Silverstone,GB (September 16, 2007)
Nissan Motor GB and RJN Motorsport entered two 350Zs into this weekends Brit car 24hr race at Silverstone and came away with a remarkable third place group race win and 15th place overall. The second car, after an eventful race, finished 23rd overall.The 350Zs were up against some very strong opposition including works BMW's, Aston Martins and Porsches.
This RJN Motorsport prepared 350 Z has been doing the rounds of the Dunlop Sport Maxx cup this year, which is a race series that only allows a limited amount of changes, making it as close to a road going car as possible. The main difference for this race is that the vehicle was allowed to run on slick tyres. Against the competition it looked the most road going of the bunch.
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Evo Magazine team of road test Editors Jethro Bovingdon, John Barker and Richard Meaden plus Michael Mallock from RML took up the challenge and started the race at 4.30pm on Saturday afternoon. With a steady and fault free race it had crept up to 10th place at one stage settling down to a respectable 15th as faster vehicles passed by. However, by 7.00am on Sunday morning things took a turn for the worst with the water temperature edging its way upwards into dangerous territory. The technical crew worked tirelessly between 7.00 and 11.00am to fix what soon became a reoccurring problem. After the cooling fan had been rewired and the system drained several times the car set the car off again with all praying for the rest of the race to be fault - free. All seemed to be going well and the 350Z started to challenge for 3rd place against a Morgan. The 350Z was much quicker but the Morgan seemed to be able to go further between pit or fuel stops, so was gaining a huge time advantage. At 12.45pm the 350Z was back in for the cooling fan to be permanently set to on but this took some 20 minutes to fix. The more the clock was ticking it was obvious that it would be a close battle with the Morgan but thanks to good strategy, consistent driving and some quick pit stops the 350Z out - ran the Morgan to take a remarkable 3rd place on the group winners rostrum.
The second 350Z in the race was a highly tuned version which competed earlier this year at the Nurbergring 24hr. The driver line up was strong with Anthony Reid, Kurt Thiim, Alex Buncombe and supported by Owen Mildenhall. It was obvious early on that the vehicle was as quick as the leading group but soon the gremlins started to occur. First fault was with the fuel cap, and then gear selection problems occurred. Further problems including a starter motor replacement and another gearbox, which resulted in even more time lost. By early afternoon on Sunday, the vehicle was working well it was starting to move up the field, overtaking many vehicles, especially through the corners, providing an interesting spectacle for all to watch. As 4.30pm on Sunday afternoon approached the finishing line was in sight and the car finished a respectable 23rd.
This is the first time that a 350Z had successfully completed a 24 - hour race in Europe, so to have 2 cars finish is testament to the vehicles reliability and the hard work of the teams involved.
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