The roar of SUPER GT machinery once again filled the air around Suzuka Circuit as car manufacturers and tire makers completed a two-day test at the circuit on March 3rd and 4th, following on from earlier testing last week. A total of 36 cars took part: 18 of them GT500 cars, and 18 cars from GT300.

The 2005 SUPER GT season is about to get underway, with the first round of the series taking place at Okayama International Circuit on March 26-27. This season features eight domestic races and one overseas event (Sepang, Malaysia) in the regular season; with a post-season exhibition race scheduled for the U.S. in December.

The new GT500 Z33 Fairlady is a spectacular looking bit of gear. But you do not have a squint very hard to start spotting common threads between it and last year's ultimate R34 GT-R. The technology obtained in the GT-R was utilised in developing the Zed. Nismo also acknowledge that the Z33 uses the same VQ engine as the Syline GT-R of last years. A quick glance at specification all bat confirms that there's very little separating Nismo's old with new, apart from the curvaceous new carbon-fibre skin work and touch of remodelling inside the cabin.
And the GT500 Zed has proven its winning colours from outset. The reigning champs, Xanavi Nismo duo Satoshi Motoyama and Michael Krumm, were the outright victors at the opening round of the 2004 Autobacs JGTC series in April.
The four GT500 version differ from the non-factory Zeds that debuted in, and went on to win, the GT300 class last year. Interestingly, where the GT500 car's three litre twin-turbo version (VQ30DETT) produces 373kW at a mere 5600rpm, the naturally aspirated 3.5 litre road-based VQ35DE if the GT300 racer screams to a lofty 8000rpm to take all of its claimed 230kW.
This is, perhaps an insight into where Nissan will take theire road cars in the future. If Nismo have spent two years developing twin-turbo VQ engine in the GT-R for the current GT500Zed, it's not inconceivable that the current development of this very engine may appear in the road going and inevitable JGTC track version of the next GT-R when it's (hopfully) released in 2007.

ON SUNDY, October 16, 2003, the GT500 Nismo GT-R driven by Satoshi Motayama and Michaell Krumm rolled over the Fuji 300 season finale finish line in third place to win the 2003 JGTC title for the team Xanavi Nismo. Twenty four seconds earlier, first to the flag, was team Calsonic's Syline. A fitting end to the spectacular 15-year innings for the legandary BNR series GT-R.
It had been 17 year hiatus since the halcyon days of the KPGC110 when Nissan resurrected the GT-R nameplate to race in domestic Japanese touring car championship in 1990. With turbocharging and AWD, the R32 dominated the early'90s Group A. GT-R continued as Nissan's big-gun when, in 1994 the series adopted a Group C/LeMans-style formula and transformed into today's monstrous rear-driven JGTC category.
The writing was on the pitwall in 2002. Nissan had not only finished production of R34 GT/R road car, but The JGTC Syline lost the last tangible hardware link between road and track that made the homologated BNR GT-R such a iconic supercar: their RB26DETT engine. The latter's VQ vee six twin turbo replacement was the final nail in the GT-R's coffin and also signalled two things. Firstly, that the new and yet-to-materialise revamped GT-R would run The VQ30DETT or variant thereof, and secondly, that Nissan's JGTC torch would be passed on the higly succesful 350Z.
What is exactly happened