WHILE heavy cloud cover meant more than 30,000 fans could not see Mount Fuji in Japan last Sunday, fans did get to see more than 60 years of Nissan’s incredible racing history and gain insight into its exciting future at the 2018 NISMO Festival.
NISMO’s annual fan appreciation event featured an exciting day of races, demonstration and fan events – with cars ranging from the 1958 Around Australia Trial class-winning Datsun 1000 to Nissan e.dams Formula E car, which will make its debut in the all-electric street-racing championship in two weeks.
Test and reserve driver Mitsunori Takaboshi drove the Formula E car. The ex-Japanese Formula 3 champion excited local fans by performing donuts on the main straight before showcasing the power and agility of the “Gen2” car.
The demonstration also featured Nissan LEAF NISMO road cars and the new Nissan LEAF NISMO RC electric race car, which was officially unveiled on Friday at the Formula E team’s launch at Nissan’s Tokyo brand-experience center, Nissan Crossing.
Featuring more than twice the performance of the previous generation Nissan LEAF NISMO RC, the new electric cars were driven by Super GT racer Tsugio Matsuda and Japanese actor, singer and race team owner, Masahiko Kondo.
Newly announced Nissan e.dams driver Oliver Rowland was also on hand to see the Formula E car’s debut along with Jann Mardenborough, who was announced as team’s simulator driver on Friday.
Track highlights at the festival included historic demonstrations, a Z-challenge exhibition race, and the annual NISMO GP that featured cars from the Japanese Super GT and Super Taikyu championship. The No. 23 Nissan GT-R NISMO GT500 of Ronnie Quintarelli and Tsugio Matsuda won the NISMO GP.
In addition to the 30,000+ fans on site, the entire day’s activities were live streamed on NISMO.com and NISMO’s YouTube channel on NISMO.tv.
The day’s activities were completed with Kondo Racing’s recently announced Nurburgring 24 Hour challenger revealed for the Japanese fans and a celebration of GTNET Motorsports Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 championship victory in Super Taikyu.
