I worked on Mazda advertising for a while. Dont any more. But I'm
surprised they haven't taken more advantage of their motorsports
support. It seems that would play well to their demographic.
Paul
On Aug 25, 2009, at 11:28 PM, Doug Franklin wrote:
Larry Colen wrote:
The engine mods that I'm allowed on the 1.6 liter motor are:
Change the air filter
Remove the catalytic converter
Change the exhaust from the cat back
Oops, less than I thought, there.
I'm allowed to put in a specific Limited Slip Differential (not to
confuse it with LakeShore Drive).
Not being a Spec Miata guy, I totally forgot the "diff wars". :-)
I'm allowed to run 15" wheels up to 7" wide that weigh at least 13
lbs. In our region we have the 205-50-15 Toyo RA-1 spec tire (decent
performance, excellent life for a race tire, keeps nearly full grip
until the cord is showing)
Ooooh, I didn't know about the wheel weight rule. We /love/ the
RA-1, especially compared to the Hoosiers.
I'm allowed to strip the interior, I'm required to have a roll cage
that meets certain specs, race seats, race belts, fire extinguisher
or
fire system, kill switch.
Yeah, I ignored all the safety stuff.
I'm allowed to run a fiberglass hardtop (several seconds a lap in
aerodynamics).
Over 2 seconds a lap at Road Atlanta, according to the E Production
guys.
One very nice thing about the class is the factory support. You can
buy parts from Mazdaspeed at dealer cost.
Mazda is *the* *bomb* for amateur racers. We've had two RX-7 race
cars (still have one) and both my brother and I have Miata street
cars and we've rented a Miata to race. We love the rotary in a lot
of ways, but a 302 makes a /lot/ more torque and a good bit more
horsepower, with less cash injected. That may be where our
remaining RX-7 ends up (300-400 HP 302 with T-5 or T-56 tranny ...
about twice the going rate for a 12A rebuild with a T-5, three times
with a T-56).
The racing is amazingly close. The last race I ran with the SCCA the
qualifying times of the guy 2 places in front of me and the guy
behind
me differed by about .060 seconds, that works out to about 8 feet
on a
three mile track for two rows of the grid in mid pack.
The reason that we don't run Spec Miata is that, in the southeast,
at least, they tend to tear up a lot of bodywork and a nontrivial
number of cars. The first SM race we ever saw, 54 cars took the
green flag ... two came back banana shaped on flatbeds, two came
back unscathed, and the other fifty came back with bodywork damage
ranging from a couple of hundred bucks to several thousand. They've
gotten better, but they still bash up a lot more cars than ITA. :-)
At the 2005 ARRC, I watched (from about ten feet away) one SM
literally punt another at turn 12 of Road Atlanta such that the
puntee got over six feet of air and speared the driver's left
(outside) concrete wall at over 100 MPH and 40 degrees of yaw.
Killed the timing loop, but only battered the driver.
--
Thanks,
DougF (KG4LMZ)
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