The Magic of 100 Skyline GT-Rs on Track
Update on our first-ever book tour. And a new product to preorder now!
HAPPY RACE DAY! and happy summer, too. Dive into this fun profile of Mike Burroughs, the builder and video personality, by our friend Kyle at CARiD.
Lot of turmoil in the world of automotive media lately. So it’s nice to see a new outlet launch to bring us more fun and interesting content with some talented writers on board. Check out CARiD for news, guides and reviews.
What’s New with Carrara?
Plenty of news to share from the car world over the past month or so.
But the biggest piece of news comes from us.
Carrara Media, the publisher of Race Day as well as automotive books, had a banner six-week stretch recently. It started in late May, as media sponsor of the GT-R festival R’s Day (detailed below) and a Cult of GT-R author meet-and greet with yours truly in Portland. Then I was also able to deliver a speech during a ticketed event at the LeMay Automotive Museum in Tacoma. We wrapped with the official launch party for We Deserve This, the groundbreaking transfeminine photobook by journalist and photographer Victoria Scott in Seattle. Truly a landmark event for the company.
And now we’ve launched another project. Waiting for the Sun to Come Down, by photographer Kevin McCauley, is the latest Carrara Media release.
You can buy it right here.
Waiting, we call it for short, is a collection of McCauley’s work over the past 10+ years.
But it’s not just a collection of car photography. It’s also a showcase of McCauley’s inventive style, which uses stark shadows and rich contrast to highlight unique shapes on some of the coolest cars around.
It’s our attempt to put a new twist on car photography. It’s a celebration of following your gut, honing your craft and, above all, experimenting.
Check out our Q&A conversation with Kevin McCauley about his style, his technique, and his biggest influences outside of the car world right here.
Waiting for the Sun to Come Down will release this fall. Stay tuned for much more news, coming soon.
Now here’s this week’s main article:
The Land of Forbidden Fruit… No More
After the past year-plus of being embedded in the Skyline GT-R scene, here is the best word I can use to describe their enthusiasm for the iconic car:
Palpable.
To these owners and enthusiasts, it’s not sufficient for the GT-R to simply exist. They have to see it. They have to touch it. To confirm that it’s real beyond their dreams.
Recently, lots of people finally got their chance. R’s Day 2024 is the annual celebration of Skyline GT-Rs, going on its 10th year, and returning this time to the spot where it all began at Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey.
More than 100 cars showed up. There were a ton of U.S. model R35 GT-Rs, and a whole lot of 1989-1993 R32 GT-Rs, too, the original Godzilla from Japan.
I’m personally warming up to the 1994-1998 R33 GT-R, and saw some truly amazing ones. And there was even a smattering of 1999-2002 R34 GT-Rs, the holy grail, only beginning to (legally) trickle into U.S. hands.
The beauty was seeing all of them together in one place.
But the magic was seeing them all on the track.
It’s truly hard to describe the rush of standing at the exit of Turn 11 as the cars gear up for the front straight. They slowed to nearly a crawl coming out of the corner, then slammed on the gas and came to life.
Depending on the model, and the build, this is where things got interesting. And the full spectrum of GT-R builds was on display.
You had deep baritone twin-turbo Skylines followed by the alarming shriek of a fully-tricked R35 V6TT. You had single-turbos carrying massive boost shoot like a rocket past traffic and burly street stalkers blasting flames out their exhaust.
There was even an uber-rare, 1-of-40 R33 400R slicing through turns, its Nismo-made specialty parts unleashing a simply primevil song through the hills around us.
And you could watch them all in one place, battling for position on track to take their favored line or get bragging rights in a drag toward the Start line and over the crest toward Turn 1.
These cars that had been impossible to get in the U.S. for so long, the whole time hunted and derided and smuggled and impounded, then copy-paste and rinse-repeat, now having a track day of their own at one of America’s most hallowed racetracks, in the hands of their loving owners.
Several people described the experience as feeling like a video game. Others were speechless at what they’d just witnessed. One pulled his car into the paddock, came over to chat with me, and burst into tears.
R’s Day gives people the opportunity to live out their dreams, and experience other dreams they didn’t even know they had. What’s different about the Skyline community is its patience, or rather impatience, and that the car’s inaccessibility forced people to resort to fantasies of experiencing one for themselves someday. Instead of being able to jump into the car or go to a dealership and buy one, they had to live vicariously through books, or magazines, or VHS tapes or video games. This built up a memory bank of imagined experiences that may never become real at all.
R’s Day helped make it real, and I saw that on the faces of GT-R owners who’d waited their whole lives for that moment on track. I’m glad to have witnessed it. And heard it.
I’ll be back.
More From R’s Day
Carrara Media was a very proud sponsor of R’s Day 2024 and we want to thank organizers and partners for the chance to be part of the fun.
There are more shows coming and we want to know about them! Leave a comment if there’s a show that you’d like to see us partner with in the future.
And Finally…
The air-cooled Porsche phenomenon Luftgekühlt has announced its return for an L.A. event in 2024, and it’s hitting Hollywood yet again.
Luft will be held at the Universal Studios backlot on October 5th this year. Tickets aren’t available yet, but will be soon. Watch the teaser here:
And while we’re at it, Radwood is also returning to L.A. later this year. They’re hosting shows in the Bay Area next weekend and Tacoma in August, too.
See you there?
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