2017.11.26

20th NISMO FESTIVAL Marks a Milestone to its Festival History! Vows Made to Recover the Title Next Season.

Fuji Speedway was met with fine weather on Sunday, November 26th as the Nissan and NISMO motorsport event “NISMO FESTIVAL at FUJI SPEEDWAY 2017 Supported by MOTUL” was held for its 20th time since its pilot year in 1997 (the event was not held in 2012), marking a milestone to its festival history. In this special occasion, the event featured former Racing GT-R cars, and appearances of legendary drivers who had once taken the wheel of the GT-R. A crowd of 28,000 fans gathered to the circuit and enjoyed events which allowed them to interact with drivers and cars from this season, and also legendary drivers and GT-R machines of the past.

 

 

 

Opening
The festival started off with full enthusiasm at the “Opening Ceremony”, held as early as 8:30 in the morning. As some of the drivers and team managers made their appearances in different racing suits from the season, the irregularity seemed to startle some of the fans. Since it was the 20th holding of the annual festival, Satoshi Motoyama appeared in a NISMO racing suit with a MOTUL logo from 2008. Kunimitsu Takahashi (current general manager for No.100 TEAM KUNIMITSU) and Keiichi Tsuchiya (current executive advisor for No.8 & No.55 ARTA), who raced in the Group A Skyline GT-R, also showed up on stage, putting together special line-up for the Opening Ceremony to match the occasion. To start things off, Tsugio Matsuda from the No.23 car of MOTUL AUTECH GT-R made the opening address. Then followed a greeting from Toshikazu Tanaka, the general manager of all the Nissan teams in the SUPER GT. He summarized this season, commenting, “Although we faced difficulties from the start of the season, we were able to achieve an elegant victory in the final round.” The crowd of fans burst out into applause as he finished off his speech stating, “We will win back the title next season!”

 

 

 

Circuit Safari, Circuit Taxi, and Racing Car Ride-alongs
From 9:30, the Circuit Safari, Circuit Taxi, and Racing Car Ride-alongs were held on the racing course. The Circuit Safari, a familiar event in the SUPER GT series, featured appearances from general manager Toshikazu Tanaka, NISMO team manager Yutaka Suzuki, and MOLA team manager Toshiomi Oeki who boarded the bus as guides. Cars which competed the SUPER GT / JGTC raced alongside the buses, along with the Skyline GT-R, a car which raced in touring car races throughout the 1960s to the early 1970s, and then the late 1980s to the early 1990s. Some of the race cars allowed fans to sit on the passenger seat (photo below) to experience the driving techniques of a top driver.

 

 

 

Stage Talk Shows
For part 1 of the drivers talk show event titled “FESTA 20th Special Talk”, both managers Masahiro Hasemi and Kazuyoshi Hoshino, Kunimitsu Takahashi, Keiichi Tsuchiya, and legendary drivers who now head SUPER GT teams made appearances on stage. The drivers reminisced about stories from the past as Tsuchiya brought out a time when many drivers in Group A suffered from burns because the accelerator pedal accumulated too much heat, and claimed “Hasemi-san brought everyone Reebok driving shoes.” Hasemi made a revelation in his response, “Reebok was actually my sponsor back then!” Erik Comas, Masami Kageyama, and Satoshi Motoyama who were scheduled to appear in part 2 of the talk show, made surprise appearances in the middle of part 1. While talking about the seniority issues inside the Nissan teams, Motoyama commented, “Rookies who have just entered the racing category used to go around the teams to introduce themselves. However, that ritual probably ended in my generation. I don’t see any new drivers coming to me to introduce themselves anymore.” Part 2 of the talk show featured Comas, Kageyama, Motoyama, and Tsuchiya.

After the talk show, a “high-five session” (top photo) which was a big hit at the pre-season ceremony, was carried out. In this session, fans climb up onto the stage from the side and walk through the stage to “high-five” the drivers and team managers who are lined up. The event was a big success, as many fans formed long queues for their high-five.

 

NISMO GP 2017
The NISMO GP, a proven fan favorite event of the festival, this year featured four GT500 class cars and three GT300 cars from SUPER GT, the Nissan GT-R which participated in the Endurance Cup of the Blancpain GT series, the Nissan GT-R and a total of eight NISSAN GT-R NISMO GT3 cars from the Super Endurance series. Joining these were four Fairlady Z machines competing in the ST-3 class of the Super Endurance series, making it a total of 16 cars competing in the exhibition race.

 

Although the No.46 S Road CRAFTSPORTS GT-R overtook the pole-sitter No.23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R, the car was imposed a “1000 second time penalty” due to over speeding in the pit lane and lost its position. The No.12 Calsonic IMPUL GT-R kept on the tail of the No.23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R, but was not able to overcome its competitor, and car No.23 rejoiced its victory.
 

Racing GT-R Heritage Run & Finale
The final event that took place on the course was the “Racing GT-R Heritage Run” which invited 16 both current and legendary drivers onto former Racing GT-R machines. After the ceremonial run, the cars lined up in front of the main spectators stand for the finale. Here, this year’s champion for the Japanese Formula 3 Mitsunori Takaboshi (driver of No.3 B-MAX NDDP GT-R for GT300) was presented with flowers to commemorate his accomplishment.

 

NISMO President/CEO Takao Katagiri made the closing address, as he commented, “I want to apologize to all the fans for not being able to respond to all the support we were given for this SUPER GT season, with a satisfying result. However, the teams and staff all made strong effort to make our GT-R faster, which resulted in a win on the final round. We will dedicate our development period to build a faster GT-R machine, so that we can win back the title next season, and celebrate our victory at the NISMO FESTIVAL at the end of next year.” Fans applauded and cheered in response to the speech, which inspired a “Nissan! Nissan!” chant from the Nissan supporters. The NISMO FESTIVAL was filled with enthusiasm until its closing.
 

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