“All the Pieces Came Together” for Lizard’s Nissan GT4 Entry

Photo: Flying Lizard

“All the pieces came together” for Flying Lizard Motorsports to expand its program to run a Nissan Z NISMO GT4 in Pirelli GT4 America this year according to program manager Darren Law.

The Arizona-based team will enter the No. 5 Nissan for the all-Canadian pairing of Damir Hot and Stefan Rzadzinski, adding to its Aston Martin Vantage GT4 for Todd Parriott and Tom Dyer.

Speaking with Sportscar365, Law revealed that he had been in talks with the Japanese manufacturer, which debuted a development version of the Z GT4 last year with TechSport Racing, prior to connecting with Rzadzinski, which helped make the program a reality.

“I had talked with Nissan last year about what they’re doing with GT4 and their program,” said Law. “We had several meetings and had the program in place and it didn’t work out and I thought it was done.

“In speaking with Stefan, I mentioned that I have an opportunity to run this Nissan program and it turned out that he works with Applewood Auto Group, which is a multi-dealership program in Canada and they’ve run Nissans before.

“All the pieces came together in the matter of weeks and we put the program back on track.”

Law said the Nissan, which has been doing a “bunch of testing” at the team’s new base at APEX Motor Club near Phoenix, is being considered as an all-new car from homologation purposes.

In addition to the Lizard’s entry, TechSport and Blackdog Racing will also campaign cars in GT4 America this year.

“It’s an all-new car,” said Law. “It had to go to Paul Ricard for BoP testing. It’s got new bodywork, some new engine components and it’s got a lot of different additions from what ran last year.

“Basically last year was kind of a test program for them.

“This new car has run in Japan so they’ve got some seat time. It’s been quick in testing.

“We have our Aston GT4 program to really do a back-to-back comparison in our test, so we’ve been able to see where we fit within a BoP class.”

The Nissan GT4 entry comes in addition to the Lizard’s GT3 and GT4 efforts with Aston Martin, although Law feels like there’s a large enough of separation in programs to again be running multiple manufacturers in the series.

“We’re juggling a lot but we’ve been doing multiple manufacturers for many years now,” he said.

“The benefit of having a proper manufacturer program with parts support at the track allows us to not have to stock up in piles of spares. It helps.

“The manufacturers have been great to work with.

“And Nissan has really stepped up. They’ve got a nice trackside support program and a nice engineering support program. They’ve been really good to work with in the off-season.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John