gtrblog-sema-hankook-111

courtesy of gtrblog.com

Dynamic Autosports announced this week at SEMA that they’ll be campaigning a drift tuned Nissan GT-R for the 2010 season of Formula D.

[I will pause so that you can unwrinkle your face enough to finish reading my post.]

You may be familiar with Blitz’s announcement last year at Tokyo Auto Salon that they would build a drift GT-R for Nomuken to drive in Japan’s D1 Grand Prix, but I didn’t think it would happen.  Not that Blitz isn’t capable – I just didn’t think it made any sense.  Now Dynamic Autosports is making this same announcement and I have the same feeling of disbelief.

Does it really make any sense to take a car that’s known for it’s technological wonder and dumb it down for drifting?  When they remove all of the technology that makes the car what it is so that it will drift, what does it end up being – other than a really expensive, rare and overweight chassis with a cool engine?

I want to know how it would feel as a tuner to remove that cool rear transaxle and throw it in the trash because paddle shifters and automatic just don’t work for a competitive drift car.  Would I think that I’m actually making the car “better” or do I realize that I’m committing car tuning sin?  When the car is all done and finished, what would be faster around the track – a stock GT-R, or this “tuned” GT-R?

Don’t get me wrong – I am a big Robbie Nishida fan.  I think he’s a great driver… I like his attitude and I like that I’ve seen him drifting as part of team Hey Man! at touge like 10 years ago in an Option video.  I also have a lot of respect for Eddie and Dynamic Autosports.  I remember them from back when they were supporting Ben Schwartz with their SR20DET bored out to 2.4L (way cool) and they were also one of the first in Formula D to use a sequential dog mission (way cool) that everybody uses now.  I have nothing against any of them.  I just have a really hard time wrapping my brain around this one.