Four Nissans in Today's IMSA CTSCC at Daytona...

Good to see Nissan fielding a solid number of cars at this year's opening event at Daytona.  With the race occurring early this afternoon the 2014 Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge season gets underway.

There appear to be two, two car teams for this year.  In the top end GS class we have the Doran Racing/Tim Bell Racing 370Z effort while in the ST (street tuner) class we have the Skullcandy Nissan Altima team which has added a second car for the '14 season.

Qualifying for today's event took place on Thursday and saw some solid results for the Nissans.

In GS the Tim Bell driven #28 370Z qualified 11th of 26 while Brad Jaeger put the #14 Z in the 15th position.  Given they only had two or three laps of qualifying, I'm not sure how much this says.  Additionally, every other car in the GS class is a V8 (except for a lone Subaru STi) the Zs will have their work cut out for them keeping up on the oval stretches of the Daytona circuit which is likely the track that least suits them of any on the schedule.

Down in the ST class, the Skullcandy team put its #33 Altima into the 4th position (of 35) off the line behind the hands of Bryan Heitkotter, the 2011 Nissan Playstation Academy winner and by now well diversified driver.  The #34 Altima of Johnny Canavas didn't fare quite so well but qualified 25th.  The race will be broadcast on Fox Sports 2 at 6PM Eastern today...so if you get that channel...tune in and look for some fast (hopefully!) Nissans.

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.