The Mazda6 Diesel at the Rolex 24 at Daytona

Mazda debuted their new diesel Mazda6 race cars at the Rolex 24 hour endurance race in Daytona in January. The entire lineup of engines in the new 2013 Mazda6 have benefited from Mazda’s SkyActiv engine technology initiative. It’s interesting to note that while the gasoline engines have increased compression ratios to improve efficiency, the diesel engines worked the other way. Diesel compression ratios are generally in the neighborhood of 20:1, but Mazda found that lowering it about 14:1 meant that all of the engine parts could be significantly lighter which allowed for higher rpm’s and lower bearing friction.


Source: Road and Track on YouTube

The Red Bull Racing Story

The Team Principal Christian Horner, Chief Technical Officer Adrian Newey, Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber sit down to reflect on the history of the Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team. The story begins in 2005 when Red Bull took over the Jaguar program. 4 years later Sebastian Vettel was in the hunt for his first World Championship which eventually comes at the last race of the 2010 season. Red Bull’s success continued to grow as they dominated the 2011 season and then squeezed out the championship at the last race again this year after a hard-fought season. The guys reminisce about all the high and low points of their careers with the team.


Source: Red Bull Racing on YouTube

The Bondurant School of High Performance Driving – Hot Rod Magazine

The staff of Hot Rod Magazine brings us the story of their adventures taking the 2-day course at the Bondurant School of High Performance Driving. The fact that the 6 staffers have varying levels of road racing experience makes for interesting stories of where each person had some breakthroughs. After a classroom session at the start, the staffers tour the course in a van and then start working on basic skills behind the wheels of C6 Corvette Grand Sports. At first, they practiced fundamental skills like high speed lane changes, heel-toe downshifting and skid control in a Cadillac CTS that had trolleys that would lift each end of the car off the ground to make the front and rear axles lose traction. The lessons then culminated with some full fledged track racing and a timed autocross to see who could set the fastest time.


Source: Motor Trend on YouTube