Nissan GT-R’s at One Lap of America

This year there are two Nissan GT-R’s competing in the One Lap of America.  Last year the Continental sponsored Cannonball GT-R won overall  . This year Catesby Jones decided to pick up a 2010 GT-R to run in the event, with Forged Performance preparing the car for the event.  Follow the Catesby Jones GT-R here. Follow the Cannonball GT-R here.

The Tire Rack One Lap of America is the toughest 8 days of racing featuring the fastest street-legal cars on America's most challenging racetracks! Seasoned One Lap of America contender Catesby Jones who finished 3rd place overall last year decided to up the ante this year. Catesby went out and bought a beautiful white 2010 Nissan GT-R. We put our heads together and come up with a game plan for the project. The plan was to drop of his car brand new car at Forged Performance and pick it up a week later on the way to One Lap of America ready to compete! We didn't have a lot of time for this build so we knew we had to act fast. We ordered all the parts and immediately started going to work.

At the first event, the wet skidpad,  the 2009 winner Cannonball GT-R dominated with a 0.962 G average, followed by a 0.911 for the Catesby GT-R.  The one to watch Leh Keen in the Porsche GT2 came in 8th place with a 0.853 average.
The first roadcourse the Cannonballers hit was Road America.  Sliding into a 7:49.824 was Leh Keen in the Porsche GT2, followed by the Cannoball GT-R with a 7:52.457. The Catesby GT-R coming in 4th with a 7:55.987.

At Road America #2, again Leh Keen in the GT2 came in first with a 4:56.563 followed by the Catesby GT-R with a 4:59.720. The Cannonball GT-R came in 5th place at this event with a 5:05.702.

The above picture is usually not a good sign, and it was not for the returning champion. The word is a loss of compression in one cylinder, and a drop out from the event.

After Road America the Cannonballers transited to the Mid America Motorplex for their next two events starting at 8:30 am on Sunday May 2nd. At Mid America Motorplex, the GT2 again dominated with a 4:54.354 followed by the GT-R with a 5:01.400. During the 2nd round the GT2 slowed a little to a 4:54.905, and the GT-R improved to a 4:58.590 putting them 1-2 yet again.

On Monday at Hallet, it was again the Porsche GT2 with a 4:11.014 in first,with the Catesby GT-R in 3rd 0.7 behind the 2nd place Corvette. In the 2nd Hallet event, the Porsche stayed firm in first with the GT-R this time 1 second in front of the Corvette with a 4:12.442.  After Hallet the group transited to Tulsa Dragway for drag racing and bracket racing. The quickest time was thrown down by Porsche 911(997)turbo with PDK that clocked a 10.904 1/4.  Coming in second was the Catesby GT-R with an 11.483.  The Porsche GT2 rolled into 5th place with a 11.629.  It would be interesting to see the mph that these cars ran for the ET’s. ET is how well you get the power to the ground, MPH shows the power and weight of the cars.   Bracket racing is bracket racing. I call it boring. A Honda Civic win. The GT-R and GT2 both went out in the same round finishing 6th.

After all the fun of bracket racing, the group headed to Gateway International for another two time trials. This sounds like a broken record, but Leh Keen in the GT2 finished in first with a 3:24.211, just 1.7 seconds back was Catesby in the GT-R with a 3:25.936. During the second time trial, the GT2 and GT-R both improved their times with the GT-R nudging closer in time, but still in 2nd place.  3:22.754 for the GT2, and a 3.23.751 for the GT-R.
That concludes the fun thus far.  Current Results with seven events left, eleven events completed.
http://www.onelapofamerica.com/history/2010/results/showResults.shtml?y=2010&res=OVL_CUM

Cumulative Overall Points as of - Tue May 04 15:37:24 2010
Page 1
Results sorted by position
Pos Car # Vehicle                          Class            Points

1     3 Porsche          GT2              SSGT1 BB         3660
Douglas Wilks, Leh Keen
2     4 Nissan           GT-R             SSGT1 BB         3650
Catesby Jones, Jose Collado
3     5 Chevrolet        Corvette         SSGT1 BB         3550
Jeremy Herzberg, Danny Popp, Todd Rumpke
4    25 Chevrolet        Z06 Corvette     SSGT1 BB         3490
Dan Corcoran, Kyle Corcoran
5     9 Porsche           997 Turbo       SSGT1 BB         3325
Rene von Richthofen, Hugh D. Bate

For tomorrow, Cinco de Mayo , the One Lappers celebrate it at the Mid-Ohio Sports car course. The first time trials start at 8am.