Nissan GT-R - Too fast to race?

click above image for a great gallery from the 2007 NISMO Festival

While top billing at the recent annual NISMO festival went to next year's Super GT500 GT-R, the surprise appearance made by the GT-R prototype that set the 7:38 lap time at the Nurburgring earlier this year got the most attention.

First Nissan had the masked maverick run a slalom course, flat out, down Fuji Speedway's mile-long main straight, demonstrating the preternatural abilities of the latest ATTESSA-ETS system. It then ran a quick 1/4-mile drag race against a 2007 Super Taikyu Class 1 350Z race car, which it didn't just win, it won by several car lengths. Unfortunately, the run wasn't timed and neither were the following laps, where the GT-R out-classed the endurance racer in every section of the circuit.

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This begs the question: Where will Nissan race its road cars in Japan next year? Igor Sushko, who is currently contesting Super Taikyu Class 3 in a Z, can't see the GT-R being homologated even for the endurance series' Class 1, as it would simply embarrass the 911 GT3s, Zs and BMW Z4s now racing in that category.

If, as we reported earlier, GT-Rs are indeed heading to the Grand Am series, they may not be welcome for long. Could we see a replay of the R32's utter dominance that led to GT-Rs being banned from Australian Touring Car racing in the early 1990s?