading, not much, but successful at the little he's done. They went to that Buttonwillow time attack challenge and won the AWD class. I can't remember if he and the GTR were one of the faster cars overall -- I saw that RedLine TV show on Speed about it, where the Chevy sponsored Cobalt won because (for one) Henricy was driving and it was stupid-fast SC'd and NOS'd. ()

And yes, I would imagine a forum that is littered with ads (and I thought HT was bad, PM me if you think the context-sensitive hyperlinking is hella ghey and I'll tell you how to disable it) that has a 300K+ membership with over 500 new users a day brings in quite the hefty revenue.

 

Those guys were supposed to race a GT-R a long time ago (I wanna say 2005 season but maybe 2004) but didn't get it together. Apparently they didn't have any pro racing experience.

If they've got the right people involved they could do well but just from the fact that they announced their first try and it was stillborn tells me that they might not have a good grasp of everything it takes to stage a successful effort. Jumping straight into SWGT would not be my first choice if I were just getting into pro racing but to each his own.

Good to see more variety in GT next year with the Ford GT and DBRS9 joining the party as well.

EDIT: Unnecessary sarcasm removed


Modified by JMU R1 at 1:39 PM 2/16/2006

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by uncleben &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

The driver is 20yrs/old, lucky bastard, I hate him. Anyone heard of him or know of other series he's raced in?
And when is honda-tech.com going to sponsor a car in SWC?? </TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah, Igor is a friend of a few of us here on Honda-Tech. He's a relative noob in racing, but he is fast and getting better all the time. He's wealthy, thanks to his company's success (Automotive Forums) so I don't think his budget will hold him back either. We'll see how the Chevy boys treat him in SWC though, and if the Laguna Seca round from last year is any indication, he'll need to keep plenty of body panels in his new transporter.

 

bigger the variety of cars the better

 

I'd like to see this car next month at Sebring. I'll be there.

 

I don't think this car will do well, since drifting in a corner slows you down in RR.

 

Very cool addition to the series. I wonder what kind of weight they'll be able to get that monster down to...

Jon

 

Good Luck to the team!

 

Granted I know very little about this car, but isn't it like 10+ years old? I thought the car couldn't be more than 5 years old to race WC.

 

If this car does start to become a threat, watch carefully for rule changes/performance adjustments above and beyond typical "rewards weight". No way SCCA is gonna let a privateer with little experience in an odd-ball JDM car start pissing off anyone with Big-three manufacturer support. Read that in my tea leaves this morning...

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I agree with the photo guy

 

Mr. T you do understand even the people that race for the big three get hit with some hefty performance restricitons. One year the CTS's got a 60MM resitrctor (from a 90mm throttle) and got there revs dropped 2000-2500 RPM plus weight. SCCA seems to do a fair job of leveling the field. However if they are smart they will play it safe and hang in the back a bit

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by thawley &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">If this car does start to become a threat, watch carefully for rule changes/performance adjustments above and beyond typical "rewards weight". No way SCCA is gonna let a privateer with little experience in an odd-ball JDM car start pissing off anyone with Big-three manufacturer support. Read that in my tea leaves this morning...</TD></TR></TABLE>

Really that's how it is for any team. If any of the cars get too fast they'll get slapped down with a comp adjustment. The trick is to be so good on development that you can claw that speed back and/or sandbag your true performance potential by winning by the smallest margin posssible.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by JMU R1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Really that's how it is for any team. If any of the cars get too fast they'll get slapped down with a comp adjustment. The trick is to be so good on development that you can claw that speed back and/or sandbag your true performance potential by winning by the smallest margin posssible.</TD></TR></TABLE>

the SCCA is especially hard on the small time privateer teams not racing brand new model cars though.. they tend to "rules" them out..

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by thawley &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">If this car does start to become a threat, watch carefully for rule changes/performance adjustments above and beyond typical "rewards weight". No way SCCA is gonna let a privateer with little experience in an odd-ball JDM car start pissing off anyone with Big-three manufacturer support. Read that in my tea leaves this morning...</TD></TR></TABLE>

As with any series, there will always politics involved. I would give SCCA benefit of the doubt, though.

 

I was wondering if someone would post our press release up here. Its nice to see the Honda folk are interested in the GT-R! I've been apart of the team working on the car for about 6 months now. The whole process of getting the GT-R into WC for this season was started about 1.5 years ago. I can't believe the start of the season is only a few weeks away.

We're a rookie team with a young driver. We all know that and we have a realistic outlook. We're a different type of team though. We're all close friends. We all have different experiences in automotive endeavors and motorsports to draw from. My specific role is race engineer. I spent a lot of time learning through helping with club racers, like resident photo guy John Thawley. I hope to gain valuable experience working in the SCCA Speed World Challenge. I have been conversing with engineers working for other professional race teams in all sorts of different series. I've also been given support by fellow World Challenge TC racers. We're all excited to be apart of World Challenge and we want to see what we can do.

You can all also do your part by going to AutomotiveForums.com and click on the advertisements. Racing is hard on body panels... we need to get more...

 

Too bad you guys don't race anywhere close. Best of luck this year

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by JMU R1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

The trick is to be so good on development that you can claw that speed back and/or sandbag your true performance potential by winning by the smallest margin posssible.</TD></TR></TABLE>

So true.....

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Brian*E30 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Too bad you guys don't race anywhere close. Best of luck this year</TD></TR></TABLE>

No VIR?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by trigun7469 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I don't think this car will do well, since drifting in a corner slows you down in RR. </TD></TR></TABLE>

um, okay.


<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by merritr &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
You can all also do your part by going to AutomotiveForums.com and click on the advertisements. </TD></TR></TABLE>

lol, nice shameless plug.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by merritr &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Its nice to see the Honda folk are interested in the GT-R!
.....
We're all excited to be apart of World Challenge and we want to see what we can do.
</TD></TR></TABLE>
We're interested in anything that rolls onto a road course, and if it's JDM-illicious like the almighty GTR, even better. I think I speak for everyone when I say we wish you the best of luck and will all be tuned in to see how you do.