Slot.it SICA59A Datsun 510 No.68 1972 Lime Rock Winner Bob Sharp

For the 1971 season, with the growing import market in the USA, the SCCA and its professional TransAm series relented under pressure from some teams that wanted to compete with imported cars. The under 2.litre category was modified, increasing the displacement to 2.5 litres, and renamed the "Two-Five challenge".

 

This revamped series saw the official entry of Nissan into a professional championship with factory backing with the humble Datsun 510. The president of Nissan USA, Yutaka Katayama, Mr. "K", decided to backup two teams that
had been racing Datsuns for years: Brock Racing Enterprise on the West Coast and Bob Sharp Racing on the East Coast.

 

During 1971, it really became clear what the small Datsun 510s were made of, as they battled it out with European sports cars. Memorable was the fight for the championship between Horst Kwech's Alfa Romeo GTV and John Norton's Datsun 510 No.46, which eventually won the confrontation with the Italian sports car. That same year, Bob Sharp won the Runoff's, the season-closing superbowl of SCCA, effectively cementing the validity of the Datsun 510 in the American motorsport scene and crowning Bob Sharp B-sedan National Champion .
The following year there was no competition. The Datsun 510 won 9 of the 11 stages of the 1972 two-five challenge championship thanks to the skills of its drivers Bob Sharp, Peter Gregg and John Morton, who won the championship for the second time. Again, as in the previous year at the Runoff's on the top step of the podium was Bob Sharp in his Datsun 510.

 

The Datsun 510 presented here was the one in which Bob Sharp ran the first two races of the 1971 season with BRE racing team in their "guest car" No.68, briefly abandoning his famous No.33. Those two races were enough to highlight the validity of the driver and the performance of the car: he won the opening race at Lime Rock Park, Connecticut, and finished second in the next race, at the 'magic mile' in Loudon New Hampshire, behind his teammate John Morton.

 

The Datsun 510 was a pivotal car for the success of the Japanese automobile industry in the United States, the car that paved the way for so many successful models, transforming the American sedan racing landscape forever. It also truly opened the door for Nissan and other Japanese manufacturers to be taken seriously as competitors to their European and American rivals.

 

FEATURES: