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Mazda Racing Around the World

I enjoy reading up on how Mazdas are being raced around the planet and seeing how teams use their tools (in this case Mazdas) to race it out with the other manufacturers. There are plenty or examples out there but I want to show just a few from overseas.

Starting off in Australia, the Bathurst 12 hour race is set to take place on Feb 12-14th. In Class C performance hatches and sedans there will be a pair of Mazda MPS 3 (Mazdaspeed 3 to us in North America) being raced by Osborne Motorsport. Hopefully there will be no off course adventures like in the past where Len Cave rolled his car 9 times. The good part is Len walked away from the wreck, the bad part the car was a write off.

New Zealand’s GTRNZ race series had a win by Brian Gray in the GT2 class recently He is running a “made it myself” RX-7 which features a 26B 4 rotor, 6 speed Holinger gearbox and a winter quick change rear diff. If you have never heard a 4 rotor, it is an incredible sound; it really reminds me of a Formula 1 engine at higher RPM. Picture credit goes to Dave Ayers below.

On the Japanese front, Knightsports placed 2nd in a battle during the Macao Grand Prix in the Road Sport Challenge. It was a great race and it came down to Tanigawa in his RX-8 and Sun Tan in a Mitsubishi Evolution at the end. You can see the video from the race here. The end of the race came down to less than a half a second between the two drivers. If Tanigawa had another lap I think he could have passed Sun for the win.

So what are you waiting for? Get your Mazda out there and join in the fun! Even a local autocross event or a high performance driving school or event can provide you with a chance to see what your Mazda can really do.

– Derrick

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I-Stop

Mazda has developed a system for the DISI direct injected engine which allows the engine to turn off when you come to a stop. When you push the throttle again the vehicle starts back up smoothly and you continue on your way. Why is this important you ask? The biggest reason is the fuel savings. In city driving it seems (and feels to me) like you spend more time at stop lights than actually moving. While sitting at the stop light your car is running and burning fuel. Mazda decided to do something, and make the car not run while stopped to save fuel. Mazda says the i-stop system can improve fuel economy by as much as 10%.

The picture below is from Mazda’s webpage and it shows the i-stop system and how it functions.

When you come to a stop the car turns off at a precise point, this allows the i-stop to turn back on smoothly. Because the motor is direct injected the system is able to restart in .35 seconds when you touch the throttle to move again. Mazda says this is half the time that conventional electric motor systems take. In reality, .35 seconds would be pretty tough to notice when you hit the throttle in your car.

You can gain up to 10% better fuel economy with a system that is invisible to the driver, what’s not to like? The 10% fuel savings is made during the Japanese government drive tests to rate fuel economy. The Japanese testing is different from how the US EPA does fuel testing, which results in a .25 mile per gallon increase with the i-stop system in place. Mazda has been discussing this with the EPA, and trying to get the testing changed but so far nothing has come out of it. With the gains not showing up with EPA testing Mazda is not sure if they will be offering the i-stop system in the North America. The extra cost and not being able to market the improvement is the biggest factor, because the US EPA testing does not allow for accurate estimations of gains. Cross your fingers the EPA will be willing to adjust their methods or we will get left out from one of Mazda’s good ideas.

I am hoping the system is available when the Mazda 2 arrives this summer. You could get a decent 40+ MPG car that you wound not be ashamed to drive every day.

– Derrick

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Attack of the Smile!

Mazda is continuing to keep the smiles coming for the entire product line. The 2011 Mazda 5 will be shown at the upcoming Geneva Motor Show in March. The new model really gets the Nagare styling (Nagare means flow in Japanese) even more so than the upcoming Mazda 2 and current Mazda 3.

So why am I writing about the Mazda 5? The new models that come out point to styling changes and show the direction Mazda is headed for future models. There is a chance for a new RX-7 in the future, and this gives us some idea of what kind of styling we can expect from Mazda. Overall I like the look of the new 5. The flowing lines on the side break it up a bit and it looks less like a box compared to the current model.

The most interesting item I see when I look at the new model is that I almost see a knife/sword image in the flowing style of the van. In the above pictures it really stands out. It makes me wonder what Mazda is saying.

– Derrick

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What is Mazda Up to?

I looked up the vehicle market share to see how Mazda did in the US over the last year. I was surprised to find that Mazda only accounts for 2% of the market. I have known Mazda is a smaller player in the market but I didn’t realize it was that small. If you look at what Mazda brings to the table you realize they do very well with what they sell. Looking at the product lines, Mazda has a vehicle in most of the segments like compact, mid size, sports car, etc. which is an accomplishment for a smaller manufacturer.

Mazda has great enthusiast support for their vehicles as well. Mazda advertises that more of their models are out racing on any weekend than any other manufacturer, and Mazda is only a 2% percent market share. They also brought us the Miata, the best selling sports car of all time, with over 890,000 sold to date! It does make you wonder what those other manufacturers are doing with their time. This also means we at CorkSport, like you, chose Mazda over some other brand based on the cars being fun to drive.

A strong component of the fun to drive crowd is the demographic of a Mazda owner. The mean age of Mazda owners is 42 years old. Only Scion has a younger average owner age, and they are a brand marketed directly to younger buyers.

There has been some news circulating about Mazda not being able to build new platforms since Ford and Mazda are not longer going to share resources. I don’t think this will be a problem for Mazda. There has been some shared chassis between Mazda and Ford in the past but Mazda has often developed their own platforms to build cars on. They have the engineering capabilities to do so in the future as well.

Mazda has just recently raised a huge amount of capital to fund its engine research for their new SKY engine series, and other projects which are not going to be shared with Ford. Mazda announced they want to increase the fuel economy by 30% in the upcoming years. Expect to see more direct injected motors in the future from Mazda to meet that goal. I am really hoping we get the direct injected diesel engines in the upcoming Mazda 2. The engine gets incredible fuel economy and meets ULEV (Ultra Low) emissions requirements for Europe.


Mazda SKY Engine

Mazda is not the biggest manufacturer of cars and probably never will be, but we can count on them to keep producing great vehicles for us to drive. With the visible plans Mazda has set out I expect to see some great products in the future.

– Derrick

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CorkSport Events 2010

CorkSport attends Mazda events throughout each year which include some of the larger get togethers like the OCC Mazda Meet last May or Sevenstock in September. There are also smaller events like our local club Mazdas Northwest which has a monthly meeting. This is a chance for CorkSport to come out and meet our fellow like-minded Mazda enthusiasts. This is also a chance for us to show you, our customers some of our cars like the CorkSport project 2010 Mazdaspeed 3 and the RX-8.

With a new year coming up we are working on planning our schedule and are offering you all the chance to influence where we show up. So far we are planning on definitely attending Sevenstock XIII, the SEMA show in Las Vegas, various Mazdas Northwest events, Mazfest in SoCal, and RPNW monthly meets.

If you have a Mazda event you are working on planning in 2010 let me know about it. It can be local to us in Portland, OR or on the other side of the planet in Geneva, Switzerland. If you have an event or know of one that has Mazdas present let me know as I am open for suggestions. This does not mean that we will be able to make every event, but if we know about your event there is a much better chance of us supporting the event. Feel free to send me an email or a call me on the phone at 360-260-2675 with your suggestions and events!

– Derrick