Igor Sushko is one of those kids who invented himself on the Internet – he developed a Webs site called automotiveforums.com when he was just fourteen. Now age nineteen, his company growing so fast that he can’t find time for college, Sushko is pursuing his dream of driving racing cars. “Iwas born in the Ukraine, and my family moved to Germany, Japan, and the United States as my father found work as a physicist,” he says. “I still remember walking with him to a Nissan dealership in Japan and seeing a Skyline GT-R. Since then, it has been all about Nissans for me.” Sushko’s racing strategy is to learn by doing, just as he did with Web design. He and his friend, Sean Morris, a leading tuner of stateside GT-Rs, happened upon a special Skyline GT-R at the Japanese Grand Touring Championship race held at California Speedway last winter. It was the Totomu Fujitsubo-sponsored Skyline GT-R R34 N1, one of a handful of 500-hp GT-R racing cars built in 2001 by Nissan’s NISMO competition department for endurance racing. Sushko decided the R34 N1 would be perfect for the SCCA’s Speed World Challenge series. He hopes to compete with the car this spring.
