Being paid to race some of the world’s fastest cars in front of international TV audiences is a job many of us envy, but the perks extend far beyond the day job for professional racers.
When evo spoke to WRC driver Jari-Matti Latvala last year (issue 206), he told us that he’d recently sampled the iconic Audi Sport Quattro S1. Spend a few minutes on Youtube and you’ll find footage of Indycar champ and evo contributor Dario Franchitti driving Honda’s classic RA 272 Grand Prix car.
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And if you’re ‘Nismo Athlete’ and Australian V8 Supercar driver Rick Kelly, one of the perks of the day job is getting to drive a 25-year old Nissan R32 GT-R – the same sort of car that dominated the Australian Touring Car series from 1990 to 1992.
Nissan has documented Kelly’s findings in a series of videos at Sydney Motorsport Park in Australia, covering the car’s driving characteristics, its similarity to modern racers and a look inside the cockpit – which, while rudimentary, is also a great deal more airy and simple than that of modern carbonfibre-clad cabins.
That the modern GT-R is still competitive quarter of a century later in series like the Blancpain GT Series and Japan’s GT500 racing is testament to the car’s continued development – but the videos also show that the new GT-R’s historical predecessor can be a lot of fun even in a modern context.
