this is making me cry. poor mazdas.

wow, racer's edge just dodged a really sketchy spin out. nice work. even though the mazdas are having such a bad time of it, i cant help but watch anywyas, i just love to see them in action.

 

C'mon Speedsource!!!!

 

It looks like it's still in the pits. Now 78 laps behind the class leader.

 

It looks like #69 is 10th in GT, with two hours to go.

 

man i hope either lexus or ford wins the dp race, any but a porshce.

 

The RX-8s are putting down great lap times, if they didn't have such shitty problems early on, they would be extremely competitive...

That said, the DP race is sweet. I don't like the cars so much, but the racing up front is really close. The front 4 cars are within 15 seconds of each other, after 23 hours!!

 

email editor@speedtv.com and ask for more GT coverage during Rolex Races!!

 

#69 is 9th and #70 is 17th in GT class, with about five minutes left to go.

 

When it is actually on the track the 70 car was putting down consistently fast laps, considerably better than the 69 car, but the problems just kept coming and pitting the car. You just cant come back from that sort of deficit.

Had the 69 car not had that one pit to repair the front end it prob would have been top 5. Ran pretty consistent.

On to the next race

 

It's over, Donohue took the checkered flag in an exciting finish for the prototypes.

Final standings for 69 and 70 same as above.

EDIT: Congrats to Speedsource for doing a great job under difficult circumstances. They were really tearin' it up when they were actually on the track. If only it hadn't been for those problems early on

 

Still a good damn race, it's just too bad they were riddled with some stupid problems. At least the main engine components were in tact

 

Didn't #70 set a track record for lap time for GTs? Or do I remember it wrong?

 

Too bad there weren't 15 Mazda's in the entry list like the Porsches. Although, to me when you throw 5 car teams into the mix like TRG and don't win it looks pretty bad.
It doesn't look like Grandam will give Speedsource back the revs they took away last year.

 

^As bad as the rpm limit sucks, im sure its not really on the minds of Speedsource right now, with the 70 car anyways. I mean sheesh, right off the bat a huge loss of time with the fuel cell, then cracked header and THEN the half shaft (were there any other issues?)....just one thing after another. Has to be frustrating as hell for them, especially after having record setting lap time and consistently hitting 1:51's-1:52's. Im sure they will address the issues, good sign is that the drivers and the car looked damn good when it wasnt breaking ****

 

They have been cracking headers due to the RPM limit.
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EFFECTS OF AVANDIA

 

Really?! How come the 69 car didn't crack a header? Explain please...

 

Well, that little off track excursion that they (the #70 car) had in the first hour probably didn't help.

 

this is just me grasping at straws as to why this could be related to the rev limiter.

Rev limiters usually work by introducing a missfire or extremely retarding the timing so the engine cant rev any higher. if you retard the timing enough, you will basically be running full rich, blowing all the fuel out of the exhaust and burning it in there too. that would drive the temp of the header through the roof, maybe causing it to crack...maybe. like i said, im just grasping at straws here really.

 

they were saying since the rev is limited that when ever the 70 car drafted the car would peg, so they cant even darft that much or it puts more stress on the car.

Good effort speedsource and the other rx8 teams. it was tuff but they showed resilence most of the time.

 

Good effort SpeedSource! At least #69 made it on the pole which will help out in the points department. Can't believe Team Brembos Porsche won , I thought for sure Montoya was going to make it a 4 -peat this year.

Kind of glad I didn't go this year, seeing the Mazdas struggle in real time would have pissed me off. So many Porsche fanatics go the Rolex 24 and talk so much smack about the Mazda RX-8. Last year I wore my Mazdaspeed hat with pride,the Porsche fans were devestated by the butt kicking the Mazdas were putting on them!

 

A NASIOC member who attended the Rolex 24 posted these pics from this past weekend:

 

Nice pics, thank you.

 

I'll post some pics when I get home, Ive got about 3GBs of pics and videos...

 

cool pictures of the speedsource cars, it must have been after the race?

 

If I rmb correctly its b/c the heat builds up in the header due to the lower RPM. At higher RPMs it actually aids in cooling somehow. They began to crack headers last year after GA put the rev limit on them.

They are now limited to 8600rpm.... sigh. I rmb having this discussion with RC why the 8 is so fast on the straight and when it needed the speed to overtake, I guess people found out they had a little too much power up top.

On the website they now state 415hp @8500rpm, down 10hp from 425. Its no suprise why they bump the rev limiter on the straight drafting.
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Roll blunts