Mazda6's fail at Daytona

Cash Davidson · **Posted:** Sun Jan 27, 2013 10:20 am

A dismal performance by Mazda with their three diesel SkyActive Mazda6's.

#00 - second car out of the race, completing only 33 laps
#25 - out after 45 laps
#70 - apparently the best of the group, out after only 51 laps

Very disappointing.

JohnByers · **Posted:** Sun Jan 27, 2013 10:50 am

Cash Davidson wrote:

A dismal performance by Mazda with their three diesel SkyActive Mazda6's.

#00 - second car out of the race, completing only 33 laps
#25 - out after 45 laps
#70 - apparently the best of the group, out after only 51 laps

Very disappointing.

Disappointing indeed. Mazda wouldn't release the 6 to them till the last minute because of the release to the general public, so the teams didn't get any testing with the engine in the car until Jan. the SkyINACTIVE diesel had over 400 dyno hours but virtually none in the chassis.

The #75 & #25 cars suffered a dropped cylinder, the #00 car suffered a rear main seal failure. Neither problem had been experienced on the dyno

Arthur McDonald · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 1:54 am **Posts:** 2052

Bummer for Tom Long. He was the starting driver for the #70 car.

clinehall · **Posted:** Sun Jan 27, 2013 8:09 pm

I guess it would be a good showing if they had finished but the were backmarkers while they were in. Didn't really impress me much on Sundays they no longer had it front and center at the Mazda display at the track

Cash Davidson · **Posted:** Mon Jan 28, 2013 8:47 am

Arthur McDonald wrote:

Bummer for Tom Long. He was the starting driver for the #70 car.

Actually, the 25 car. But yeah, quite a bummer.

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Mon Jan 28, 2013 11:21 am

JohnByers wrote:

Cash Davidson wrote:

A dismal performance by Mazda with their three diesel SkyActive Mazda6's.

#00 - second car out of the race, completing only 33 laps
#25 - out after 45 laps
#70 - apparently the best of the group, out after only 51 laps

Very disappointing.

Disappointing indeed. Mazda wouldn't release the 6 to them till the last minute because of the release to the general public, so the teams didn't get any testing with the engine in the car until Jan. the SkyINACTIVE diesel had over 400 dyno hours but virtually none in the chassis.

The #75 & #25 cars suffered a dropped cylinder, the #00 car suffered a rear main seal failure. Neither problem had been experienced on the dyno

I didn't watch the race this weekend, and don't know the background, but when reading the first post I thought "lack of testing". As you say, you have to test the entire package to find the small things that don't quite work right.

Richard

Donnie Barnes · **Posted:** Mon Jan 28, 2013 7:14 pm

Shame on Mazda. They tried a hail mary that didn't work, period. That was just really, really dumb.

--Donnie

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Mon Jan 28, 2013 8:38 pm

Donnie Barnes wrote:

Shame on Mazda. They tried a hail mary that didn't work, period. That was just really, really dumb.

--Donnie

Sponsor or other contractual commitments? Appearance money? "Why not" approach?

Since it is all about advertising, no real loss regarding PR to the general public who won't hear about the failure since the only way they hear "anything" about sports car racing is in advertisements which won't be run?

Donnie Barnes · **Posted:** Mon Jan 28, 2013 9:31 pm

DickRasmussen wrote:

Donnie Barnes wrote:

Shame on Mazda. They tried a hail mary that didn't work, period. That was just really, really dumb.

Sponsor or other contractual commitments? Appearance money? "Why not" approach?

Since it is all about advertising, no real loss regarding PR to the general public who won't hear about the failure since the only way they hear "anything" about sports car racing is in advertisements which won't be run?

They damaged their brand amongst the hard core sports car enthusiast who follow this kind of thing. Which may be a small bunch, but still.

They also pissed off a bunch of racers, too. I'm guessing there were around a dozen drivers who basically got no meaningful time in what is probably the biggest race of their year, and usually at least some of those guys are paying customers. And yeah, then there's the sponsors who got NOTHING for their money.

This is a pretty big deal in the racing world, anyway. And since it's the "happy" factory teams that spawn other racing efforts at that level (and thus sell parts and race cars for Mazda), this hurts their entire racing effort going forward.

--Donnie

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Mon Jan 28, 2013 10:00 pm

Donnie Barnes wrote:

They damaged their brand amongst the hard core sports car enthusiast who follow this kind of thing. Which may be a small bunch, but still.

They also pissed off a bunch of racers, too. I'm guessing there were around a dozen drivers who basically got no meaningful time in what is probably the biggest race of their year, and usually at least some of those guys are paying customers. And yeah, then there's the sponsors who got NOTHING for their money.

This is a pretty big deal in the racing world, anyway. And since it's the "happy" factory teams that spawn other racing efforts at that level (and thus sell parts and race cars for Mazda), this hurts their entire racing effort going forward.

--Donnie

Donnie,

Thanks for the information/education. Ignorance on my part.

(and maybe the Mazda exec's who "forced" this to happen?)

JamesMilko · **Posted:** Tue Jan 29, 2013 12:56 am

I think they just didn't want to have a year where they didn't have any cars in the race since the RX-8 is now gone.

Cash Davidson · **Posted:** Tue Jan 29, 2013 5:00 am

There was a privateer RX-8 that finished 17th in GT. I'm guessing they were better prepared than the factory teams.

Donnie Barnes · **Posted:** Tue Jan 29, 2013 12:33 pm

There's no reason Mazda couldn't have allowed them to run what would have been MUCH better prepared RX-8's than this debacle...and a SMART Mazda would have encouraged it.

--Donnie

JohnByers · **Posted:** Tue Jan 29, 2013 1:51 pm

Donnie Barnes wrote:

There's no reason Mazda couldn't have allowed them to run what would have been MUCH better prepared RX-8's than this debacle...and a SMART Mazda would have encouraged it.

--Donnie

That I agree with 1000% :soap:

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Tue Jan 29, 2013 10:20 pm

I don't know all of the real details. I have followed this somewhat casually. I suspect the theories are somewhat close to the truth. My opinion is that this what happens when you let the marketing and accounting teams run a race operation. From a marketing perspective I think they just cared about getting the cars on track. From an accounting perspective they likely said they would do this on the cheap, but still expect results. I have no doubt that those whoever on the Mazda side (or whoever was running those cars for Mazda) that really understands this was telling them "This is not going to end well" prior to the event.

Some other random examples that I can think of this are...

* Lola/Mastercard F1 in 1997. Car rushed to compete in the 97 season when the real plan was to race in the 98 season. The car barely had any testing time. I think the team was well funded, but due to being rushed they had an "epic fail". The entire effort was a complete flop.
* Lotus IRL engine in 2012. Lotus had big plans and announced a bunch of new cars as well as decided to jump into American open wheel (and other types of) racing. They hired Judd to build them an engine, but the engine was rushed, under funded and under developed. It was way down on power, cars were slow, teams bailed out during the seasons and Lotus has now left IRL with their tail between their legs. They have other problems as well due to their recent over committing nature.

I am sure there are other examples in the past. I feel that Toyota might be about to repeat this with their prototype racing program. They did very well in 2012 given they ran a limited schedule. It was planned to be a development year with a limited budget. I hear rumors that some of the accountant types feel that they did so well on a limited budget maybe they don't need to expand much this year. A good quote I read from another forum I visit said "You don't win Le Mans by counting your beans".

Regardless, I expect Mazda will recover from this. But it surely is an embarrassment, and while most people will not hear about it, I can't see it being good press. They will likely also have more public struggles with that package. If they are lucky, they figure out the reliability issues quickly.

Richard

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Mazda6's fail at Daytona

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