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Mazda Speed 6
Mazdaspeed is Mazda's
in-house race and street car tuning arm and
is highly involved in both amateur and professional
motorsports. Mazdaspeed
began in 1967 as "Mazda Sports Corner",
a tuning and racing operation run by Mazda's
Tokyo distributor. They were competitive at
the 24 Hours of Le Mans races in the early
1980s with the 717, 727, and 737 before Mazda
brought the group to Hiroshima in 1983. In
1991, Mazdaspeed's 787 won at Le Mans, a feat
no other Japanese team has managed.
After the FIA effectively
outlawed the Wankel engine the next year,
the team turned away from professional racing
and focused instead on enabling third-party
competition of Mazda vehicles. Mazda assumed
control of Mazdaspeed in 1999 as a tuning
and performance parts operation within the
company. Towards this goal, Mazdaspeed provides
significant support for drivers participating
in Spec Miata racing. Drivers can order performance
and replacement parts at appreciable discount.
In
the United States, Mazda North American
Operations and Mazdaspeed host a traveling
"drive event" called Rev It Up
that allows normal people to drive Mazda
cars around a timed course for points. This
is one of very few drive events that drivers
are actually timed and scored. Mazdaspeed
also sponsors many amateur and professional
race series in the US that involve the Mazda
Miata and Mazda3.
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