A Difficult Day for Two NISMO Z Cars
Hasemi Z and IMPUL Z Finished 6th and 10th
JGTC Rd. 2 SUGO GT CHAMPIONSHIP Race Report
SPORTSLAND SUGO (Miyagi, Japan) - May 22-23, 2004
JGTC round 2 was a tough weekend for two NISMO cars (#1 and #22).
The formation lap for the race started at 2:20 p.m, and 40 cars took off from their grid. The temperature was 11ºC, never rose from the morning practice. Heavy clouds covered the sky as the cars roared towards the starting line on the main straight. Xanavi NISMO Z (#1), which had difficulty to improve its position in the qualifying sessions to start from 10th, suddenly lost speed while going downhill on the back straight. The car left the formation and stopped at exit of SP Corner. The driver Satoshi Motoyama said on the radio that the car "suddenly lost the traction." The winner of the round 1 had to leave the field before the race even started.
Meanwhile, Motul Pitwork Z (#22) stood 4th place on the grid and Masami Kageyama started the race. When the green light was turned on, all the cars rushed toward the 1st corner and the car overtook Toyota Supra (#38) to improve position to 3rd place. Kageyama kept the position and chased the two cars in front of him. While the top two cars had fierce battle, the difference between 2nd and 3rd decreased to 0.3 seconds by lap 25. However, on lap 27, the car was surrounded by three Supras and was pushed back to 6th. Still, the lap time was stable, and it had chance to recover. The accident occurred on lap 29 when #39 and #36 Supras hit each other and spun. Kageyama, driving right behind them, could not avoid and hit the nose on the side of #39. He had to return to pit before schedule. Although the car was back on track with tentatively fixed nose and Michael Krumm on board, Krumm returned to pit immediately after, and pulled the car back in garage to retire. The intercooler broke in the impact of the accident and was unable to recover.
After two NISMO cars left the field, Calsonic IMPUL Z (#12) and G'ZOX SSR Hasemi Z (#3) drew attention of Nissan fans. #12 started the race from 5th position and soon moved up to 3rd, but was forced to drive though the pit lane as a penalty for cutting across the white line on the exit of the pit lane. The car returned to pit to change tires when the rain started to fall, but eventually lost position to finish 10th overall. #3 started from 9th, climbed up to 3rd but lost time lost time by missing the right opportunity to change the tires and finished 6th overall.
"We are very sorry that we could not answer to your support," said Hiroshi Degawa, Team Director of NISMO. "We still don't know what caused the mechanical problem that #1 could not start and we are confused since it happened so suddenly. The retire of #22 was unavoidable racing accident If it wasn't for it, we still had chance to recover, so this is our regret as well. We will work harder so we will make up for our loss the next round onwards."
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RACE RESULTS
JGTC Rd. 2 SUGO GT CHAMPIONSHIP - Sunday, 23 May, 2004 SPORTSLAND SUGO
[ 14:25- 81Laps Cloudy-Rain / Dry-Wet ]
| Pos |
Car Name |
No. |
Driver Name |
Time/Diff. |
| 1 |
au Cerumo Supra |
38 |
Yuji Tachikawa / Seiji Ara |
1:56:36.465 |
| 2 |
ECLIPSE ADVAN Supra |
25 |
Manabu Orido / Dominik Schwager |
35.738 |
| 3 |
DYNACITY Tom's Supra |
37 |
James Courtney/ Tatsuya Kataoka |
55.607 |
| 4 |
EPSON NSX |
32 |
Tsugio Matsuda/ Andre Lotterer |
1Lap |
| 5 |
Yellow Hat YMS Supra |
35 |
Naoki Hattori/ Shigekazu Wakisaka |
1Lap |
| 6 |
G'ZOX SSR Hasemi Z |
3 |
Toshihiro Kaneishi/ Erik Comas |
1Lap |
| 10 |
Calsonic IMPUL Z |
12 |
Benoit Treluyer/ Yuji Ide |
3Laps |
| R |
Motul Pitwork Z |
22 |
Masami Kageyama / Michael Krumm |
51Laps |
| R |
Xanavi NISMO Z |
1 |
Satoshi Motoyama/ Richard Lyons |
81Laps |
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TRACK INFORMATION
Length: 3,704.256m |
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