I watched the Mazda races at Elkhart Lake and Road Atlanta.
Luis Schiavo who reads my thread can DRIVE.
He is agressive, smooth and most importantly CALM and MATURE.

Way to go Luis. BTW after seeing the Elkhart race I went looking and found a picture from an Atlantic race 31 years ago there, (1973) and the red car was................ME.
Maybe if I find a scanner I'll post it.

But this thread is for Schiavo.

Now that I know someone in the Mazda series I'll ask, (If he reads this) what are the Ren engines making for power in race trim?? Do you get to develop your own engines or are they factory built??

Best of luck,
Richard

 

Hi Richard. Thanks for the compliments!!!! :D

I would love to see that pic, it should be amazing!!!! We use stock engines, the only difference is the flywheel, mapping and exhaust. We can trim the fuel setting from leaner to richer inside the cockpit. All depends on the temp and humidity.

Don't miss Laguna Seca, I won there!!!!!!!! No more McDowell wins!!! Lol :D

Take care,
LS

 

See that, I can still spot them!!!

 

I want the supercharger so badddddd, the 8 feels slow after I drive the formula car, lol

 

Hi Luis - congrats on the win at Laguna Seca. I watched coverage of the Road Atlanta race yesterday. Good bit of driving! I look forward to watching your winning race.

A question... Do the engines in the formula cars also rev to 9000 or are they allowed to go higher (or lower)?

Thanks!

 

the god is amongst us!

Luis...mind giving us a brief explanation of how you got in involved with the star mazda and what you're racing history is?

 

I think a lot of us want in depth details into how to get started in racing, what to do to make it up to formula, and what it costs.

 

The car is limited to 8,300 RPM. I got involved in racing when I was 9 yrs old. I started in regional championships in go-karts and then went internationally (world championships, european championships, etc). After that, like at 18, I went to the Skip Barber Racing School. It is a 3 day course that teaches you the basic of a race car. (very useful to get you started) . The cost of the course is around 2-3K and it includes the theorical part (in the classroom) and the practical (in the race track with the cars). After that I did some races in the Star Mazda (which had the old engine, the one in the RX7).Then, I ran a full season of FF2000 (in which i didn't do well because of limited budget, sometimes we didn't have spare plugs on the team, imagine that ) and finally came back in 2003 to the star mazda series. I won the championship in 2003 with 4 wins and 5 pole positions and moved up to the new pro car with the same team. The team was used to work with the old car and they didn't have too much experience with the new car, that did not allow us to race competitively the first 6 races. After that the car was improving a lot and we finished the season with a 5th place, 2nd place and a win in the last round. Finished 5th overall in the North American Championship.
The difficult part of racing is finding the budget to race. A full season of Pro Star Mazda can cost up to 200,000 USD. It is very hard to find people who is willing to give out that kind of money for sponsorship, therefore the key is trying to get as many small sponsors as possible to try to make it up. Hope this info helps, and any question just ask!

Cheers
LS

 

i know alot of guys start out karting as kids and build up from there, makes me feel like I have no chance being 20 now with only a few years of amateur competition under my belt.

After you did the Skip Barber school, what did it take to get into FF2k? Did you just draw up a resume and gather sponsors and buy the car/budget the season, etc?

 

Age is not a problem. Takuma Sato started his career at age 21. You just have to find the sponsorship and take the course and start from there.
As I said, the hard part is finding the budget. However that is if you want to race pro, if you want to race amateur, buy an used car of any type and that will be about it.
LS

 

Why 8300 rpm?

 

because thats where his tach is at in his avatar!

 

It's too expensive to replace an engine.

This way you drive like hell and keep your eye on the road.

Then you only have to feel when to shift gears and not be concerned about the pedal to the metal.

 

Man, that kid is the best open-wheel racer from the United States since... forever.

Too bad he's not trying for the Red Bull F1 car... It'd be nice to see the 'ol Stars & Stripes on the side of an F1 car.

 

Sorry to disagree with you. He is a great driver, however he had a superior car this year due to the fact that his team "the official mazda team or factory team" was the team that developed and tested the car before anyone else had access to it. They had valuable information on the car, while everyone else was lost in the dark. Furthermore, if you don't know, his team was the people who opened the engines and dynoed them, then they distributed the engines to everyone else. Are they going to give me or somebody else the best engine?? sure lol. They also hired the Cameron Brothers (the engineers who designed the car and had 20 years experience in atlantic cars) and they were working with them the whole season. I am not saying that he is not a great driver, however go and see the results from last year where everyone had the same equipment and no one else had a big advantage. Is it coincidence that his teammate finished second almost every race? They did have a huge advantage by being in that team.

Watch the last race on tv, where my team finally could get the setup right. Then tell me he is that superior to everyone else.

Cheers,

Luis Schiavo

 

My avatar is from my RX-8 . Not from my race car.
Casually it also reads 8,300 (that's weird)

 

This thread is nuts. I cant beleive Luis is posting here. This just gave our board a whole lot of legitimacy!!! This may counteract the red/black mazda sleeping bag car pic we all love too much.

 

Daaang what'd you do to get it up that high? Is it just flywheel, mapping and exhaust like you said previously?

 

221KM/H = 137MPH about the top speed others have gotten their RX-8 up to.

 

thats in 5th gear too...i've had mine over 147 a few times

 

OH hehe I didn't notice the km/h thing wups. Yeah I got it to 155 once but that makes a TAAAD bit more sense.

 

I think this is a valuable lesson from a successful racer. Thanks Luis for putting racing in perspective. I read it from Aryton Senna and heard it from other credible sources, all of which agree that "some of the fastest drivers in the world are not necessarily one's who win all the time, or become Champions".

Matter of fact, I've heard of many karting champs and met a few professional drivers who were so fast but never had a budget, deep pockets or a decent chance at sponsorship. Seems its a multitude of factors that a champion make, one of them is driving fast.

 

Wow....I bow before thee......it sure would be cool if you could join us for track days 12/11 in your "normal" 8. We'd love to have you.

Congrats on the wins! Rock on!

 

Lschiavo, I just Pm'd you.

I am looking to by a car.

Thanks

 

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