NISMO Festival 2014 was a roaring success with 35,000 fans at Fuji Speedway

OYAMA, Japan – Last Sunday, the "NISMO FESTIVAL 2014" was held at Fuji Speedway in Japan with a strong crowd of 35,000 Nissan and NISMO fans. First held in 1997, this is the 17th year this event has been hosted in order to show appreciation for Nissan race fans.

This year the event focused on looking back on the history of NISMO, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2014. From the morning, the event was blessed with warm, comfortable weather and kicked off with an opening ceremony where active drivers and team principals appeared on the stage to announce the start of the festivities.

Having taken home both the driver's and team's titles in this year's SUPER GT – when NISMO's Tsugio Matsuda, Ronnie Quintarelli and team principal, Yutaka Suzuki stepped onto the stage – the applause from the crowd became exceptionally loud.

To begin, close to 100 owners' NISMO grade cars – from the JUKE NISMO to the Nissan GT-R NISMO – performed a parade lap around the course followed by a "NISMO 30th Historic Car Demo Run." Afterwards, there were intense racing battles in events including: the "Nissan GT-R Prestige Cup Rd.5 exhibition race" using the GT-R Club Track edition, the "Z-Challenge Exhibition Race" fought between Z33 and Z34 Fairlady Zs, and the "Nissan Historic Car Exhibition Race" with the KPGC10 Skyline GT-R, B110 Sunny and 510 Blue Bird.

Next, the "TEAM ORANGE Presents Nismo Synchro Performance Show" provided a display of exquisite machine control using NISMO road cars, such as the March NISMO and Note NISMO, which the enthralled audience greeted with large cheers of admiration.

The crowd also listened to the explanation carried out on the stage regarding the "NissanConnect NISMO Plus," a service that is currently being promoted by Nissan in Japan and Europe. This service allows actual racing data to be reproduced in Gran Turismo® 6 using dedicated software on a PlayStation® 3. It also allows the recording and reproduction of various types of vehicle information through a smart phone app.

Back to the track, to commemorate Nissan's return to competition in the 2015 24 Hours of Le Mans and the World Endurance Championship with an LMP1 machine, a ceremony dubbed the "Road to Le Mans" was held that looked back on the history of Nissan's Le Mans participation.

Afterwards, the Nissan R91CP, R390 GT1 and R391 performed a parade run around the course. Then a talk show was held on the track where various stories about Le Mans experiences were related, which stirred up excitement for next year's program.

The "CRAFT SPORTS presents NISMO GP 2014" was a no holds barred, bona fide battle between GT500 class GT-Rs, GT300 / S-Tai ST-X using GT3 class GT-Rs, and ST3 class Fairlady Zs.

Lastly, as the sun was beginning to set, the "NISMO 30th Memorial Ceremony and Finale" got underway with drivers, team principals, race queens, and NISMO staff all lined up on the course in front of the crowd.

Then, drivers and team principals of the "GTNET ADVAN NISSAN GT-R" (S-Tai ST-X class #81), "Asset ings Z34" (S-Tai ST-3 Class #35), and "MOTUL AUTECH GT-R" (SUPER GT GT500 class #23), who had become this year's champions in their respective categories, were presented with bouquets and congratulated.

After this, the drivers of the #23 – Tsugio Matsuda and Ronnie Quintarelli – peeled the number "23" off of the "MOTUL AUTECH GT-R" to reveal the number "1" to signify the car's place as this year's title holder.

For the finale, NISMO CEO, Shoichi Miyatani appeared with a broad smile on his face and greeted the crowd saying: "We managed to bring home the GT500 championship this year, the 30th anniversary of NISMO. I would like to express our deep appreciation to you all for your support. To top this off, our anniversary year has also been decorated with the Super Taikyu title. Along with this, the cumulative global sales of five of our NISMO road models – beginning with the Juke NISMO, released last year, along with the Fairlady Z NISMO, the NISSAN GT-R NISMO, the March NISMO and Note NISMO – have reached 20,000 units. Please wait a little bit longer for the (official announcement of the) LMP1. We're also going to further improve the performance of the NISSAN GT-R NISMO GT3, and next year I'm determined to also take home the championship in the GT300, as well as achieve a great deal of success overseas. Please continue to give us your support next year."

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