Today we’ve got a guest blog from good friend of CorkSport and owner of a gorgeous (CorkSport sponsored) MazdaSpeed 3, CJ!
Before the show season started, I was doubtful that there would be shows left that would keep the import car show scene in the Northwest alive. Two major show events canceled out due to economic reasons and show websites were not being updated. Fortunately for people like me, the scene did not die and the Northwest managed to put together a list of fun car events.
Import Face Off was the first show of the season and featured both a car show and drag racing. I learned a few things that day like what car owners do before the show begins (clean, shine and clean their cars some more). What they do during the show to pass the time better (bring chairs, camera, snacks, water,
canopy, and sunblock <– very important).
The next show was the Fatlace One of One Showcase at Formula D in Monroe, WA at Evergreen Speedway. This was the first big event of the year with tons of booth vendors giving away a lot of free swag, an open to the public pit area, and tons of drift action from both amateurs and pros.
On July 18, NOS Forum Fest was held at PGP Motorsports Park in Kent, WA. This was a popular event that gathered a large number of enthusiasts through the power of the internet and forums. It featured both drag racing and drifting so there was plenty of stuff to keep you entertained. With the help of Derrick and
Chris from CorkSport making the trek north and bringing 2 cars, MazdasNW managed to win the Best Forum Representation award. My 2008 Mazdaspeed 3 managed to win Best Mazda, which was my first award ever.
The farthest event I went to this year is the Excelerator Car Meet at Silverwood Theme Park in Athol, Idaho. Registered attendees were treated with admission for 2 into both the theme park and water park, which made for one of the funnest events I’ve attended.
On August 29, I decided to go north of the border into Richmond, B.C. Canada to check out the import scene there at Revscene.net’s Sausage Fest Summer Car Meet. This was the biggest event I went to this year – it had the most Hondas, the most Evos, the most Mazda 3s, and the most BMWs out of any other show or meet.
Battle of the Imports in Woodburn, Oregon was originally scheduled for September 19th but was postponed to October 2nd due to unpredictable weather conditions in the Northwest , which had clear sunny skies in the afternoon. Just like Import Face Off, this event featured a show and drag racing. 2 CorkSport Sponsored vehicles won awards that day. Best of Class Mazda for the skull themed RX8 and 2nd place Best Mazda for my MS3.
– CJ
Traveling the Northwest, For Show September 13th, 2018CorkSport
I have been one of the Product Development Engineers here at CorkSport for roughly nine months. During that time, I have helped complete projects that were already in the works before I was here, completed projects on my own, and have started projects that are still in the development process. One project that I have been working on (other than physical part development) since I started here has been getting some of our parts California Air Resource Board (CARB) approved. After nine long months, I can now check that off my to-do list (at least for a few of our parts).
Our 2010-up Mazdaspeed 3 Short Ram Intake (SRI), 2007-2009 Mazdaspeed 3 SRI, 2006-2007 Mazdaspeed 6 SRI, and our 2007-up CX-7 SRI will now be CARB certified. This is the full intake kit that consists of the filter, MAF housing, silicone couplers, and turbo inlet pipe (TIP) as shown in the picture below. In the next few weeks we will be receiving a legal Executive Order (EO) number assigned to these intake packages. That EO number will be affixed to the intake system which will designate it as CARB approved (50-state legal).
If you already have our intake system for one of these vehicles, DO NOT WORRY! No, we can’t legally send you a sticker to put on your intake, but when you go in to the smog check station, they will look up our intake and verify that you have the same intake system on your vehicle.
The process of getting a performance part CARB certified is lengthy and time consuming, but we feel that making parts that are legal in all 50 states is very important.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions!
I had three 3 days to take in SEMA this year. I estimate that I probably I walked around 40 miles (it felt that way by Thursday afternoon at least). The aisles were busier this year with people and exhibitors when compared to 2009. The most common vehicles shown at SEMA were Camaros and Mustangs, new and old, tons of them everywhere.
The vehicle which I think had the strongest showing besides the usual muscle cars was the Ford Fiesta. I saw at least 15 or these cars which had been modified in one way or another with various themes. I expect to see more and more of these on the road over the next few years. Most of the themes shown on the Fiesta were more lifestyle oriented over sheer performance. Ford did have some trick rally ready parts available for the Fiesta if you wanted to go off road your car.
One car I expected to see more of was the Chevy Volt. I saw only one, and that was in the Chevy booth. For a car which GM has been touting for 3 years you would expect a few pre-production cars to be seen around the show. My thought is they are pulling another GM move and it will be several more years until they finally get the car into production. The car looks great in person even though I would never own one.
Weird item of the show was the Green Hornet car for the upcoming movie. The car was in the Royal Purple booth. It made for an odd combo of missiles, machine guns and lubricants.
I was disappointed this year though with the showing of Mazdas, I was expecting more. There was not one Mazdaspeed 3 or any other Mazdaspeed Mazda at the show. There were two nice Mazda 3s in the Mazdaspeed booth, one time attack car which started life as a world challenge car and a great concept vehicle turbocharged Mazda 3 sedan which was also shown at last years SEMA show.
Also shown in the Mazdaspeed booth was a Rolex 24 hour winning RX8 with a devious body scheme. The left side and the rear was the FXDD car and the other side of the car was in the Castrol Dark Grey.
There were four Mazda 2s at the show. Two were in the Mazda booth, one in the H&R suspension booth and the 4th in the booth across from the Mazdaspeed booth. All of the Mazda 2s at the show were equipped with European bumpers and two had the European market lighting. The lip kits on several of the cars are designed for the euro bumpers so they do not work with North American market vehicles but they do look good. I spoke with the company who produced the kits and they are working on them for North American cars. The roll cage and race car prep on the grey Mazda 2 was done by AWR racing out of California and it looked good. It makes me want to tear out the interior of my car and go racing.
If I was to compare the show overall to last year it was better. There were plenty of new ideas, great looking cars, and people to meet with all week. Maybe next year we can see more Mazdas at the show.
Being a product development engineer at CorkSport has many perks, but the latest one was a chance to go to SEMA (Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association) in Las Vegas. The weeklong event is the culmination of a year long process that thousands of companies have put into various vehicles and aftermarket parts. There was everything from smaller companies showcasing a new line of off-road vehicles, to Ford’s new police vehicle (long overdue).
The part that the majority of the public does not know is the education side of things. Being a member of SEMA allows us to go to seminars that are specifically geared towards helping smaller businesses (like CorkSport) evolve. These seminars are put on by successful people in the industry (usually a panel of experts in the related field). They had everything from how to make a viral video, to industry trends and what car manufacturers and planning for the future. This helps us get a head start on continuing to make quality products at an affordable price.
The other side of things that you may not realize about SEMA is the networking side of things. I know this is true for me, and most likely for a lot of you as well: the majority of the people I communitate with for various parts, hardware, equipment, etc, I never actually meet in person, rather only via email or phone. SEMA is a great chance to put a face to a name and get to know the person I am doing business with a little better.
I was also able to squeeze in a little non-work related fun such as getting to sit in the actual car Ken Block used in the Gymkhana 3 video and watch some trophy trucks race around the parking lot.
I will end with a couple very helpful hints for any future SEMA goers. Wear comfortable shoes! This is a must. I’m guessing I walked a minimum of a marathon in two and a half days. My second tip is to bring a backpack. You will get lots of little lanyards and posters and a backpack is much easier to walk with a place to store them. Finally, bring lots of water. The heat and walking around will dehydrate you and paying $3 for little 12oz bottles can get expensive.
We have put some miles on the Mazda 2 over the last month and a half. We are approaching the 2000 mile mark. At this point the engine is well broken in and up to the challenge of some performance driving.
I had a chance to Autocross the Mazda 2 on Sept 18th at a local SCCA event held at Portland International Raceway. I signed up the car for time only runs to see how it would do. If the Mazda 2 was to be in a specific class it would be ST class according to the SCCA rules with the current modifications. This would pit me up against Mazda 3s, Honda Civics, Mini Coopers (non S models), etc.
The course that was laid out was tight and technical with not many sections to build up speed. The weather decided to liberally apply water to the course making setting record speeds pretty tough. After taking my turn working on the course and watching other cars maneuver through it was my turn to give a go. I do have experience driving around cones racing rally cross so I am not a total novice. This also means I had expectations of what the 2 would do on the auto cross course.
For the first run I left the DSC (dynamic stability control) turned on. I wanted to see how much affect it would have at a maximum drive. The first few corners went well and I could not feel the DSC engage at any point. When I hit the first short slalom I felt the car try to rein in my driving. A quick back and forth transition around the 3rd cone combined with me applying the brakes to get the car to unload the rear tires to make a quick right hand turn got the DSC light to kick on. I could tell the car closed the throttle and killed some of the power because it took a second to get my momentum back up for a “Chicago Box”.
Overhead view of cones as a “Chicago Box”
With the Mazda 2 the Chicago box was a breeze, just drive in and out with just steady speed and quick steering inputs. After the Chicago box there were a few more corners and into another slalom which once again the DSC came back half way through it. What is happening is the cone side front tire is unloading enough for the wheel to slip and it triggers the DSC. After the end of the slalom there was a tight left hand corner which transitioned to a longer sweeping corner. This corner trigger the DSC as the car wanted to under steer to the outside. I was off and on the throttle trying to get the car to rotate and get back in tighter to the apex of the corner. With the DSC turned on the throttle inputs did not help. The final section of the course was a short straight which did a 180 turn to the left and the end of the course with the timing lights. To make the corner with the Mazda 2 I opted for the e-brake approach. It worked ok but I was caught in 2nd gear so I didn’t have enough power to quickly get across the finish line after the turn. I netted a 52.68 for a time on the run which was ok for the really wet course.
The second run I ramped it up a bit. I took the DSC off and pushed the car as hard as I could. I discovered several things on the second run.
#1: The car will really under steer if pushed hard in the wet. I tried off and on throttle, left foot braking, Finnish flicks, you name it to get the 2 to rotate with no really sure fire method that worked.
#2: You can get rubber on the 1st to 2nd gear change with the DSC off. There were two spots where I had to get into second gear due to bouncing off the rev limiter and both of them occurred just before the slalom sections.
#3: With the DSC off, you can get the ABS to engage quite often. I had the ABS turn on several times with hard braking and turning which would unload a rear tire. With the brakes applied and weight transfer it was enough to cause the rear tire to lock up and trigger the ABS.
#4: Using the E-brake on the last corner only works so-so. When you get the back of the 2 swung around and get back on the throttle the car will under steer pushing you really wide. This resulted in some extra time getting the car lined up with the timing lights at the end of the run.
#5: You can use the E-brake to get the car to really slide sideways. Unfortunately the under steer takes affect after a few seconds and ruins the fun but not before you can get some great pictures.
The second run netted me a 51.86 second time but I hit some cones in the process. The third run I picked up a passenger to take along. I could tell the extra ballast was in the car. The run was slower despite not hitting any cones. If you are going to race a Mazda 2 in Autocross make sure you leave the passengers out until the scoring runs are done. My 3rd run was 53.03 seconds.
I got a chance to try out several different techniques for the three extra runs which had mixed results. The big handling obstacle to overcome is the under steer in the Mazda 2. We have a solution in the works so check back for updates.
So how did I do compared to the other cars which I would be classed against in ST? There was a Mazda 3 hatch which was running at the same time which posted times of 53.96, 54.43, and 53.59 seconds. A Mazdaspeed 3 running at the same time posted times of 55.07, 53.18, and 52.94 seconds. The Mazdaspeed 3 would be in a different class due to the power modifications but you can see the 2 would be competitive against it. If you compare the times against the more powerful cars you can see the Mazda 2 would do well. I want to try out the Mazda 2 on high speed auto cross courses to see if I would have the same success against the same cars.
Overall I really enjoyed running the Mazda 2 in the auto cross. It handled better than I expected with my driving style and proved to be very predictable.
I would like to give a thank you to Ceejay for the pictures I used in the blog. He stood out in the rain shooting pictures while I and the other MazdasNW people drove around the cones during the afternoon.
