Frank Markus : And that was something completely different from Japan comes Nissan's mighty GTR twin turbo engine in front, transaxle in back driving all four wheels. Monstrous grip, monstrous power this thing really promises to tear up the track. Let's go see how it does at Laguna Seca.
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Arthur St Antoine: Okay Randy you've just had a chance to drive Godzilla the 2009 Nissan GTR what do you think.
Randy Pobst: Sweet, I tell you what that GTR is comfortable on the race track got to say it's got a lot of power and it's racy and that it has minimal body role. But still good control I just really enjoyed the car. I was able to break the rear end loose if I really wanted to and when I went it really went but the steering is quick ratio and very quick responding, I mean I could catch the car easily in fact I did a big drift, a Scandinavian flick we call it for your Moto Trend photographer was up the port screw on that last lap.
I really had a great time in the car; it's a beastly car. It's more like you are wrestling then you are dancing. And I don't mean that in the bad way it's a very visceral car to drive, the brakes were really solid. I think the Dunlops on the car are special model because they have ton of grip really a good tire. And the brakes are strong enough to keep up with the tire. The handling was predominately under steer but it could be provoked on entry into a kind of a snap over steer, which is actually kind of fun but not predictable in the way that R8 was on corner or I might say that even the Mini or the Mitsubishi Evo all of which had a kind of sweet drift on the way in. This car, it's a little bit more violent when it does brake loose.
Arthur St Antoine: Now of course on this one we had all the tractions systems shut off, there is a race mode where the traction control will step in. And you drove the couple of laps like that as well compared to that those two different modes if you look --
Randy Pobst: Yes the race mode or the R-mode it's really not a race mode because there is still a lot of stability control working. And I think that the R-mode is a wonderful thing to have for your average guy. He could drive this car awfully fast and not get in too much trouble. Now for me as a racecar driver on a race track, I found it very frustrating, because it would pull back the power, I might not have my foot on the floor and not be getting full power. And it would prevent the car from sliding and sliding is like the most fun thing you can do with a car.
So it's obviously something that is a safety feature, and before you turn that off you better have your skip barber car control down that's all I got to say. And if you do the GTR is extremely rewarding and a powerful enjoyable car that's comfortable on a racetrack. There is a lot of racecar in the GTR whereas the R8 handles well in a much more refined way like, it's silkily and yes it's more like a muscular dancer or this like wrestling, you got him by the neck and you are trying to throw it on the carpet.
Arthur St Antoine: Excellent thank you man.
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