Tuesday, January 19, 2010

NISMO Stuff Racing Grabs a 1st, 2nd and 3rd!!

At this weekend's NER SCCA Rallycross event at Stafford Springs, CT the team was able to, at the very least, show that a 4 cyl, 2WD truck can be competitive in this style of racing...

The two day event was divided into three distinct events. All the runs made on Saturday would be counted as the EngravingAwardsGifts.com Regional Event #1 for the 2010 season and all the runs made on Sunday would be counted on as the EngravingAwardsGifts.com Regional Event #2 for the 2010 season. Additionally, all of Saturday's afternoon runs and all of Sunday's morning runs would count towards the first SCCA National Rallycross event of the year.

So what were the team's results?

How bout a 3rd place in Saturday's Regional event, a 2nd place on Sunday's Regional event and a 1st overall within the National event? Yup, starting off the year well and positioned solidly for the rest of the year.

The picture above is poor I know but hopefully I will have more in the next few days...The course each day was about a mile or so in length and began each day covered in ice and several inches of snow, quickly deteriorating into frozen dirt with patches of ice and small muddy puddles. While traction improved the more times the courses were run, grip was always at a premium. All in all I am quite pleased give this is the first time I have ever driven a rear wheel drive vehicle in my life, let alone on snow and ice and in a competitive environment. Though the results were good, I have no delusions about what the rest of the year holds. It will be difficult to run with the quality drivers present in the Prepared RWD class (moved to P RWD class to face more competition and compete for the season title) and the better equipped vehicles—the vehicles I was running against this weekend were running studded, winter tires!!

Despite the numerous obstacles in the path of NISMO Stuff Racing, the General Tire Grabber A/Ts did surprisingly well. Not at their best on the ice, the Grabbers really began to shine when it started to get down to the dirt and light mud, getting the power to the ground and allowing the truck to climb through the ranks as the days went forward. Additional thanks goes to Bully Dog Technology for their early support in this effort, Nissan Motorsport of North America for parts support and to Red Line Rally graphics for making the truck look so solid in its first day out—now if only we could find some decent pics to show it off!!

Regardless, the next event comes on 2/20 at New England Dragway where snowy, icy, muddy conditions are bound to be present once again. Results from this weekend's event are linked below.

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