WHY GET INVOLVED IN THE MAZDA COMMUNITY?!

A car club by any other name is just a group of enthusiasts getting together to celebrate their gains, reach out for support, gather advice and inspiration, and ultimately find a reason to connect.

With Mazda clubs, specifically Nator Clubs, there is a LOT more to it than just the benefit to you as a single person.

We recently sent Kim out to the Epic Nator Meet in Robbinsville, NC, to ride the trail of the dragon, reach out to the Mazda community, and just generally bring her personality to ignite the shenanigans at the event. If you’ve ever had the “pleasure” of meeting or hanging out with Kim, you know what we’re talking about. You never know what will be said, how loud it will get, or how late into the night the event will go… especially if there’s a campfire.

She came back with some good info, great shots, and some awesome stories that reignited our LOVE of the NATOR MAZDASPEED CLUB and the Mazda community as a whole!

From the moment she started to plan her drive from Richmond, VA, she was able to connect with a fellow West Coast transplant, and make the drive in her rental following the Mazdaspeed booty. Stopping for coffee, food, and to refuel it was an awesome drive all the way to Robbinsville, NC.

Pulling in, the hotel parking lot was already full of Mazda’s, and what a sight for sore eyes it was! Good friends from Canada, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Maryland, and so many other places! For those who had come in during the week, running the Tail of the Dragon had still not gotten old, and Mazdaspeeds were coming back from mid-day runs for dinner.

Nights filled with good friends, talk of cars, and connecting to just catch up were the basis of the meet, and hopping from one car to the next to get feedback and different set-ups and parts was awesome! No need to drive the Dragon in a rental when there are so many built Mazdas around!

We got reports of the spirit of the Nator Mazda community still being alive! With part swaps and repairs in the parking lot – all hands on deck, pickups on trailers for those with bigger issues, and unfortunately we saw the spirit of Nator in having one another’s backs as people as well! From fender benders to a hospital run to keep our squad safe and healthy!

There is nothing, and we mean it, absolutely nothing better than seeing what the Mazdaspeed Nator club is capable of when it comes to supporting one another, donating to a cause or raffle, and just genuinely having a great time!

Keep an eye out, as we will be sharing about our trip to the Mazda Takeover Event in Idaho very soon, and hosting our own Mazda Showdown, event at the end of summer. There is very little that tops the feeling of being connected to a core group of Mazda enthusiasts, and from West Coast to East Coast, we do our best to stay connected and keep the spirit of the Mazda Community running deep!

Until next time, stay safe, stay fast, and stay happy my friends!

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July 26, 2017April 10, 2024

Friends Keep You Going When Your Car Hits the Skids

Mazdaspeed 3 ready for mods — A red gen1 ready for street tuning.

To start this story, we have to go back almost two years. Since a few high power builds and a lot of bolt on cars were all being finished up at the same time, the UtahMazdas crew decided that we would fly Will and Ryan from PDTuning out for the weekend to street tune everyone’s cars.

Meeting the Mazda gremlins

We all got ready and awaited the arrival date. As we got closer to the date, I learned that Zach (the previous owner of my red gen1) was going to be unable to attend as he had a scheduling conflict due to a family vacation. So, being the nice guy that I am, I offered to swap our cars and take his car down to meet up with everyone and get the tune done for him. Since I had driven the car before (on the 400 whp setup), it seemed like a good fit.

Long story short, at the meetup, the first thing I noticed about the car is that it would randomly die at idle for some reason. After spending the weekend trying to diagnose all the gremlins with this freshly built car, we ran out of time and were unable to tune it.

I had the car for a few more days, and even though it left my girlfriend and me stranded, I still loved the car. It brought a smile to my face that I couldn’t wipe off.

Time to get to the bottom of the trouble

Fast forward a few weeks, and we’re still having trouble. Finally, Zach stopped by my desk at Mazda. He was frustrated since the car was still riddled with issue after issue and wasn’t getting any better. He said he was probably just going to sell it.

Mazdaspeed engine pulled apart — On the hunt for trouble.

After very little thought and some hasty decisions, we struck a deal. I picked the car up a few days later unsure of what I was getting myself into. The only thing I knew was that there was something about this car that made me happy in a childlike way.

After a lot of work, and some great help from my amazing group of friends, the issue of dying at idle was taken care of along with a whole new Mazdaspeed VVT kit. The car was, at long last, now ready to begin the tuning process. As the car started to make more and more power, it started to show its weaknesses and it just felt like it was never going to work. But I kept pushing on and fixing it along the way.

At last, a breakthrough

Finally, it happened — a day I thought would never come! The pump gas tune was finished just in time for the very first Mazdaspeed takeover in Boise. We met up a few days later and headed to Boise. I drove the car all the way there without issue.

We attended a few different events and the car not only didn’t let me down, but it continued to impress me. After hours of hanging out with everyone at the dyno day, I loaded up the slicks and went to Firebird Raceway for the track night at the takeover. As I didn’t have much seat time in the car at the track, it was not as fast as I would have hoped. But with Barett by my side and with some helpful coaching — all that engineering stuff that makes no sense to me — the car started getting faster and faster.

Then, on the last run, the unimaginable happened. The connecting rod decided that it’d had enough and wanted to see the world. After a whole bunch of noise and smoke, the motor was done and we were sitting in Boise trying to decide what we were going to do. Thanks to some quick thinking from the locals, and my amazing partner in crime Marisa, we got the car on a tow truck and headed back to Keith’s house.

Keith, being the great man that he is, let me store my ride in his garage for a week while we made the drive home and back with a trailer to come and get it.

Back to the drawing board

A week later, we picked her up and took her home. There she sat and waited while I tried to figure out what I was going to do to fix the problem. Once again, my friends — who are really more like family to me — came to the rescue. We all met up one Sunday morning to tear the motor out of the car and find out what was salvageable.

Once we tore down the motor, we realized that very little could be saved, so I contacted FJ Performance to have a new motor built. After waiting for what felt like an eternity, the motor was delivered and, once again, the UtahMazdas crew got together. The only difference? This time we’d graduated from the storage unit to a two-post lift.

We installed the motor and, after a few hiccups, we had it running for the first time in seven months. Safe to say, I was ecstatic.

After many oil changes and a careful break-in procedure, I noticed that the new motor was still having issues, but I kept pushing forward with assurance that it would get better. Sadly, it did not. The motor ate a head gasket a mere 2,000 miles into boost ‘n chill.

Let’s try this again

At this point, I was devastated. I wasn’t sure if I was going to part the car out or just sell it as a roller with no motor.

After thinking it over and talking to everyone that has helped me along the way — oh, and don’t forget Luke McCarvel hitting me up every day demanding that I keep the car — I decided that there was only one thing to do. So, once again, it was time to take my baby back to EP and, this time, the motor would be built by Artem and myself so that there would be no doubt it’d be perfect this time around.

If there is one thing that this whole experience has taught me, it’s that you can always count on your friends to be there when you need a hand. And you can always count on the crew at CorkSport to keep you motivated.

July 19, 2017April 10, 2024

NATOR: The Pyramid Scheme You Want to Join

A look at the parking situation at a NATOR group meet up. — If you see a bunch of Mazdaspeeds by a garage, you’re probably looking at a NATOR group.

I’ll admit it up front: NATOR is a pyramid scheme. “What?!” you proclaim. “Isn’t NATOR like family? Who would do that to family?” Let me explain why and how you can become the next Platinum Emerald Neon Iridium special level NATOR member! But seriously, here’s what I’m talking about.

The beginnings of NATOR

Back in the early days of NATOR AL (AL for Alabama), all we had was a few people posting on MazdaSpeedForms.org (MSF) in the South East section. I was relatively new to wrenching, having only recently learned how to change my own oil (yes, I know) or install an intake. Some guy named Ryan invited a few of us to his apartment for burgers, wings (spoiler: the wings weren’t fully cooked), beer, and wrenching. The meet was only four people, but the spark was there. Many stories were traded, laughs were had, and plenty of beer was consumed.

Over the next year, we steadily grew and started really wrenching on cars. Our first big “project” was HPFP internal installs. Only Ryan had done them before. Tension was high for this (now) trivial install, but everything went smoothly. Quick pro tip: There’s no reason to pull the intake or battery box.

Now here’s where the pyramid scheme comes in: It’s about knowledge transfer instead of products or sales. Whereas Ryan was the self-proclaimed “Mazda master tech” that knew everything about working on Speeds, Jason and I quickly picked up the new skill and were able to do HPFP internals later without Ryan’s oversight.

NATOR groups are great for learning about all sorts of Mazdaspeed repairs and mods. — A NATOR teaching moment.

The benefits of NATOR communities

I can hear some of you now: “But Shane, HPFP internals are stupid easy.” And you’d be right. That’s exactly why it’s such a great thing to teach new guys that are timid with a wrench. Eventually, things such as intakes, test pipes, and internals were jobs that I didn’t have to participate in. This is when I realized the greatness of the NATOR pyramid scheme: If I teach someone what I know, then later I can sit back in a lawn chair drinking beer and not lift a finger at a meet. Over the years, I’ve seen countless people with no wrenching experience become comfortable working on their car by themselves. In one case, a member used his knowledge about starting an engine with no fuel pressure to reassure a friend working on a GTI that the car not immediately starting was due to pressure needing to build in the rail before it started cleanly.

Now, we haven’t simply stuck to the basic “intake, test pipe, tune” mods in AL. We’ve pretty much done everything performance-related there is to do on a Mazdaspeed 3. Countless Mazdaspeed turbo swaps, a handful of transmission jobs, engine swaps, head rebuilds, VVT timing jobs, suspension swaps, interior gutting — all of these have been done in a NATOR AL garage.

A Mazdaspeed gets towed from a NATOR event. — The helping hand of a NATOR community.

One of the best parts of NATOR is that if you put in work helping someone else out, they’re willing to spend many weekends getting your car working again. We had a local member’s transmission die a horrendous death without any warning. He’d been at meets before and was always willing to lend a hand, so we offered to swap out his transmission. Five weeks, and a TON of fail later, he was back on the road as happy as could be.

Another great benefit is that the community is nationwide and international now. Twice a year, we do epic meets. One’s in April on the East Coast and the other is in late-August/early September in the Midwest. Enthusiasts from all over the country (plus some from Mexico, Canada, and even once someone from Germany) gather to celebrate these awesome cars and the community we’ve built around them.

Perhaps my favorite NATOR story was one involving the Epic Midwest NATOR Meet (EMWNM) in 2015. The meet was incredible with lots of great people attending, tons of alcohol was consumed, go-karts were raced, and many smiles were had. The conclusion of the meet was a track day on Monday at Autobahn Country Club. I spent the first two sessions feeling out the car and learning the track. On the third session, I was chasing down a BMW I had just let pass when I tried to accelerate out of the corner and got nothing. Seconds later, my oil light came on and I dove into the grass to (hopefully) save my engine. No luck … It spun a bearing.

After a very brief diagnostic session in the paddock, I asked a NATOR member if I could have my car towed to his house. He said “yes” immediately. I ordered an engine from Mazda Motorsports and was dropped off at the airport to catch a flight to get home for work. Fast forward three days later to Thursday, I arrive back in Chicago to an engine almost entirely out of the car. I literally took two clamps and a hose off the engine and it was free-hanging on the hoist. NATOR basically took my engine out of my car for me and then helped me put my new one in. Less than a week after I blew my engine, I was back on the road headed home thanks to this community.

A NATOR group in action at a local meet over a Mazdaspeed — A NATOR group in action.

What happened to me (free engine removal) isn’t the norm, but I’d do the same for any of those guys should they ever break down in Alabama. And that’s what NATOR is about: helping a fellow Speed owner in need, whether that’s “I need parts” or “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

How to join NATOR

So how can you get in on this awesome pyramid scheme? Search MSF, MSO (mazdaspeeds.org), or Facebook and find your local NATOR and show up to meets. Heads-up: Local might mean a two- to four-hour drive. Bring food, beer, or tools if you have specialty stuff. Wrench on cars with the NATOR group, or if you aren’t skilled in that, be the guy who grabs tools or makes runs to the parts store. Ask questions to expand your knowledge. Take a new guy under your wing and teach him what you know. As you spend more time with your group, you’ll find others offering help or parts when you need it.

Cheers,

Shane Fry

May 22, 2014September 13, 2018

What should Sponsorship look Like?

What should sponsorship look like?

We have hundreds of people contact us every year to be sponsored. Some want free parts, some want discounts, some want to test parts, some want to simply represent a company they love, and others simply want the satisfaction of saying, “I’m sponsored!”. What should sponsorship look like though? We have only a handful of sponsored drivers because we believe that sponsorship should be a relationship, not just money thrown at someone. At the same time we have thousands of customers who want to support us, and hundreds of customers that ask for sponsorship. So the real question is how do we provide a sponsorship program that is best for everyone? A program where we can sponsor more people, the right people, AKA the people YOU want sponsored.

Why do we sponsor people?

We sponsor people for several reasons.

We like you: We have so many amazing people in the Mazda community and we want to support the growth of the Mazda modification scene.
When you get support, you give support: It’s a proven fact that when someone tells their friend about a great part, product, service, or event that it can be better marketing than Google ads, billboards, TV commercials or any other form of typical advertising. The best advertising that we can have is simply by providing the BEST customer service, BEST parts, and a great experience for all Mazda owners. One way to do this is too sponsor drivers who can tell you exactly what our parts are like!
Testing: We are always working on new parts for your car and the best parts are the ones that get tested, revised, tested, revised, and tested again. Though we have plenty of cars at our disposal in our shop or personal garages, often the best testing comes from YOU. Plus when you can say “I beta tested this, and that shit WORKS” it lets others know that we aren’t just making stuff up.

How does it Benefit you?

It depends on what you are looking for. As a sponsored driver you might get discounts on parts, recognition in the community, or you might even get to work personally with some of our engineers to develop and give feedback on our latest parts in development. As CorkSport rolls out a new Sponsorship program we want to be able to invite everyone into being a part of a team that can benefit you and us, equally. This means that the more you invest in your car and the Mazda community, the more we invest in you.

How does it benefit us?

This one is more difficult to measure. Sponsorship can often appear to be a one-sided endeavor. In many sponsorship relationships you might get paid with free product, or even cash, to say something like “After every race, I drink a refreshing bottle of Sporty Sport Drink“. Now the statistics on how many customers choose to purchase Sporty Sport Drink because of your sponsorship is a tough measurement. In the same way it’s hard to measure how often someone sees your sweet looking Mazdaspeed 3 with a CorkSport decal on the side and decides to find out what CorkSport is and then buy something. Nonetheless it does happen (we hope) but, there is more to sponsorship than just advertising to make more money.

Sponsorship benefits us because it allows us to be a part of the Mazda community. We don’t always get to be at every Mazda event, we don’t get to talk personally with every Mazda customer, and we don’t even get to respond to every Mazda thread, question or email in our great big world. When we sponsor someone we get to make a connection with you, and then you get to be our ambassador for all those people we can’t personally interact with. In other words, we get to be part of the Mazda community, due to our CorkSport Sponsored Ambassador Team.

The Best Part about Sponsorship:

The best part about sponsorship is the fact that it is a community benefit. Sponsored drivers get cheaper parts, or new unreleased parts, or recognition. Mazda drivers that aren’t sponsored get the extra knowledge and help from the sponsored drivers, and get feedback about parts they don’t have. Finally Corkspot gets the benefit of creating a better Mazda community which is why we started the company in the first place! Because we love Mazdas!

Sponsorship is about sharing OUR love of Mazda with YOUR love of Mazda, and spreading that love beyond where we can reach individually.

Have some ideas for when we roll out our new program? Have you been impacted by one of our sponsored drivers, or someone you think should be sponsored? Have a brilliant plan to benefit the Mazda community? Email Spencer@CorkSport.com your feedback and ideas!

August 20, 2009July 15, 2020

Derrick’s Mazda Odyssey – How it All Began – Part 2

Continuing from the last blog post about my Mazda odyssey:

I was mentioning my impending transmission swap after I had destroyed the B6T AWD transmission, there where a few more bugs with the transmission swap and I worked them out over the next couple of weeks. The first time I took the 323 around a corner at high speed the car tried to trade ends. A quick counter steer and full throttle put the car into a very manageable slide. This is the way the car should have been delivered I remember thinking as I straightened the car out before the next corner. The 90-94 AWD transmission was setup to put more of the percentage of power to the rear wheels vs. the fronts.

I picked up some second hand Silverstone rally tires from the Tabor Rally Team to mount on an extra set of rims and try my luck at rally cross. The one thing you don’t expect to hear on an AWD car is “I didn’t have enough grip”. The combination of a small turbo which made instant boost which translates into instant torque and a 2600lb car made for lots of wheel spin even with rally tires.

As you can see in the picture above, the results were great! I think I exported about 60 lbs of dirt from the Hillsboro fairgrounds back home to Vancouver, WA after that event. It took forever to get the dirt and grass off the bottom of the car. I didn’t exactly set any record times driving that way but after a season of racing it was good enough for 3rd place in open class with the Oregon Rally Group.

There was another rally cross event which sticks with me due to the strange nature of the event. I showed up to the event with some shaved Toyo T1S tires on the 323. I didn’t have a chance to mount the rally wheels for the event. It was a good thing to, as the water truck was a no show. That meant no water to keep the dust down and make the course a muddy mess. My run group was in the afternoon so I got to watch the cars run in the first half of the day. After a while you could see black on the dirt from tires leaving rubber on the course. This was advantage for me with my Toyo tires. My first run out was one of the fastest on the dry grass/hard pack dirt and I placed fairly high overall for the day.

Special Thanks to Wayne Flynn at pdxsports.com for the great picture above

Around that time I was thinking, you know I could always use more power. So trying out different combos of parts like ECUs and air flow meters I finally settled on running an odd mix of parts. To get rid of the factory airflow meter I went with an HKS F-CON Pro unit that was not made for the 323GTX. This setup uses a pressure sensor connected directly to the intake manifold. It allows the removal the clunky air flow meter and allows you to run vent to atmosphere bypass valves. It also allows you to use a standard BP turbo ECU to run the other basic functions for the engine. A set of 550cc injectors are used with the system for when I decide to get something different for a turbocharger or I decide to go crazy with the power.

I was happy with the 323 until I ran across a set of Advan RC rally rims for sale in Japan. After several months waiting of them at arrive from Japan they showed up at my door. The bolt pattern was supposed to be 5×114.3 which was great. A set of Familia GTR 5 bolt hubs and brakes would do the trick for installation. It turns out the wheels I had received were 5×100 Subaru wheels. In the end this may have been for the better, Familia GTR 5 bolt knuckles and brakes are heavy. After weighing the units they are almost double the weight of the 4 bolt AWD knuckles. For a car that will see rally cross more often than high speed track events light weight rotating assemblies really make a difference. So what am I doing with a fancy set of seemingly useless Advan wheels now? I don’t let too many things get in my way that I want in regards to the 323. I have chased down a set of second hand hubs and I am going to drill them to 5×100 along with a set of rotors. I get to have my wheels and keep the lighter brakes.

This sums up my odyssey with my 323GTX. One thing that has remained constant through all of this is the BF chassis 323 shell. My car is now mid-way through the 200,000 mile mark. It has been in a few accidents, parked in a ditch by someone who didn’t know how to drive an AWD car, rally crossed, taken out on track days, drifted into curbs, and loved like a 323GTX should be.

-Derrick