Adam Voges maintained his remarkable record with the ball by dismissing Sussex number three Ed Joyce after a fine knock of 183.
Joyce was clearly aggrieved by the umpire’s lbw decision having constructed his innings from 300 balls scoring 28 fours to take the home side from 9-1 to 308-9.
Tail enders Collymore and Sandri will resume on 309 and with maximum bowling bonus points in the bag, the Nottinghamshire seamers will look for an early breakthrough.
Sussex were 144-7 after Luke Fletcher had Wright and Hopkinson caught behind and Martin-Jenkins caught at slip but a valuable 22 from Rayner and Collymore’s unbeaten 23 helped to ease them past the 300 mark.
“Joyce played an outstanding innings and I genuinely expected us to be chasing less than 200 when we reduced them to 140-7,” said Nottinghamshire Director of Cricket Mick Newell.
“It’s a good pitch and it got flatter later in the day in the sun and the contribution of Collymore is an indictment of that.
“Fletch had a few problems in his first spell with the new ball but did very well after that. None of our bowlers have let us down but we need to make an early breakthrough and begin our reply.”
After Chris Read won the toss, Andre Adams and Charlie Shreck bowled openers Yardy (22) and Nash (4) respectively. Adams finished the day with 3-64 and Samit Patel bowled economically to return 1-23 from his five overs.