Founded in 1994, the All-Japan Grand Touring Car Championship is the biggest race series in Japan. The Japan GT Association (GT-A) is the ruling body overseeing the JGTC and one of the series principals is ensuring close racing and preventing any one team from becoming too dominant. Methods to ensure this include mandatory pit stops for driver changes and refueling, a strict minimum weight requirement and air restrictors on the engines of the cars to ensure they don't exceed the maximum power outputs permitted in their category. The two race categories are GT300 (which allows a maximum power output of 300bhp) and GT500 in which the cars have 500bhp.
Additionally, the cars which qualify for a race in the top three positions, and the top three finishers, plus the car which sets the fastest lap in the race all have to carry a handicap weight for the next race. A similar weight handicap system used to apply (and perhaps still does? I'm not sure!) in the German Touring Car series (the DTM) and was widely disliked by the teams. Audi in particular were very successful with their Audi 200 V8 based car in the early 1990s, but quickly found themselves as also-rans after a few race wins due to the punitive weight handicaps applied. For some teams it can be demoralising to be penalised in such a way for essentially doing a great job! My own opinion is that racing should be a meritocracy where if one team is dominant then it is up to the other teams to raise their game to beat them, but of course the "show" is important, as is controlling the costs of the sport, so in some instances a handicap system is acceptable.
This particular Pennzoil/Zexel sponsored car is one of two R34 Skylines campaigned in 2001 in the GT500 category by Nismo (Nissan Motorsports) and was driven by Frenchman Erik Comas and Japanese driver Tetsuya Tanaka. The pairing failed to win any races in 2001, but had a number of second and third place finishes during the year which contributed to Nissan winning the 2001 constructors championship.
Unlike the road going Nissan Skyline R34 the JGTC version does not have 4 wheel drive but instead puts it's power down through the rear wheels via a 6 speed sequential gearbox. 4 wheel drive was not added to the race version as the extra weight involved blunted any performance advantage the extra traction afforded by 4 wheel drive gave. Additionally, the race car uses carbon fibre extensively throughout it's structure, giving advantages in both increased strength and lighter weight.
This Nissan was one of the first releases in AUTOarts new (in 2003) "Motorsports Division", which AUTOart says aims to produce more recent racing cars quickly (as opposed to several years after they first appeared) by not having opening features or engine detail, the idea being that they can develop and release models of this type more quickly. They also promised these models would be somewhat cheaper than the rest of their range to compensate for the lack of openings and engines, but they appear to be roughly the same price or only slightly less expensive than regular AUTOart releases. Hence, while this model has top notch wheels and brakes (truly exceptional in fact I would say!) it has sealed doors and no engine detail at all. A real shame as the interior looks fantastic, and it would be nice to be able to appreciate it fully by opening the doors. A nice model overall but a shame about the lack of engine detail and opening parts.
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