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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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Multiple Grand-Am Honors for Mazda6 SKYACTIV-D Clean Diesel

October 1, 2013 (New York, New York) After closing out a dynamic 2013 Rolex Grand-Am GX season with nine-straight wins, the Mazda Motorsports team proceeded to New York City for the annual post-season awards celebration. Mazda teams and racers received multiple awards and recognitions during the Grand-Am awards gala, highlighted by Mazda winning the 2013 Grand-Am GX Manufacturers Championship.

In twelve races, the SpeedSource Mazda team scored nine wins, five for the #00 VISITFLORIDA.com Mazda6 and four for the #70 Castrol Edge Mazda6. The season highlights were many:
• First diesel to compete in Grand-Am competition
• First diesel to win in Grand-Am competition
• First diesel to ever win at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway
• Winner – North American Endurance Championship Presented by VISITFLORIDA.com (GX Class)
• Winner – Grand-Am Manufacturers Championship (GX Class)
• Sunoco Diamond Performance Award for most laps led during the season – #70 Mazda6
• TOTAL Performance Lubricants Pole Award – Tom Long with seven (7) pole positions
• Monticello Motorsports Club Grand-Am Rookie-of-the-Year – Joel Miller
• Rolex “Moment of the Year” Finalist

In accepting the GX Manufacturers Trophy for Mazda, John Doonan, Director of Mazda Motorsports for Mazda North American Operations, noted that; “The story of Mazda’s 2013 GX Manufacturer’s Championship began with our colleagues in Hiroshima, Japan who had the courage to design and build an amazing SKYACTIV-D Clean Diesel engine that will allow Mazda to be the first Asian automaker to bring modern clean diesel cars to the U.S. market. The vision of our management in the U.S. and Japan led us to take the very first five engines off the assembly line and ship them to our partners at SpeedSource Race Engineering to be built into race engines…with more than 50% of the stock engine still being used for the race engine….and to align this race program with the launch of our new Mazda6 road car.

The final part of our 2013 story is the conviction of everyone at SpeedSource, led by Sylvain Tremblay. There were many long hours by everyone in the engineering department and the race shop to develop the engine and the Mazda6 platform into a race winning package in the toughest environment possible. And for sure the driver line-up…all of whom have come up through the Mazda ladder system – Sylvain Tremblay, Tom Long, Tristan Nunez, Joel Miller, and Andrew Carbonell, who brought the cars home every race without a scratch on them.

We are grateful to all of our partners…especially BOSCH, Castrol, Continental Tire, and VISIT FLORIDA who have supported our vision, fought through early challenges with us, and celebrated our nine race wins alongside us. We are already planning for a great 2014 season in the new TUDOR United SportsCar Championship.”

The all-new SKYACTIV-D Clean Diesel engine in the all-new Mazda6 is a true production based engine. The engine is 51% stock by parts count, and 63% stock by weight. Mazda chose this path as it is the most honest way to demonstrate the quality, durability, and reliability of Mazda cars.

Mazda scored its ninth GX win of the final Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series season with its Mazda6 SKYACTIV-D Clean Diesel racer at Lime Rock Park as the season came to a close. The win, scored by the No.70 Castrol Edge SpeedSource Mazda6 driven by Sylvain Tremblay and Tom Long, gave Mazda the manufacturers title […]”

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Joel Miller and Tristan Nunez pulled double duty in Grand-Am competition at Lime Rock, racing not only in the Rolex Sports Car Series GX class in the Mazda6 SKYACTIV-D Clean Diesel, but also running an MX-5 in the Continental Tire Sports Car Series race on Friday afternoon. Miller and Nunez won the Street Tuner class. […]”

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For many years, racers and fans alike decried the lack of a proper ladder system to guide young racers to the top of U.S. open wheel racing. Mazda, by consolidating and endorsing the Mazda Road to Indy, went a long way toward answering those complaints. There is now a clear path to the IZOD IndyCar […]”

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Hello, My name is Patrick Gallagher and I am a driver for CJ Wilson Racing in the Playboy Mazda MX-5 Cup. I started racing quarter midgets and karts when I was six and since then I have driven numerous racecars. Last year I was fortunate enough to drive for JAY Motorsports in the U.S. F2000 […]”

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“If someone comes from Spec Miata, they’re used to momentum driving,” says Ernie Francis Sr., who runs the most successful TCB team in Pirelli World Challenge, where his son Ernie Francis Jr. is leading the points in his Mazda2. “You have to be on the gas so much sooner than any other car. It’s hard […]”

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