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NEWS
Mazda V8 to race at Bathurst!
But when and who might surprise you...A V8 Mazda is racing at Bathurst in 2015.
No, calm down everyone, we're not revealing the Japanese brand is going V8 Supercars racing next year.
Instead the Aussie owned privateer motor-racing racing company MARC Cars will run at least one of its three spaceframe V8 racers with Mazda3 sheetmetal at the Bathurst 12-hour classic in February 2015.
MARC debuted at Bathurst earlier this year with three Ford Focus-bodied cars driving their rear wheels via 5.0-litre Ford Coyote V8 engines.
The top finishing Focus finished 15th outright with a driving roster that included Grant Denyer and Andrew Miedecke.
It was a start of an international program for the cars that included a number of endurance races in Europe including the 12 hours of Hungary and Barcelona 24 Hours.
MARC boss and racer Ryan McLeod organised the building of the cars by Pace innovations – the same blokes who did all the early development work on the latest generation V8 Supercar.
McLeod also co-ordinated the five month racing sojourn in Europe for the three Focuses, which were designed to provide affordable racing for privateer drivers.
The cars were owned by their regular drivers, and pay drivers filled up much of the rosters at races, providing the fundamental budget to complete the program.
Next year the three Focuses are committed to the Dubai 24 Hour at the end of January, prompting McLeod to build three more cars, at least one of which will be a Mazda3.
That's because Jake Camilleri, the son of the owner of Grand Prix Mazda, Joe Camilleri, has raced a MARC Focus, but would understandably prefer to race a Mazda if possible.
And with the car designed to have different sheetmetal bolted to the same spaceframe – like a V8 Supercar – the build of the 3 is relatively straight forward.
The cars will race in Class I at Bathurst against a couple of Grand Am Mazda RX-8s from the USA and potentially two Radical closed-top RXCs.
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Written byBruce Newton
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