Track Pack, as descriptions of a motor car go, is one of the more straightforward. There is probably a list of equipment in every PHer's head which would fit into an imaginary 'Track Pack'.
GT-R was benchmarked against Turbo
Strangely, Nissan has just released its
GT-R Track
Pack
, and I don't think its specification includes any of the stuff we'd have listed. No sticky tyres, no roll cage, no larger brakes, no aerofoil.
In fact the £85,540 Track Pack is actually pretty similar to the £10,000 cheaper vanilla GT-R. There are different seats, snazzy, lighter wheels and some new suspension settings. But that's pretty much it.
What grabs my attention is the list price. The first UK R35 GT-R I drove was £52,995 - this one is over £30K more and it is mechanically little different. Yes, the 490hp is now 550hp, and there are a load of upgrades, but most of those come with successive modelyear improvements. Where once the GT-R was an absolute bargain, that is no longer the case.
Track Pack Nissan GT-R ... on a track!
Should we have tested it next to a GT3? Possibly. But you've had enough GT3 content from me. Besides, with 4WD, paddles, two turbos, four seats and no cage, the GT-R shares more with the Turbo, on paper, than it does the GT car.
I didn't really warm to the direct injection 997Turbos when they were launched in 2009/2010. I just thought they were rather soulless devices capable of terrifying you through sheer speed but, once you'd experienced that trick, there wasn't much else to savour. But with time I'm warming to their charms - this car was so fast on the road it needed a careful touch and the 997 package feels so small after the GT-R.
It would have been nice to have a dry track, but sadly the excellent fellows at CircuitDays couldn't quite control the weather.
Turbo probably a closer match to GT-R
Before the evening event hosted by Circuit Days on the Indy circuit, I had a couple of very wet, slippery hours on the full Grand Prix track at
an
MSV event
. For some reason I had never driven it before - what a brilliant, brilliant place it is.