MAZDASPEED weekend report 2010-08-08

- Weekend victories in GRAND-AM GT, ALMS and World Challenge -

August 8, 2010 (IRVINE, Calif.). Mazda is involved in so many major and grassroots road racing series in the country that it is not uncommon to have the Zoom-Zoom teams scattered far and wide on any given weekend. When multiple victories are scored on the same weekend it's a big deal; it is especially sweet when those wins are from customer teams.

GRAND-AM Rolex GT @ Watkins Glen International

A late-race yellow allowed the Dempsey Racing/Team Seattle Mazda RX-8 of Leh Keen to make a clean pass on Jonathon Bomarito's Castrol Syntec RX-8 for the GT lead following the final restart. This was the first Rolex Series victory for Dempsey Racing. In total, Mazda RX-8s took first, second, fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and tenth places in the race.

After ten of 12 races, Mazda racers are looking for a potential clean sweep of the 2010 GRAND-AM GT championships - driver, team, and manufacturers. The top four GT drivers are all Mazda RX-8 racers. SpeedSource FXDD RX-8 Teammates Jeff Segal and Emil Assentato are tied for first, having scored two wins and nine top-four finishes in the first ten races. They hold a slim four-point advantage over Sylvain Tremblay, and 23 points over Jonathan Bomarito. Mazda teams are currently ranked first, second, and third while Mazda leads the manufacturers' championship over Chevrolet, Porsche, BMW, and Ferrari.

The GRAND-AM season will conclude at Miller Motorsports Park on September 11th.

American Le Mans Presented by Tequila Patron @ Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course

For the Dyson-Mazda team, the first five races of the season were a story of woulda-coulda-shoulda, with misfortune taking away several potential wins. Everything fell into place at Mid-Ohio on Saturday, when the Castrol Mazda MZR-R-powered Lola took the checkered flag for drivers Chris Dyson and Guy Smith. The margin of victory was .506 of a second, with both first and second place setting their fastest race laps within the last 15 laps of the 119 lap race.

This was the first overall win for the Mazda MZR-R engine in ALMS competition (The 2009 wins were in the LMP2 class), and the first ever overall win with BP BioFuels Iso-butanol fuel.

The Dyson team has three more races to close the gap for the driver, team, and manufacturers championships. Both team and manufacturer are currently ranked third in points. The ALMS season finale will be on October 2nd at Road Atlanta when the teams race in the Petit Le Mans Powered by the MAZDA2.

World Challenge Touring Cars @ Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course

The World Challenge series held a double-header at Mid-Ohio, and new to the grid this weekend were Ryan Eversley driving a Mazda RX-8 and Jason Saini in a MAZDASPEED3. The pair finished 1-2 in both races. These were the first-ever World Challenge races for Eversley. Saini is a former rookie of the year in World Challenge touring cars.

The Mazda RX-8 of series regular Eric Meyer finished third on Saturday, his fourth podium finish of the year, to maintain his second position in the drivers' points chase. The pair of wins moved Mazda into second place in the manufacturers' championship with three races remaining.

The World Challenge season concludes at Miller Motorsports Park on October 3rd.

-source: mazda