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Nissan GT-R ends five-year streak for Porsche at One Lap of America

 
1 1,647 views May 11, 2009
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The race-winning 42 Autosports Nissan GT-R of Rankins and Taylor in action on a rain-soaked track

The race-winning 42 Autosports Nissan GT-R of Rankins and Taylor in action on a rain-soaked track

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The 2009 TireRack One Lap of America challenge saw everything from an Ultima GTR to the winning Nissan GT-R hit tracks all across the U.S. in a modern-day homage to the legendary Cannonball. The win by the Nissan puts an end to a five-year stint at the top by Porsche 911s, and kicks the Nissan-Porsche rivalry into an even higher gear.

The win comes as the five-time winning Porsche team of Drew Wikstrom and Mark Davia take a year off, however, so fans of the marque from Stuttgart will have a crutch to fall back on. Nissan nuts will still point out that the GT-R beat out the much more expensive Porsche 996 911 GT2 piloted by Peter Lier and Ian Stewart as well as the BMW M3, Subaru Impreza WRX and Corvette Z06 that rounded out the top five.

To get back to the last non-Porsche overall winner of the One Lap you have to look to 2003, when an MTI Z07-package Chevrolet Corvette Z06 won the overall, followed closely by a Z06, a Viper in third and RUF RGT Porsche in fourth.

This year, the winning GT-R won with a healty 205-point margin with 5,215 total points scored. The points for the One Lap are awarded on a system similar to that used in NASCAR, with the winner of each event getting points equal to five times the number of entrants. Second place and every place thereafter gets 5 fewer points, until the points reach zero.

For more on the event and its history, check out our original story here. Surprisingly, the Switzer Performance GT-R detailed in that article only managed to finish 29th, despite some serious power under the hood and driving talent behind the wheel.



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Comment (1)

  1. By  valentines day gifts Posted: 12/24/2009 2:36am PST

    Well overrated in the sense that it isn't really meant as a straight line vehicle but as a crazy handling car and it does that very very well. Driving on track won't void the warranty....
     
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