Godzilla's Visit

Today was the 5th points event for the Renegade Miata club, however, I did not bring home any points in the "Other Mazdas" class. Instead, I ran in the "Non Mazdas" class with Kaizen Tuning's Nissan Skyline GT-R 35! This track monster is specifically setup for Lime Rock Park and Watkins Glenn, sporting some 295/19 front and 315/19 rear Hoosier R6 tires, Cobb suspension, 600 all-wheel horse power, and a lot of other modifications. The full list of Scott's build can be seen here on his shop's website. This thing was an absolute blast and it surprised me in it's overall performance on the autocross course.

Today was more of an open course, working to my advantage by allowing me to use the power. I was surprised at how you could not feel the heavy weight (roughly 3,800lbs.) of the GT-R during transitions such as slaloms, and it really held it's grip well while being partly on-throttle during the few sweepers. The power was simply intoxicating as I wanted to stay on the throttle a lot more than I needed to, which took me awhile to dial back my inputs and react earlier (because the car was at the next element before I knew it!). I can see some of the compliants however about electronics taking over the car, as one thing I missed from my RX-8 and Miata was the response from the car when pressing the throttle.

Other electronic features were interesting however, such as how you could change the transmission, suspension, and traction control settings, all the gauges on the car display, and the infinite adjustment settings of the seat positions. In the end though, I did not mind the electronics as I felt it was as if having a translator between you and the car so that the car can truly act as an extension of your own body. I think the only complaint I have about the car is that my magnetic numbers did not stick to the doors because the doors are aluminum!

As the day progressed I noticed the car was understeering more and more with each run, which I later came to find out that the front driver-side tire had become corded in three spots (which started off almost bald compared to the others)! With never having driven a high horsepower car before, no experience with all-wheel-drive, and with a corded tire, I ran a 1'08.4 as my fastest time of the day. It makes me wonder what I could have gotten for a time with some fresh Hoosiers and having the car tuned for more low-end instead. Here on Renegade Miata's website are the results for the day.

I can't thank Scott enough for giving me such an opportunity in his car, I really do appreciate it. It was an honor to be driving the shop's campaign car and bringing it out there to display it's potential at autocross racing. Be sure to check out Kaizen Tuning as they really are a top-notch tuning shop with a lot of amazing talent that can help you with any project you have. Below are some videos I had taken during the day, with the rest on my YouTube channel. The first video is my first run with a nice overview of the course, then the second video is a nice inside view, while the third video is my fastest run of the day with my camera in the usual spot. Look forward to my next post as tonight I have two friends coming over tonight to help me finish fixing these engine problems once and for all. Until then, stay tuned.