Road Atlanta-No win, but Mazdas rock Touring Car

[wcprotege]

Today was a pretty darn good day for the Mazda Protege in World Challenge Touring Car even though one didn't end up in first. And Roger Foo showed again why he receives the attention he does.

Bill Auberlen had it his way again and won in both GT and Touring Car, but there were four Protege drivers in the top ten and took the remainder of the podium positions. The rundown was:

2nd: Jeff Altenburg
3rd Shauna Marinus (the first podium finish by a woman in WC.)
4th: Chuck Hemmingson
8th: Roger Foo

For a complete list of results, go here: http://www.world-challenge.com/2003/events/rat1/tc-results.html

Now about Foo. He ended up starting the race in 38th position and gained 30 positions by the time the checker flew! He qualified a super sixth, but a technical infraction meant his time was thrown out. We were pretty bummed. Roger didn't waste a whole lot of time driving to the front and a late race caution helped as he was just outside the top ten. He had the measure of everyone in Turn One and made the best of it.

Ummm...we were pretty happy with Foo's result especially since Baxter's string of bad luck continued. Robert qualified a decent 14th, but got hit five laps into the race and retired a couple of laps later.

Now it is on to California July 25-27 at Sonoma.

 

[rowan]

Nice work!

Now if only it were on TV more often to watch all this great action.

 

[jsgolfer]

holy crap, your in woodstock. thats funny. i wish i could have made it to road atlanta this weekend. working in the golf industry means no weekends off. ne way. im in woodstock aswell so if you ever want to hook up let me know. o ya, where were you at the kennesaw meet?

 

[Jimmy@MV]

Lots of pictures can be found HERE from the weekend. Here are a couple to wet your whistle.

 

[dugrant153]

I read that that Mazda is WAY WAY modified over stock.

 

[wcprotege]

Yes, the World Challenge Proteges are pretty far removed from the car you drive on the street. The engine alone costs as much as a new car from the dealer (around $15,000). The suspension is heavily modified in front, the front brakes are huge (rears stock), windows are lexan and of course, the interior is gutted and a rollcage is added. In World Challenge many of the cars are pretty far removed from stock.

The car in its stock configuration doesn't make the best of race cars, but they have done reasonably well in SCCA Showroom Stock racing.

 

[905MP3]

Modified

wcprotege,

I think what dugrant153 was saying is that the protege is modified more than other cars that they race against. I too read somewhere that the protege is modified more than other cars. Now, let me try to remember exactly where I saw and read that....

 

[wcprotege]

The answer is yes, and no.

As most everyone is aware, all of the cars that race in World Challenge are modified from their street car roots to some degree with engine management and suspension changes. All cars have pretty tweaked engines. Some more than others and the Protege would fall into this category.

Is the Protege more modified than the Integra Type R and BMW? Yes. The Integra is probably in the most stock configuration which is a testament to how good a job the Honda engineers did with the car.

More than the RSX and Sentra Spec V? Probably close. I don't know the details, but RealTime had to make some suspension mods on the RSX to make it handle and the Sentra is about as modified as the Protege. The rear suspension in the Sentra is not even close to stock and is more like, or from the Altima from what I am told.

 

[P5LawnMan]

Hey dugrant153 What do you drive?

 

[dugrant153]

Hey dugrant153 What do you drive?

Me? I drive a 1985 Toyota Corolla Sedan, FF configuration (287,395 clicks and still clickin')

<I'm on this board to do research on the Mazda Protege line... which might become the Mazda 3 line?>

In regards to hearing the Mazda in WCTC was highly modified, I read it in Car and Driver (About the modified Protege). I think it said something alone the lines that the car stock was very underpowered (well, duh... compared to the other cars), so they were allowed EXTRA modifications in order to compensate...
Or was that the Nissan Sentra??

I've also read some rally coverage of a Mazda Protege sedan in Sports Compact Car in a 2002 magazine.