Will it ever end? The organizers added 75 pounds of useless ballast
to the RX8's for this race. Still qualified first and second.

Paul Lamar

P,

    Of course... it ends... when they've added enough ballast so
that the rotary is NOT at all competitive...!  I say, "run what ya
brung...!"

Best...

Jack Beale

If that were allowed the Mazda would win everything because
of the light weight of the engine relative to it's power.
A lighter car is easier on tires and corners and brakes
better with a given set of tires. It also burns less
fuel assuming the BSFC is the same. The Mazda is at
a slight disadvantage there.

The 66 Porsche went from 8th to first in the last pit stop.
The 30 Mazda and 70 Mazda appear to have lost first and second in the
pits and Jeff Segal in the 69 Mazda moved up to second from back in the pack
in that same pit stop.

John D, what happened in the pits?

If you complain long enough, sand bag and threaten to pull out your race
cars you can manipulate the organizers and win the race :)

That appears to be the story of this race.

Paul Lamar


Paul, et. al...sorry for my delay.  Flew home to Chicago early this
morning and spending some family time today.

The Virginia weekend was decent in the end.  Another RX-8 podium finish
and critical points in the manufacturer's title chase.

The entire story of the race really was an amazing track
position/strategy call by the #66 winning car and our #69 Mazda RX-8.
During one of the full course caution periods, a significant number of
the "lapped" Daytona Prototypes were between the GT leaders and the rest
of the GT pack.  So...when the pits opened for the GT cars, all the
GT leaders came to the pits.  The 66 and the 69 stayed out...passed
everyone...came to the pits at the end of the caution right before it
went to green...and had a HUGE lead then on the field.  I will leave out
any comments about advantages due to the new rules.  All I can tell you
is that the Mazdas will continue to bring our best game to the track and
focus on WINNING every race.  We do not play the sandbagging game...not
our style.

The early going, for those who watched, saw the #30 and #70 RX-8s really
strong.  We will continue to do push and do our best...thanks for
following and asking...

John Doonan

Ah so..... so that is how they did it. Tricky and obviously smart.
I am not sure I exactly understand how that happened.

So the rules allowed some of the GT cars to stay out and pass all the other
GT cars in the pits and gain position on them? The pit time was
about a minute? The lap time under the yellow was about 3 or 4 minutes?

So those GT cars now in the lead of the GT race pitted on
the next yellow lap and the rules allowed them to go back to the
front of the GT parade still under the yellow after they pitted?

Apparently this is a strange outgrowth of running two race classes
at the same time. I don't think something like this would be
possible if only one class of cars were racing.

--------------------------------------------------------
http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/article/grand-am-spoiler-alert-vir-race-results/


"The two cars to beat in GT were the No. 30 IDEMITSU/3Dimensional.com
Mazda RX-8 of Jordan Taylor and Todd Lamb, and the No. 70 Castrol
Syntec Mazda RX-8 of Jonathan Bomarito and Sylvain Tremblay."

"Taylor won the pole and led the opening 21 circuits, with
Lamb talking over and leading 29 laps. Both teams opted to
return to their starting drivers on their second pit stop,
but Taylor and Bomarito were caught back in the pack and
were unable to get back into contention. They finished
sixth and ninth, respectively."

"[Winner] Lally made his move on a call by TRG team owner Kevin
Buckler to stay out with the No. 66 AXA Porsche GT3 after the
second caution flag waved, moving from seventh position to take
second. He took the lead shortly after the restart and led the
final 25 circuits. It was Lally's 21st career victory and
first for Ballou."

""Kevin made a great call," Lally said. "We stayed out under the
second to get the wave by, then the pit crew had a lightning
stop that got us out in front of the pace car. Bill was coming
up on us a second a lap."

"Segal's RX8 [finishing 2nd] crew made a similar call after the
team had been struggling throughout the weekend and running 10th."

Is this a car race or just another action packed Hollywood car chase movie? :)

Suppose everybody refused to pit at the first opportunity?

Paul Lamar