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I got up to see yesterday's Watkins Glen Continental Tire race. Some of the NASA championship drivers I raced with were in the 2 1/2hr pro race. Lots of hot summer sun and great racing. Watched the Daytona Prototype and GT cars qualify for todays 6 hr race on the grandstands by the fast turn 10. The new DP cars look much better than the older cars. They were very impressive. I liked the 2 Action Express DP cars. I later took some pictures in the paddock area and asked the Action Express team if I could ask a few questions and take some pictures. The reply was absolutely no! I was once a guest of the Highcroft ALMS Prototype team and understand the reason for secrecy. It should be a great race being broadcast live today on speed channel.

Balrok

iTrader: (15)

I wanna go fast....

211Ratsbud

iTrader: (1)

Yup dvr'd that!

06evors

iTrader: (4)

Only got to see 10 minutes before I had other things to do. Saw an rx8 run out of gas. Oh those rotories and their lousy mileage.

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Nissan brought out their old GTP car on display. I saw this car race at Lime Rock back in 1990. The Toyota and Nissan GTP cars were the fastest GTP cars ever built. I believe they ran 1200hp at full boost! Hat's off to the Action Express DP team that won the six hour race!

mouseIX

I have a lot of issues with NASCAR...I mean Grand Am. First I agree the new DP cars look much better than the older ones which kind of remind me of retard helmets. Second the RX8 are super fast, but they have full carbon bodies, tube chassis', and 3 rotors! Sounds nothing like a production GT car. Either Mazda needs to build a proper road going 3 rotor RX8, or they need to allow the Porsches more modification. I'm a little biased since my friends (Goldcrest Mororsports) run the Burtin #44 Porsche and they did the step up work for cars last year. I loved Grand Am until NASCAR got involved(the year DP's were introduced).

However I would love to visit that track, must be scary as **** to drive with those walls!

grillpt

iTrader: (24)

Watched as much of the race as I could. It was really good especially with those late cautions to bunch up the field. Would have liked to of seen Turner win, or better yet one of the Ferrari's, wasn't meant to be though.





I just did a weekend there in May. The walls didn't bother me too much, climbing the esses the first couple of times is intimidating as hell though. Absolutely loved it, going back for another weekend in September with a whole bunch of Evo's. Can't wait!

Aby@MIL.SPEC

iTrader: (161)

Cool Pics

Yes they did! 3.0L 2 valve v6 @ that. The '88 cars were single turbo'd as well.

I used to build motors for both the GTP & GTO/GTS cars for electromtive/NPTI back in the day

18bora

iTrader: (8)

Both R8's had Wheel bearing and drive shaft issues.

mouseIX

I thought it was a clutch issue like Daytona?

blackenedwings

I totally agree, the RX-8s have almost nothing to do with the road going car. It's a shame because the chassis and suspension for the road car are really good, but the 2-rotor side port Renesis is a slug of a motor. A 3-rotor RX street car would be the only rotary I would ever consider buying at this point. I used to own two RX-8s, one of them a special edition boosted to 330 rwhp and they were nothing but problems.

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I wish I had snapped a picture of the Mazda I saw with its body off. I remember thinking "god look at that crazy framed structure".

MBellRacing

Besides CTSCC and lower classes of WC, what racing in the country uses production suspension, engines, gearboxes, or bodies? Yes, the RX8 (and our Camaros) are tube-frame. The Porsches are VERY fast. There should be no complaining there. Even in a draft at Daytona they can pull many car lengths on us before the next corner. The series is biasing things heavily toward GT3-style cars like the Audi and Ferrari which is crap. They are extremely fast and built for a series we don't have on this continent.

Before someone brings it up, the WC-GT cars and ALMS GT2 cars have about as much to do with their production cars as water does to gasoline. The suspensions are all modified (not just points, completely modifieid-- think: double-wishbone BMWs and Corvettes), the bodies are all carbon fiber, the gearboxes are often in the back, the engines are where the driver should be, etc, etc.

It's racing guys, if you want to fairly get an RX8 to race against a Camaro against a Ferrari 458 against an Audi R8 against a Porsche 911, think again. Not possible without HEAVY modifications. Then you'd have single-class single-make racing at which point you'd all be the ones complaining again about lack of diversity.

mouseIX

I fully agree. My point was more on the fact that in a GT series the RX8 has an engine that was never a production engine. I like the cars, but I would love to see a a road going 3 rotor to make the GT seem more believable. Basically what I'm trying to say is in the case of the Mazada and the Camaros, that instead of highly modifying them to be competitive I would rather see the manufacture make a better road car that wouldn't require the level of modification to be competitive. I miss the day of road legal GT1 cars!

call me a GT purists.

MBellRacing

I understand and partially agree. The incredible burden that the very controlling governments around the world place on auto manufacturers doesn't help. I think the time has past when you will see true GT1/GT2 cars on the road. GM now makes a Camaro with more power than our GS and GT cars but without the racing suspension and carbon bodies. The latter issue will be solved later this year.

In the words of s very high up person at a premier auto manufacturer, "Mazda is a ship floating on the ocean with no sail and no motor". They have no holding company right now and have very little money to make ANY RX8, let alone a GT model. As of the end of this season, SpeedSource and Mazda will be pulling out of Rolex GT to enter in something closer to Mazda's current business outlook by entering the new GX class with a Skyactiv diesel platform, likely very close to the road car's system.