October 2013

Production-based racecars are a perfect place for a racer to get started, and many drivers never leave the arena of Touring cars, Spec Miata and the like. But for the driver seeking something fast but who still wants something that looks like a road car, Grand Touring may be the ideal destination. The Sports Car […]”

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  Endurance races used to be about which car was the most reliable and, when a car broke, how quickly it could be repaired. Now to win a race like the Rolex 24 at Daytona, the 12 Hours of Sebring or the 25 Hours of Thunderhill, it’s more an exercise in speed; the races may […]”

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Jim Downing was one of the racers at the first SCCA National Championship Runoffs at Riverside International Raceway in 1964. In fact, he scored the first Runoffs pole in history, in Formula Vee. Fifty years later, he’s still racing at the Runoffs in a Mazda rotary-powered Peach Day-02 C Sports Racing car. But in between […]”

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There’s no doubt racing is fun and challenging at any level. But sometimes you just want to go faster. In many forms of racing, there are numerous things you can do to go faster, most of which cost money. Maybe a lot of money. If you’re racing a class like Spec Miata, though, there’s not […]”

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  The Mazda Club Racer Shootout is the single largest prize in club racing. Since 2007 Mazda has annually promoted one talented club racer to the professional ranks. The $75,000 prize funds a drive in the 2014 Mazda MX-5 Cup. Eighteen racers were semi-finalists, having met the eligibility criteria for 2013, each having won a […]”

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  Andersen Promotions, which will operate all levels of the Mazda Road to Indy next year, unveiled the 2014 schedule of events for the three series comprising the ladder system – Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires, Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires and Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda. For the first […]”

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  Mazda knows its rotaries. Years of racing various versions showed the company and its racing teams how to make them powerful and darn near bulletproof. It’s the sort of proven, comfortable technology that enabled SpeedSource to have so much success with its RX-8s in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series in the GT category, […]”

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  Data Acquisition has long been a useful tool in racing, and innovations such as GPS- and OBD-II-based data have made it much more attainable to the club racer. However, generating data is one thing; knowing how to use it is quite another. For CJ Wilson Racing Continental Tires Sports Car Challenge drivers Stevan McAleer, […]”

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My name is Stevan McAleer and I am 29 years old. I was born in Glasgow Scotland and up until my move to the States in 2009, I lived in the same place with my mum Shirley, dad Gordon and my four younger brothers: Gregg (28), Derek (23), Stuart (21) and Sam (17). My dad […]”

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  Elliot Skeer of Vista, Calif., won the season finale of the SCCA Pro Racing Playboy Mazda MX-5 Cup on Friday at Road Atlanta, but it wasn’t enough to take the championship away from Christian Szymczak, who finished fourth. Szymczak, who finished third in the Thursday half of the doubleheader, only needed a top-six finish […]”

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We caught up with John Doonan, the Director of Motorsports for Mazda North American Operations and asked him a few questions about the 2013 season and what to expect in 2014. Q How did the 2013 season go for Mazda? What were the highlights and lowlights? A I hope 2013 is most remembered for the […]”

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It’s the American Le Mans Series’ second-longest race at 10 hours or 1000 miles around the challenging Road Atlanta circuit. It ends the season each year, and in 2013 it ends an era. The 2013 Petit Le Mans won’t be the last one, but it will be the last race as part of the American […]”

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  The SCCA Pro Racing Playboy Mazda MX-5 Cup rolls into Atlanta about as close as a championship could be. That was either helped or hindered by the cancellation of the Houston race after Dario Franchitti’s IndyCar Series accident damaged the catchfence. Christian Szymczak could have extended his lead further, or Elliot Skeer could have […]”

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Designed to produce affordable, simple racing, the B-Spec class is taking off within SCCA Club Racing, and racers can go pro racing if they choose with the Pirelli World Challenge Touring Car B Championship. Based on subcompact cars – known as B-Segment cars in much of the world, hence the name – B-Spec is a […]”

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It’s hard to imagine a racer having the kind of season that Matthew Brabham had in the 2013 Pro Mazda Championship. There have been few racing seasons in any series where the word “dominant” applied so readily. Brabham had 13 total wins, including a seven-race win streak that started in the second race of the […]”

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  The Miata isn’t typically the sort of car one pictures tearing around in a dirt-and-grass field in Oklahoma. Yet several drivers did exactly that and two of them claimed RallyCross National Championships in the process. The Sports Car Club of America had its final championship event of 2013 with the RallyCross National Championship at […]”

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October 9, 2013 (IRVINE, Calif) The Mazda Club Racer Shootout is the single largest prize in club racing. Since 2007 Mazda has annually promoted one talented club racer to the professional ranks. The $75,000 prize funds a drive in the 2014 Mazda MX-5 Cup.

The heart and soul of Mazda Motorsports is club racing, and supporting those racers who have invested in racing a Mazda. The criteria for the shootout is to identify the aspiring professional racer who has the best range of skills required to succeed. These skills include speed, consistency, racecraft, technical feedback, and off-track business and PR skills. History has shown that a driver will be limited in success if they are lacking in multiple areas.

John Doonan, Director of Motorsports, note: “With more club racers than any other car company, we wanted to find a suitable way to bridge the gap from club racing to the professional ranks. Our shootout has become a signature event for Mazda Motorsports. Without exception, every driver who won the shootout proved to be competitive in MX-5 Cup, with several developing solid professional careers.”

Eighteen racers are semi-finalists, having met the eligibility criteria for 2013. Each has won a recognized championship over a minimum number of competitors. The next step is for the racer to submit a business presentation, which will be reviewed and scored by a team of motorsports and marketing professionals. From those proposals, the finalists will be selected. The final shootout will be a one-day event at Buttonwillow Raceway Park in November where the racers will be tested on the track for their technical skills. It is a winner-take-all event with one racer moving up to the Mazda MX-5 Cup for 2014.

The 18 semi-finalists are:

Racer Club/Series Hometown/Residence
Ben Albano Skip Barber Racing School Greenwich, CT
Joey Bickers NASA Teen Challenge (California) Moorpark, CA
Jim Drago SCCA National Runoffs Memphis, TN
TJ Fischer Worldspeed Formula Car Championship Vacaville, CA
Dennis Holloway NASA National Championships Huntington Beach, CA
Rob Huffmaster SCCA National Runoffs Shelby Township, MI
Andrei Kisel Sports Car Club of British Columbia North Vancouver, BC, Canada
Jason Kohler NASA National Championships Waterford, MI
Zachary Munro NASA Teen Challenge (Colorado) Granby, CO
Adam Poland NASA Teen Challenge (Texas) Mount Vernon, Texas
Scott Rettich SCCA National Runoffs Camden, OH
Matt Schultz NASA National Championships Portland, OR
Cherie Storms Sports Car Club of British Columbia Langley, BC, Canada
Jon Van Caneghem NASA National Championships Marina del Rey, CA
Cal Vandaalen Spec Miata Championship (Canada) Wellington, NS Canada
Rob Warkocki SCCA National Runoffs Frankfort, IL
Michael Whelden Worldspeed Formula Car Championship Sausalito, CA
Darryl Wills SCCA National Runoffs Houston,TX

Additional information about the Mazda Club Racer shootout and Mazda support can be found at www.mazdamotorsports.com

About Mazda, Mazda Motorsports, and MAZDASPEED
Mazda is the number-one brand for road-racers across North America among both club racers and professionals. Thousands of Mazda powered grassroots racers compete in various classes with the SCCA and NASA highlighted by Spec Miata, the world’s largest spec class with over 2,500 cars built. In 2006 Mazda Motorsports established the MAZDASPEED Motorsports Development Ladder to assist racers in moving up through the ranks. In 2010 this was expanded to include the Mazda Road to Indy. Key to Mazda’s success is strategic partnerships with the Skip Barber Racing School and Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

Mazda Motorsports is managed by Mazda North American Operations (MNAO). MNAO is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., and oversees the sales, marketing, parts and customer service support of Mazda vehicles in the United States and Mexico through nearly 700 dealers. Operations in Mexico are managed by Mazda Motor de Mexico in Mexico City.

Consumer information can be found at www.mazdausa.com, with press information at www.mazdausamedia.com. Racers and fans can follow the action on facebook (Mazda Motorsports).

  Glenn Bocchino owns a brake pad company, Cobalt Friction. He also owns, and drives for, i-Moto Racing, which campaigns a fleet of MAZDASPEED3s in the Grand-Am Continental Tire Sports Car Street Tuner series. Those three roles make him rather uniquely qualified to discuss brake issues and, even if he is a little biased (excuse […]”

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The just-completed 2013 Grand-Am Continental Tire Sports Car Series season may not have gone quite the way Pierre Kleinubing would have liked. However, if a driver could win them all, it wouldn’t be racing…and it wouldn’t be very interesting. In 2012, though, Kleinubing did win it all in the Street Tuner-class i-Moto MAZDASPEED3. Not every […]”

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  In 2013, the drivers in the Grand-Am Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge raced on some tracks that many had not seen before, at least not while driving in the Continental Tire series. Circuit of the Americas, Road Atlanta and Kansas Speedway were all new additions to the schedule. That means new tracks for the […]”

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Scott Hargrove could have almost coasted through both races on the Reliant Park circuit in Houston this weekend and still claimed the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda title, but instead finished on the podium on Saturday to clinch. Although series runner-up Neil Alberico won Saturday’s Round 13, it wasn’t enough to keep Hargrove […]”

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  Mazda Motorsports has a blockbuster weekend coming up on the streets of Texas’s largest city during the Shell Pennzoil Grand Prix of Houston. The SCCA Pro Racing Pirelli World Challenge Championships wrap up their season, two Mazda-powered steps on the Mazda Road to Indy ladder have their finales and the Playboy Mazda MX-5 Cup […]”

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“We start with a brand-new MX-5 chassis,” says Glenn Long, the principal of Freedom Autosport as he explains how his team turns a road car into a winning Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge competitor in the Street Tuner category. “The car is very well engineered as it sits. So things like the engine location – […]”

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As I was trying to write this blog entry to introduce myself and outline my career and my relationship with Mazda, I got stuck with a blank page for a couple of days. I really didn’t want to start out with the cliché: “Hi, my name is Peter Portante,” although I suppose I just did. […]”

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