If you've never seen (read: heard) them live get your *** out to Lime Rock for the finale! The cars are bound to turn up somewhere but who knows where and in what numbers...

A Farewell To Mazda’s Road Racing Rotaries

 

I have a friend on the inside at Speedsource. I found out about the diesel plans after they came back from NJ in May. Someone from Mazda dropped off a couple heads to be transported back to Fl. My friend looked at them with a WTF running through his head when he realized they were diesel heads. A big expansion at Speedsource, put 2 and 2 together...

 

...Still sucks that rotary powered racers are virtually non-existant now. How could they be so dominating, and still get dumped? Reliability is fine (if non turbo), the only caveat will be fuel economy...which is unfortunately becoming a big player in racing (who woulda thought?). To think, it wasnt more than a few years back that Mazda was selling un-sponsored full carbon/roll caged, turn key 3-rotor Rx-8 race cars, for a quarter mil, to anyone who wanted to race in certain race series

 

Man, this makes me so sad. I heard about it quite some time ago speaking to some team mechanics at a Rolex race at NJMP......

 

That just means we , as a community, must try and keep the rotary racing heritage alive. The racing rotary will not die, will not roll over to piston powered competitors, will not go down with out a fight! Just because there are no factory sponsored rotaries any longer, doesnt mean that they cant be privately sponsored

 

You got to understand. Mazda doesn't sell anything with a rotary. So it needs to market what it is selling. Has nothing to do with, if it's working or the coolness factor.
But Mazda does have a heathy support program for all their cars. So there will always be someone out there running one.

 

A sad day...
I hope they really come through with the comment about it not being the end of the book for the rotary, just the chapter.
The turbo diesel is cool, but it can't replace the rotary as far as sheer awesomeness.

 

a sad sad day