Skullcandy Nissan Returning in '14 to the IMSA Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge

The black clad Skullcandy Nissan Altima's will be returning to the race circuit in 2014 after a solid effort in '13.  Its two car team finished 11th and 20th overall for the year out of 39 teams with one race win and a number of top ten finishes within the ST class.  It also looks like they have added a 370Z to their racing stable and will compete in the next rung up, GS class, in the IMSA CTSCC, having shown a fully race ready Z at SEMA '13 a couple months back.

The factory based series often runs on the same weekend as the high end TUDOR United SportsCar Championship (formerly the Rolex series).  The 2014 season will be 12 races long, up from 10 in '13 with the first event coming on 1/24/14 at Daytona prior to the 24 Hours of Daytona TUDOR event.

Skullcandy Nissan 2014 Plans...

Awesome Photo of Five Racing Navaras

There are a ton of cool racing (and other) events this weekend (and today) taking place around the world and none of them involve NAPCAR.

In South Africa for instance we have the opening round of the 2013 Donaldson Cross Country Championship (formerly the ABSA Offroad series).  At this even we have the largest Nissan based offroad team in the world.  The Regent Racing team will be fielding five top flight Nissan Navaras (Frontiers here in the US) with a sixth to show up at the series' next event.  The photo here is of their epic paddock area with the five Navaras all done up in similar livery parked squarely away.  At least two of these are V8 powered Navaras with the rest being standard V6s.

With this series producing some of the best Dakar racer's and vehicles in the world it is one to keep a close watch on.  Fielding a six team effort is a big deal , probly bigger in cost than the factory efforts of Ford or Toyota in that same series.  Here's hoping for a return to Dakar in '14 by Nissan in a big way, lead by this Regent racing team.

Regent Racing Homepage...

Good Start For Nissan Motorsports in 2013

There are no Nissans that I know of running in the 24 Hours of Daytona which is a shame given how well Nissans have done in recent endurance events around the world but there were three Nissans running in the Continental Tire BMW Performance 200.

The Continental Tire series as part of the Grand Am organization focuses on more of your typical street cars versus the prototypes and higher end machinery seen in top level Grand Am races.  Mustangs, Civics, Porsches, Camaros, Aston Martins, BMWs, etc.  Within the Continental Tire series there are two classes, the GS and the ST.  The ST being the tad slower more "stock" race vehicles.

The ST class this year sees two Nissans from the Skullcandy Nissan team out of Utah.  Using 3.5 liter Altima coupes the two black cars performed better that could have ever been hoped yesterday.  The Skullcandy #33 Altima won the event taking the ST class win, besting its prior best result in the series of 8th in '12.  The win by the #33 was backed up by a ninth place finish by the #34 Skullcandy Altima in the ST class.  The winning #33 finished 25th overall in the event out of 69 entries.

On a secondary note there was also a Nissan in the GS class as well.  The #14 370Z of Doran racing finished 15th in class and overall.  This Z team also ran in '12 and has always been fast but subject to bad luck and a few gremlins.  A 15th place finish out of the gate in '13 however is a solid result.

While having a Nissan perform in the 24 Hours of Daytona would be a great thing to see, a win and a ninth in the ST class and a 15th in the GS class is not a bad way to start.