RX8 | CorkSport Mazda Performance Blog

April 11, 2023April 11, 2023

Roxy Gets Wet & Wild – Lessons from Racing A Mazda RX-8

OnGrid Ridge Motorsports Park– March 11, 2023

Hello! If you’re reading this and wondering who I am, I don’t blame you. I’ve posted a few times on CorkSport’s 7th Gear page but never really introduced myself. My name is Quintin Gunn, one of the Development Engineers here at CorkSport, and I have a Mazda RX8 that I am building into the Time Attack weapon it was always meant to be. Follow along here and on social media as I record each track event and document the build process from stock to full-on race car.

Now, I’d like to introduce the real star of the show, Roxy:

Roxy – The Mazda RX-8 Car

Roxy is a 2005 GT Trim Mazda RX-8 that I bought in May of 2021. Why an RX8, you ask? I knew I wanted a robust RWD platform for building a racecar without it being a Miata (because I can barely fit in one). Naturally, working at CorkSport, Mazda was the obvious choice, which meant the best option in my price range was a Mazda RX-8. Having my first sports car purchase be a rotary was risky, but I have plans to address that in the future (more on that another time).

By far, the shining jewel of the Mazda RX-8 is how it drives. Mazda outdid themselves with the Chassis engineering on this car, and the handling is like nothing else for the price. Over the last couple of years, I have been slowly working up my (and Roxy’s) track confidence while modifying the car to extract as much out of the chassis as possible.

Current Mazda RX-8 Mods (March 2023)

Tires: Falken Azenis RT660 265/35 R18
Wheels: Bronze Enkei TS-V 18×9.5+38
Brakes: CorkSport Big Brake Kit (Front and Rear). Motul RB660 fluid
- Front
  - 6 piston Calipers. Hawk DTC60 pads
  - 356x32mm slotted rotors
  - Stainless steel brake lines
- Rear
  - 4 piston Calipers. Hawk DTC50 pads
  - 356x28mm slotted rotors
  - Stainless steel brake lines
  - Parking brake functionality retained
Sway Bars: Progress Tech (F/R)
Coilovers: BC Racing ER Double Adjustable. 10k spring front, 8k spring rear
Aero: Nine Lives Racing Big Wang RX-8 Kit with V3 CFD endplates
Exhaust: HKS Hi-power muffler with Racing Beat Dual-Res Midpipe
Interior: mostly stripped
Cockpit: Sparco EvoL driver’s seat

Round 1: Ridge Motorsports Park

@corksport Racing in the rain is just like that! #cartok #carsoftiktok #cars #carguy #carenthusiast #racing #rain #rx8 #lovehate #mazda #mazdausa #mazdarx8 #pnw ♬ original sound – CorkSport Mazda Performance

The first track event of 2023 took place at Ridge Motorsports Park, nestled in the southern shadows of the Olympic Mountain Range in Shelton, WA. This 2.47mi, 16-turn Race Track offers a unique challenge of car control and driving skill featuring crests, compressions, and blind corners – the perfect place then for a Time Attack showdown.

I was joined by Derrick Ambrose, CorkSport’s Motorsport Manager and Owner (…and Founder…and Mechanic…and Tuner…and Racecar driver…he wears all the hats). Anyway, he came armed with CorkSport’s TC America Mazda3 racecar, which served as one of the testbeds for our Skyactiv Turbo Kit. Freshly retired from professionally sanctioned race events, the car can now participate in Time Trials in OnGrid’s Touring Class, the same class I am building the RX8 to compete in. Derrick came looking to kick butt and take names with s2000s, BRZs, and Miatas locked firmly in his sights.

CorkSport-sponsored driver Phil Dandurand joined us in his stripped-out 4th Gen Mazda3 Turbo for his first track day! He was eager to get his feet wet (pun intended) and push the 4th gen platform to its limit. His car serves as one of the testbeds for all of our 4th Gen Turbo parts, including a full 80mm exhaust, downpipe, coilovers, and rear sway bar (among other things).

Sadly, I don’t yet qualify for the Time Attack group, so I was in the HPDE sessions for the day. Nevertheless, we were excited to get back out on-track for the first time since the end of September. Unfortunately, it wasn’t ideal conditions for laying down fast lap times…we all got our feet wet.

The Mazda 3 TC America Car on the Ridge Motorsports Raceway in rain

Rain. Lots of it

The thing about the Pacific Northwest that a naïve Southerner like me took a while to comprehend is the concept of seasons, specifically winter. See, where I’m from, there are no seasons – at least NOT like this. Winter was no more than a mild summer for most places. Winter meant highs of 68°F (20°C), sometimes low 70s, a cool breeze, and a light jacket. However, in Oregon, it means rain and highs of no more than 45°F (7°C). It means non-stop cold, rain, and clouds from November until May. The stereotypes about Northwest Rain are absolutely accurate. Today was no different, and this meant adjusting our expectations and driving styles to fit the conditions.

Session 1 started the morning with loads of standing water and rooster tails two or three times the car’s height. The track staff tried their best to sweep the rain off the track with a roller and big-fancy blowers, but it was useless. The rain kept coming. Derrick, being the madman he is, brought his Pirelli Racing Rain Tires, and even he struggled for grip.

Luckily I was starting the day in the 3rd session, meaning plenty of cars were on track before me, and a dry line was forming on the surface. While that does mean that it’s the grippiest part of the track, it also means it is the only grippy part of the track. So now, instead of a 40ft wide race track, it is only a car width. Deviate anywhere off this line, and you slow down or risk getting out of control. I learned this lesson quickly by driving up the hill at Turn 11 and hitting a patch of standing water, sending me off the dry line and mere millimeters away from the grass.

The BMW, a couple of cars in front of me, must’ve done the same thing, and it spooked him enough to slow to a crawl in the blind part of the crest, causing the car in front and myself to take evasive action. With the chaos and the track conditions, I chose to pull back into the pits and end my session early.

Knowing your limits and lessons learned

Normally, I wouldn’t mind racing in sub-optimal conditions. I think it’s a great opportunity to learn car control, situational awareness, and how to find and push to limits at a lower speed. Today, however, was different.

Contrary to what most people believe, racing is not giving 100% all of the time. Yes, “if in Contrary to what most people believe, racing is not giving 100% all the time. Yes, “if in doubt, throttle out,” but that’s easy to say when you have an unlimited racing budget with spare parts and even an extra car. Most of us don’t have that kind of support. So racing is methodical and all about finding the limit of your car, yourself, and dancing on that edge – trying to push it further. Sometimes though, edging closer to the limits isn’t worth the risk.

Over our lunch break, temperatures dropped, and the nonstop rain turned into ice. As we sat under the canopy trembling from the cold and watching the ice accumulate on the cars and our tents, we decided to cut our losses and head home. Nothing was to be gained by staying longer; there was everything to lose if we did. Our decision was confirmed by watching our paddock neighbor’s Porsche Boxster return from the track on the back of a flatbed with a crumpled fender and snapped lower control arm – the face of defeat and dejection worn by its owner said it all. Not wanting to meet the same fate, we promptly loaded up and headed home.

Annoyingly the entire 2-hour drive back home was bone dry, and the Portland/Vancouver metro area didn’t see a drop of rain all day…

As they all say: that’s racing folks.

Join us next time at Portland International Raceway as I try to set a new personal best and beat Derrick’s lap times in his Non-Turbo Mazda 3 SCCA T4 car. Follow CorkSport on social media and me @qg_autosports on Instagram for more updates.

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Mazda RX- Racing on the Ridge Motorsports Track

Thanks for reading,

RX-Vision GT3

I haven’t written any blogs in a while as there hasn’t honestly been anything from Mazda, which has made me stop and go WOW. Most people who have interactions with me would have thought I would be interested in the Mazda 3 TCR. The TCR car looks great, but when I learned Mazda went with the “Spec” engine for the series, it became a “meh” for me. Having an engine that is based on more or less a VW power plant pulling a Mazda around the track made it a lot less interesting. I do know why Mazda chose to go that path, but that is another story.

The next possibe rotary — Mazda Rotary GT3 Concept Car

What did make me go WOW recently was at the Grand Turismo Championships when Mazda announced the RX-Vision GT3 concept! Mazda loves a sexy race car, and if you look at the past two, they have both come out of the Mazda North American studios. This concept is no exception as Julien Montousse, the design chief for Mazda North America, was present during the announcement of the car.

This is a big deal in my mind, we have just seen a change at Mazda USA with Nelson Cosgrove now appointed as the new director of Mazda Motorsports. Mazda has done everything except come right out and say we are going to build another rotary, and that message looks to be getting stronger. We have seen more patents popping up, calling out more tech and drawings of rotary goodness, including my favorite the top-mounted turbo rotary engine from years back.

Like anything Mazda teases us with, we will have to wait and see what happens. On a personal level, I hope Mazda gets us a 2020 Mazda 3 AWD turbo MT, but that is another one of those “wait and see” dreams from Mazda.

-Derrick

February 17, 2015March 16, 2021

So You Want to Go Racing in a Family Sedan?

Not too often do you get a chance to cage up your family sedan and “run what you brung,” but that’s exactly what Mazda and Robert Davis Racing (RDR) did in the 2013 NASA 25 Hours of Thunderhill. Mazda took three brand new Mazda 6 Skyactiv diesel sedans out to the track and ran them. There were a few on-track incidents in the 2013 race but nothing too serious. Mazda was lining up to run the cars again in 2014, and several things fell into place that allowed CorkSport to provide some additional power improvements to the cars. We outfitted them with a downpipe and exhaust made from 80mm stainless steel, a high flow intake system, an upgraded intercooler and piping, and some ECU tuning. This gave the cars more power to stand a shot at the podium in E1 with better fuel economy than the other class cars and more power than the previous year.

Inside the group of three Mazda Sedans was a rivalry of the Mazdaspeed Guys (comprised of Mazdaspeed Motorsports employees) and the Dealers CEB (Crayon Eating Bastards), a group of Mazda dealership owners/employees. The dealers controlled cars #55 and #56, and the Factory Guys (Mazda Employees) had #70, all fighting it out for bragging rights. Before the race got going #70 hit a snag where a coolant line came loose and overheated a motor, which prompted a Thursday motor change.

By Friday the cars were all in good shape for qualifying. This went down trouble-free despite a giant rainstorm, as if it wasn’t hard enough trying to run a fast lap with 58 other cars out on the track in six classes— all of which had different speeds.

Thankfully, by Saturday morning the weather had cleared up, and the forecast predicted dry racing for the full 25 hours. This prompted us to get the three cars ready to run on slicks which were mounted up on the wheels and installed on the cars.

Right at 11 am the flag dropped and started the longest race in North America. This was, needless to say, an adventure for the whole team. Several hours into the race, the driver of #70 reported that the car would not shift into all of the gears. It turns out the extra power was a little harder on the drive train in the higher gears, which removed the 5th gear from being functional. The driver decided to stay out and run the race in 6th gear until the fuel stop came up. That turned out to be hours later courtesy of the excellent fuel economy of the Skyactiv engine. The pit area was prepped for a transmission swap with a spare gearbox the team had brought with them. Unfortunately, this took the car out of any chance of being on the podium, but with endurance racing you never know what will happen! So the transmission change went ahead as planned.

At the first extended yellow flag session #55 and #56 reported a power loss in the cars. This resulted in a massive jam session to diagnose and fix what was going on with the cars. Since these specific cars live their lives on the track they did not get a chance to be tested with the new modifications at low speeds (AKA street driving speeds) which brought up an exciting challenge with the fire control systems in the cars. It took ~about 2 hours to sort out the problem, and we had the #55 and #56 back at full speed heading into the night.

The #70 was getting its final work completed with the transmission change and ready to head out onto the track again well behind the Mazda dealers in the #55 and #56 cars. Late into the night, after a driver change, we got a call in on the radio #55 had an on-track incident with another car in the E2 class, and sadly both cars had to retire from the race. This E2 class car happened to be leading the class which RDR was also fielding “Kermit,” the green RX8, in. Though the incident was unfortunate, as a result Kermit moved to the leader position of the E2 class.

Several hours later we got a call in from #56 of an off-track situation which required the car to retire from the race too. This put the #70 Mazda 6 in position to finish ahead of the #55 and #56 for total laps if its drivers could finish the race trouble-free. As the sun came up, the #70 car was running without a hitch, as was Kermit.

From sunrise until noon, the race for the two remaining cars was uneventful. At the noon finale of the race Kermit secured the win in E2 for the first time! Like in any race, there were things you learn and adjustments for the next time on the track. I want to give a huge thanks to RDR, Mazda, Mazdaspeed, the volunteer crew peeps , and Weldon for the guidance on my first time being a crew chief for an endurance race. Lastly, a big thanks to Ruandy from Pacific Northwest Life for the great camera shots—and to my family for letting me miss an entire weekend at another race.

-Derrick

Interested in any of the diesel performance parts we developed? Shoot an email to sales@corksport.com for more information.

December 24, 2014September 13, 2018

Twas the Night Before Christmas, the Corksport Version

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that some new parts soon would be there.

The Car guy was comfy and snug in his bed,
While visions of racetracks looped in his head.
The Mazda in park, the keys tucked away,
Just one more night of sleep,
then we’ll all race away.

When out of the blue, a thought came to mind,
why on earth is he waiting?

Let’s go for a drive!
He grabbed up the keys, woke the girl with a shout
Hey baby, it’s Christmas and we’re headed out!
The family forgotten and plans set aside
We’re headed to the track, let’s go for a drive.

It was simple and planned, so quickly it seemed,
in her sleepy state
it seemed just a dream.
Okay mister, whatever you say.
She slipped on her slippers and they were on their way.

Car guy beamed from head to toe,
he knew their destination
just one place to go.
The track wasn’t far, and the traffic was light, This will be the best Present
Such a simple delight!

No family, no mess, no ties and no dress,
Just you and me girl, this 1 time request.

They got to the track in no time at all,
Sparkling white on the ground just a light snow fall
When over to his right something caught his eye
“We’re not alone” thought the Car guy
Of course to his wondering eyes there appeared
An old style sleigh being pulled by reindeer?
He tossed it in gear to confirm his delight
He shook his head, disbelief at the sight

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
He knew in a moment it must be St Nick.
More rapid than mustangs as drivers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

“Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! on, on Donner and Blitzen!

Don’t over do it boys! Steer clear of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”

They were so quick, so fast, as if they could fly,
Car guy thought to himself, perhaps we should try.
Revving the engine he pulled right on through
To the sleigh full of Toys, and St Nicholas too.

The smile and twinkle in that old mans eye
Made car guy grin and look to the sky.
No flying, not crashing, we’ll take on the course
The old man smiled, do you know of this force?

A simple nod of his head is all it took
He looked over the sleigh and each tiny hoof.
Carguy turned and looked over his opponent,
Just giving in to this memorable moment.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of toys he had sorted in the back,
he looked like a veteran, he could drive ’round this track.

His eyes how they twinkled! His dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.

You know what to do Car guy said to his girl,
She hopped right out and gave her scarf a twirl.
On three boys, please be safe and be clean
She raised it in the air, how fitting it’s green.

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Old Saint Nick might be something to dread.
His whip in hand, he gave it a crack,
And off they went, leaving behind the toy sack.

The wind blowing through that snowy white beard,
Carguy could hear the sound of the cold in his ears.
Jingling as they went, the sleigh in tow,
The reindeer were fast, damn car is feeling slow.
Curses thought Carguy as he slammed on the gas,
I want to beat him, we need to be fast.

He awoke with a start, to the sound of her voice,

Knock it off Carguy or I’ll give you a choice.
To the couch with you if you can’t control,
Your twitching and turning and stupid body roll.
He laughed to himself, of course just a dream,
But what’s in his hand, a scarf of green?

He went to the window and looked into the night
He heard the jingle and saw a plain sight
There he was right there in the drive,
St Nick and his sleigh, of course he’s alive.

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a yell,
Get on it boys, we won, all is well.
Carguy shook his head and laughed at it all,
He would swear that he saw,

St Nick and his reindeer give him the “paw”
Carguy learned something that‘s true,
Don’t race Santa and his eight reindeer crew.
He looked into the sky, to see them in flight
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight!”

December 1, 2014

Love for the Rotary

With all of the talk of doom and gloom for the next rotary I wanted to share the experience I had with the help of Mazda during Sevenstock 17 on Nov 22^nd. I hate to say it but while I was at Sevenstock helping out with the Diesel Mazda 6 I experienced the awesome side benefit of being next to three 4 rotor cars in the same garage.

The recent message given from Mazda about the rotary engine being important but not in the cards for a current car has been a heart breaker for the rotor heads out there, myself included as I daily drive an 87 Turbo FC. I can definitely say that from the top down the rotary engine is important to Mazda despite it not being considered for a new car right now. Take a look at this 787 which Robert Davis (senior vice president U.S. operations aka he runs the show in US) personally drives.

There is a genuine love for the rotary with him, I watched him wipe down the car after going out onto the track for one session. In conversations, the restoration of other rotary race cars was brought up many times and when Robert isn’t driving the 787 above he rolls in an Rx8 in NASA PT racing, when time affords it.

See the first car in the line below? It is one of the Rx-792P IMSA GTP prototypes.

I watched Weldon Munsey (Manager of Dealer Affairs) hop out after just one session with a big smile on his face. You could tell he just loves driving that car.

This next car is one of my favorite Rotary race cars (as I had the opportunity to see it raced at Portland Intl Raceway in the early 90s). The 4 rotor GTO kept the basic shape of the FC rx7 (which included the stock roof panel, windshield, and tail lights) and the rest of the car was pure business with a 4 rotor engine.

Not a big surprise another Mazda executive drives it, Jeremy Barnes (Director of public relations). I am sure the re-occurring theme is not lost here, these guys love rotaries and if the opportunity presents they will be pulling to get another car released for all us rotards out there. In the meantime enjoy the video below from Sevenstock 17 with a few drive byes of the 787 and the 792p wide open on the throttle at Autoclub Speedway.

Zoom zoom.

– Derrick Ambrose from CorkSport

Derrick started working with cars when he was in high school. A friend had a GLC which they tweaked a bit which then became a 323 then into RX-7s and it was all Mazda down hill from there. His current projects are a 1968 Mustang, The 1988 323 GTX (never ending project), 1986 Honda Shadow Motorcycle and a 1968 Silverline Rambler 16′boat. For motorsports activities he has previously participated in drag racing the CorkSport Protege Drag car and Rally Cross with the 323 GTX. Currently he is driving the CorkSport Mazda 2 B-Spec race car.

If you attend any events CorkSport is at Derrick will be the guy you will talk to at most of them, so stop by and say hello!

OnGrid Ridge Motorsports Park– March 11, 2023

Roxy – The Mazda RX-8 Car

Current Mazda RX-8 Mods (March 2023)

Stay up-to-date on the latest news and product updates from CorkSport.

Twas the Night Before Christmas, the Corksport Version