For the first time since its inception, the Nissan Sentra Cup has held a race outside of Canadian borders, marking the halfway point of its season by holding races 5 and 6 of this year’s campaign at the famed 2.4-kilometre Lime Rock Park race track in Connecticut. It was part of a two-day event called the Lime Rock SpeedTour, a soirée which also saw the likes of vintage cars from the International Race of Champions series hit the track – the first IROC event in more than 20 years – along with famous hotshoes like Mark Martin, Boris Said, and Kenny Schrader.
In the Sentra Cup, the race machine itself is largely the same Sentra which can be purchased right off the showroom floor at Nissan, with just a few tweaks to make it appropriately safe for a racing environment. The engine – a 2.0L four-banger making 149 horsepower, plus roughly a like amount of torque – and six-speed manual transmission are untouched.
This not only levels the playing field, but arguably helps reduce costs in this affordable grassroots motorsport (an entire Sentra Cup car is only around $40,000, a sum roughly equal to an F1 team’s daily catering bill) since race teams of all stripes are known for perpetually trying to one-up each other.
Stopping power is increased thanks to four-pot front brakes sourced from a Nissan 370Z, while the stock rear drums out back (standard on the base Sentra S, on which the race car is based) are swapped for discs from the SV-trim Sentra. The coil-over racing suspension onto which these items are hung – along with a set of lightweight 18-inch racing alloys – is special to the Sentra Cup cars.
Drivers are from all walks, ranging from the likes of past champion Valérie Limoges; to Marie-Soleil Labelle, who, in 2020 became the youngest driver in the Nissan Cup (Micra hatchbacks were raced that year). In addition to on-track accomplishments, Labelle is a spokesperson for the international Raising Awareness of Developmental Language Disorder committee, and is a junior ambassador with the Make-A-Wish Foundation. This speaks to the breadth of skill on display in the Sentra Cup.
Other changes this year include gear like a unique intake and a race-appropriate exhaust system. But, as series promoter Jacques Deshaies told us, there was definitely a learning curve during the initial building of these machines. “The car didn’t always like it when we started deactivating equipment like sensors for automatic emergency braking,” he grinned. Speaking to the man, we learned one of the biggest surprises they encountered was challenges with the ECU, an electronic part which essentially acts as a car’s brain.
Even the least-expensive 2024 Sentra S, like the $22,548 example we drove from Montreal to Lime Rock for this story, comes with active safety driver assistance technologies such as intelligent emergency braking, a valuable tool on the street, but unwanted on a track for reasons which should be clear. “When we began deactivating those items,” Deshaies explained, “the car wouldn’t start.”
Even simply unplugging the power windows caused unexpected problems, explaining why these race cars still sprout window switches from otherwise blank door panels. Cars must make minimum weight, though drivers are allowed to run stock air-conditioning if they wish. Some do, while at least one prefers to have a teammate stick a leaf blower through the driver’s window both immediately before and after races as a cool-down tactic. Hey, whatever works — and it obviously did, because he won both races that weekend.
What this tells us is that this is a fully sussed car — and that people running the series are real gearheads willing to immerse themselves into the community. The latter point is no small consideration; witness the scores of auto racing series (and auto companies themselves, if we’re being honest) which descended into mediocrity because those hauling on the levers of power were far more focused on other topics instead of the actual car.
It’s this type of active leadership, and a robust field of competitive drivers plus a dedicated support team, which suggests the Sentra Cup series is in great hands. This year’s successful races south of the border are surely just the start of further expansion.
Lime Rock was a great test-bed for expansion into the States, since its location is actually closer in terms of driving distance to the series’ home base in Quebec than some of the tracks at which it already successfully competes in Ontario. Of the 20 regulars which comprise the field, 16 made the trek, filling the field with competitive battles during this two-race weekend, at which Mathieu Miron took the pole position for both contests.
The first event was sunny and warm, seeing a group of five drivers battling for victory the entire race. Lap times of the leaders were in the 1:05-minute ballpark, on par with other cars of this type and power level, which speaks to the skill in this field — most of whom had never turned a wheel at Lime Rock before practice on Friday.
Miron, driver of the 191 Motorsport team, won by about four seconds. The second race followed an intense half-hour downpour, soaking the track and delaying the start by about 45 minutes. Miron was again victorious, with good bumper-to-bumper competition for second place. Lap times up front were approximately 1:10 after the rain, as measured by this writer’s very unofficial stopwatch.
This year, the series decided to bin the choice of racing slicks versus wet tires and simply ran Pirelli P-Zero PZ4 rubber, just like the hoops available through major retailers to the public. This change has the twin benefit of reducing costs for the teams whilst further levelling the playing field out on track.
“This was an extremely positive experience for all our competitors, our fans, and Nissan Canada,” said Deshaies. “We were particularly well-received at Lime Rock, the atmosphere of this event was exceptional, with thousands of enthusiasts on site, and we will do everything we can to come back next year.”
Wrapping up this pair of events meant crowning Valérie Limoges as the mid-season champion of this 12-race campaign for the 2024 Nissan Sentra Cup, with the year-long battle remaining tight between five drivers separated by just a few points.
The next race of the 2024 season is back on Canadian soil, taking place at the traditional and popular Grand Prix de Trois-Rivières on the August 9 weekend. After that, Sentra Cup moves on to Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville for the August 30 weekend, before wrapping the season in the end of September at Calabogie, Ontario.
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