This weekend, the Australian V8 Supercar Series heads to America for the first time in its storied history.

Tackling the new Circuit of the Americas track in Austin, Texas, Australia’s V8 Supercars will complement the World Challenge race at the same venue. 28 cars in total will be competing in the inaugural event with Ford, Holden, Nissan, and Mercedes-Benz all being represented.

The V8 Supercars will compete in four 62-mile sprints with two races on Saturday and Sunday, preceded by a qualifying session each morning.

Live streams will be available on Saturday, May 18 at 5:10 PM EST, Sunday at 12:01 PM EST, 3:55 PM EST, and 5:40 PM EST. Monday will cap off the streaming event at the same times as Sunday.

Watch the event live by following the link below.

V8 Supercars Circuit of the Americas Live Stream

28 of Australia’s V8 Supercars will be competing in the first-ever U.S. V8 Supercars race on May 17-19 at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, and they have just begun arriving in the States.

The V8 Supercars Austin 400 will be raced on the 2.3-mile National Circuit at the Circuit of the Americas and those attending will see the likes of V8 Supercars from Ford, Holden, Nissan, and Mercedes-Benz. The V8 Supercars will compete in four 62-mile sprints with two races on Saturday and Sunday, preceded by a qualifying session each morning.

SEE ALSO: Australian V8 Supercars Heading to Texas: May 17-19, 2013

The V8 Supercars Series is Australia’s premiere form of motorsports, and has garnered quite a bit of attention in America thanks to coverage on the SPEED network and online.

Three-day tickets to the event start at $69 and can be purchased online. Children under 12 are admitted free with a parent or guardian.

“The series has a remarkable overseas following and a solid fan base here in the United States,” said Steve Sexton, Circuit of the Americas President. “The charismatic teams and drivers put on a great show, and with 28 cars fighting it out on track, the series offers the kind of rough-and-tumble competition that keeps race fans on the edge of their seats.”

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a Formula 1 race car compete against a V8 Supercar race car and a street car, but to make things more fair this time around, each vehicle was given a handicap.

Casey Stoner got behind the wheel of the Infiniti Red Bull Racing Formula 1 car and waited patiently as David Coulthard took off first in the Mercedes-Benz SL63 AMG, followed by Mick Doohan in the Holden V8 Supercar. The trio put on a show at the Melbourne Formula 1 race this past weekend at the Australian Grand Prix.

The handicap given to each car was cleverly planned to create plenty of suspense for the spectators present at the event.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Discuss this story at BenzWorld.org

Based on the Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG, Erebus Motorsport unveiled the fourth and final car to compete in the Australian V8 Supercars series today.

These are the first AMG race cars ever built outside Germany. Erebus is a customer team of AMG and sources parts from the performance brand. It races the cars independently of AMG and is able to use the Mercedes because of the newly-created Car of the Future regulations, which opens the series to more cars. Until now, the race was restricted to the Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon.

The new regulations call for a single “control” chassis shared between the cars, but engines and styling may vary. Of course, there are regulations on the engines. Displacement is limited to five liters and must have a rev limit between 7,000 and 7,500 rpm. Output is limited to around 650 hp and torque curves need to be the same for all the cars. How the teams arrive at those figures, on the other hand, is up to them.

In Erebus’ case, it’s a modified version of the V8 found in the SLS AMG supercar. This year the series will visit the U.S. when it runs a race in Austin, TX from May 17 to 19.

Nissan Motorsport has unveiled its four-car Altima race team that will compete in this year’s V8 Supercar Championship.

Team co-owners and drivers Todd and Rick Kelly will continuing campaigning the Jack Daniel’s livery on their Altima, while new team members Michael Caruso and James Moffat will be racing with the yellow Norton 360 livery.

SEE ALSO: Nissan Altima V8 Race Car Makes Video Debut

The Altima mid-sized sedan will represent the Japanese automaker in the Australian V8 Supercar Series and will be competing against Ford, Holden, and Mercedes-Benz AMG for the 2013 championship title. The four Nissan Altimas will make their race debut on March 1-3 at the opening round in Adelaide.

GALLERY: Nissan Altima V8 Supercars

[Source: The Motor Report]

Discuss this story at NissanClub.com

Just a mere few days after its official unveiling, Nissan has already taken its Altima V8 Supercar out onto the race track for some shakedown runs.

Testing on the Japanese automaker’s newest race car is underway in Melbourne, Australia with the team keeping a close look on the car’s aerodynamics in its first phase of track runs. Team owner and driver Todd Kelly was the first one to get behind the wheel of the race car, which looks and sounds amazing.

The Altima V8 Supercar will make its race debut on the first weekend in March at the V8 Supercar Series race in Adelaide.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Last week, Nissan teased its Altima for the Australian V8 Supercars series and now it’s made its public debut at a special event out in Melbourne.

As we mentioned before, this is the first entry from an automaker other than Ford or Holden in the past 20 years in the Australian V8 Supercars series. The Japanese automaker partnered up with Kelly Racing and will have four Altimas campaigning in the 2013 season.

Nissan will also be the only automaker in the series to use a production engine in its race car, a Nismo-developed VK56DE V8 that is seen in stock form under the hood of the Titan, Armada, and Pathfinder. It is also the same powerplant that Nissan uses in its GT-R FIA GT1 race car. The engine however has been destroked from a 5.6-liter to a 5.0-liter in order to comply to Australian V8 Supercars series rules.

GALLERY: Nissan Altima V8 Supercar

Back in September, Nissan showed off its VK56DE powerplant for the V8 Supercars Series, and now the Japanese automaker is getting ready to show off its Altima race car where the new engine will reside.

The Australian-based V8 Supercars Series will head to America for the first time in its history next May, and if we’re fortunate, we’ll be able to catch a real glimpse of the new Nissan Altima V8 race car. Until then though, the automaker has treated the world with a teaser of its Nissan Altima V8 Supercar which will debut to the public on October 30th, 2012.

The unveiling will occur live on Nissan Australia’s YouTube channel and the Altima will be the series’ first entry that isn’t from Ford or Holden in nearly 20 years. Four Altima race cars will be built in total for the series.

Watch the teaser video below for the Nissan Motorsport V8 Altima.

Next year, the V8 Supercar Series will be heading to America for the first time ever in its storied history. The event will take place from May 17th to the 19th next year at Circuit of the Americas’ new Texas circuit.

The V8 Supercars race will be on the same weekend as the NASCAR All-Star event in Charlotte and falls one week before the Indianapolis 500. Tickets for the Austin, Texas event will go on sale on October 16th and will range in price from $83 to $275.

“The Austin circuit is coming together beautifully and will offer our teams and drivers fabulous facilities from which to compete – and one of the most challenging road courses ever designed,” said V8 Supercars CEO David Malone. “We’re delighted to showcase Australia’s premier motorsport category at first-class venue and in a national marketplace with a healthy appetite for top-notch auto racing and family friendly entertainment.”

The rest of the 2013 V8 Supercar Series schedule will be revealed within the next two weeks.

[Source: Speedcafe]

Despite traditionally being a showdown between Australia’s good ol’ boys, Ford and Holden, a trio of Mercedes E63 AMGs will run this season among their ranks in the V8 Supercars series.

Entered by Erebus Motorsport, a private racing team standing without factory support from AMG, the cars will use V8s sourced from the SLS AMG. They won’t be the only imports participating this year either. Nissan will also participate, bringing a NISMO-tuned version of the V8 engine from its M56.

But what brought about this break in tradition? New Car of the Future regulations are making it easier for other teams to join, calling for a single “control” chassis while allowing for styling and engines to vary.

Despite that, there will be plenty of rules in place to keep things fair. The engines need to be naturally aspirated and can’t carry a displacement larger than five liters. Furthermore, the powerplants aren’t allowed to rev higher than about 7,500 rpms and are capped at 650 hp.

Erebus Motorsport’s cars are still under development, but will be ready for the upcoming V8 Supercars season starting in February. This also won’t be the team’s first foray into Australian racing. Team owner and Benz fanatic Betty Klimenko already runs two SLS AMG GT3 race cars in the Australian GT Championship.

Nissan‘s luxury arm Infiniti may be phasing out its V8s from its model lineup, but that isn’t stopping the Japanese automaker from unveiling its modified VK56DE powerplant for the Australian V8 Supercars Series.

Nissan will be the only manufacturer to use a production engine in the 2013 V8 Supercars Championship, which is clearly a modified variant of its 5.6-liter V8 that’s used in several of its models including the Armada, Titan amd Patrol. Developed jointly with Kelly Racing and Nissan Australia, Nissan’s official motorspots division, NISMO, is also involved to help fine tune the engine. NISMO currently runs a modified VK56DE in the FIA GT1 series.

While horsepower from the factory VK56DE is around 320-hp, NISMO’s variant in FIA GT1 cranks out 600-hp and 479 lb-ft of torque. Undoubtedly the variant competing in the V8 Supercars Championship will have at least those numbers, and hopefully it performs as well as it looks.

Nissan is expected to debut is new V8 Supercars race car soon.

An old nemesis is making a return to Australia’s V8 Supercar series. From 1990 through 1992, the Nissan Skyline GT-R dominated the Australian Touring Car Championship series, running rings around Holden and Ford V8′s. During the 1991 Bathurst 1000, the GT-R even set a top-speed record that could not be matched for nine years. Finally, in 1992, Australia’s racing body charged a weight penalty and a boost pressure reduction in an attempt to level the playing field. However, that failed to slow the GT-R down as it continued to dominate its last season before new rules that required V8 powerplants banned the GT-R’s entry.

After a decade, the Nissan GT-R once again returns to the stage under the the Supercar V8′s Car of the Future program, a new project encouraging a wider variety of automakers to join the series. What’s more, Mark Skaife, the man behind the Car of the Future program, was a former GT-R racer that won many of Nissan’s victories in Australia during the early ’90s.

In order to meet the current V8 Supercar regulations, Nissan’s race car will be forced to use a generic rear-wheel-drive, V8 drivetrain. Despite the fact that it will not be an authentic GT-R racing alongside the fire breathing Aussie V8s, we do look forward to seeing more and more automakers following Nissan’s example to freshen up the Bathurst grid. So far, four GT-R’s under Kelly Racing will be participating in the 2013 season.

Watch video of the announcement below:

Get the Flash Player to see this player.