yeah Mazda win, Porsche lose.

Both sides played by the rules, and Mazda won.

HAH! Eat that Porsche..... 8)

 

Hells yah baby! Too bad my next car is going to be a Porsche

 

geez... had to go through some hoops just to find mention of the win on www.MazdaUSA.com "see more" my ***

 

Exactly. The rules are stated and the race teams do whatever they can to make their car faster than the others within the rules. Those Porsches ARE NOT JUST SOMETHING FROM THE FACTORY!!! Porsche isn't stupid. They've been racing for years. So some team building an 8 under the rules of Rolex 24 hrs, is a legit win.

 

IMO, the rules are set up to favor the Grand Am (read, NASCAR) formula of putting templates over tube frame chassis. Reference GXP.R and tell me what the hell that thing is? I would imagine you'll see less Ferrari (only a couple ran this year) and Corvette (only one this year) running in these races as the rules favor tube frame cars. See what the field looked like a few years ago in the GT class as a comparison.
The 2 rotor production based RX8 runs in the ST class in Grand Am's Koni Challenge series.

That said, congrats to Speedsource (which fields cars in both GT and ST class) for the great 24hr win! They are leading the path in pushing Mazda's latest racing effort to the forefront. Last year, the GT class RX8 was already showing what it could do. This year, it seems like things are aligning into place (cross our fingers).

 

Mazda needs to take the 24 Hrs Le Mans ... again!!!

 

That would be cool. They can use this to base the car on:

 

Yea i would also like to see mazda stretch its legs in some of the higher/faster classes...

 

If I am not mistaken, I believe that is their Le Mans based car, the FURAI.

 

That is the Furai, but I think the 24 Hours of Le Mans banned rotary-powered engines after the Mazda won it.... sounds like sore losers to me

 

^really?

 

The only REAL reason why their 8 won was because they were using synthetic motor oil.

 

They should just stick with cheating turbos.

 

Rotaries were never banned from LeMans. The rule change only affected engine displacement. This meant that the 4 rotors were no longer allowed due to purely size reasons. It had nothing to do with the fact that it was a rotary. They could have still run a rotary but back then it would have had to have been a 2 rotor. This was before restrictor plates so they tried to limit power with size instead. Many other engines were no longer allowed due to this rule change but it did favor piston engines.

 

as we sit in the dark we wonder what takes it so long?

 

I see, I didn't know the specifics. So do you know if the Furai design meets the current requirements to race in the 24 hours of Le Mans? That would be sweet....Mazdas winning both 24 hour races!

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wankel_...omobile_racing

 

That link states the rule change made the 787B inelligible to race but that's not quite accurate. It was the rule change on engine displacement. Mazda did race the car again. They swapped a turbo 4 cylinder into it and ran it for at least 1 but possibly 2 seasons unsuccessfully.

 

actually it meets the new closed cockpit rule for 2008 American Lemans series races

 

There was a lot more to it than just that.

 

*cough*kabura*cough*

 

yea saw that one too, its on the back of my motor trend