grand am

Mazda has a long motorsports history, and one that is peppered with fascinating cars. The latest chapter in Mazda's racing story has just been written, as Joel Miller and Andrew Carbonell have driven the Visit Florida Racing Mazda6 Skyactiv-D to the car's first ever victory at the Rolex Grand-Am ...

It took 24 hours to run the race, but it was the last one was stuffed with the high action as four cars were still trying to figure out how to gain victory on the track and in the pits. Along with the obligatory crashes, spins, mechanical issues and retirements had come numerous penalties, a ...

The Rolex 24 at Daytona is still running, and we spent yesterday and a healthy portion of the evening absorbing the agitato thunder of the Daytona Prototypes, the mezzo-soprano howl of the GT cars, the RVs, the bonfires, the numerous full-course yellows, the back-course braking into the Bus Stop ...

There has never been a four-door diesel sedan in the Grand-Am series, until now: The blunt, bewinged grille of the Mazda6 GX has blown right through that wall. It's said that racing improves the breed, but usually the breed has gone on sale when the racing begins. One of the unusual aspects of ...

We came to Daytona Beach, Florida where you can drive on the beach, gun shops outnumber doughnut shops and you can putt-putt and fish for alligators at the same place. But we're not here for any of that – we've made the trip with Audi in order to experience the Rolex 24 at Daytona, the ...

We were baffled a few weeks back when the American Le Mans Series and Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series announced new classes that will make up their combined racing program in 2014. Gone from the list is the Le Mans Prototype class, otherwise known as LMP1. The LMP1 class has long been the top ...

Other than the announcement back in September that the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series and the American Le Mans Series were merging, there have been precious few details as to how the newly combined series would shake out. Today, both entities helped clear things up a bit by announcing some of ...

The diesel version of the 2014 Mazda6 won't be hitting North American showrooms until the middle of next year, but we won't have to wait that long to see the car in action. Mazda will enter its midsize sedan in the new Grand-Am GX class with a Skyactiv-D clean diesel engine under the hood, and ...

Now that it is settled that the American Le Mans Series and the Grand-Am Rolex racing series are officially tying the knot, the next big thing needs to be settled: What are they going to call it? Organizers must be preoccupied with either determining race classes or figuring where they are going ...

SPEED reports the American Le Mans Series and the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series are merging. Rumors have swirled around the marriage of the two series for years, but fired up in earnest two weeks ago. Though details are still scarce, SPEED says Grand-Am will likely take on sanctioning duties. ...

Chief designer for Sunbeam, Louis Coatalen was once quoted as saying "Racing improves the breed." With Formula One racers that look like nothing on the open road, and NASCAR, whose cars only LOOK like what you can get in a dealership, its hard for the average Joe to see why motorsport is relevant ...

The Brumos Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup racer is not only very good at getting around a track, it's very good at getting to the checkered flag in first place. To celebrate the team's 50-plus-year history and winning last year's Rolex Grand-Am championship, Brumos, in conjunction with Porsche, is ...

Race teams in the Grand Am GX class can now get their hands on a new diesel powerplant. Mazda has announced the company will supply the new Skyactiv-D for the 2013 season. The race engines will use a stock 2.2-liter block with a two-stage turbo, just like the production version. Redline sits at a ...

Ferrari is headed to the Daytona 24 Hours with a new Grand Am version of the company's 458 Italia. The 458 Grand Am borrows heavily from the GT3 version of the supercar, though with an eye towards competition here in the States. Like the GT3, the Grand Am car was prepared for battle by the same ...

It may have taken them a while to get around to it, but after reviving the Mini marque in 1994, BMW hasn't forgotten the original's rich racing heritage. It's what's taken them into the World Rally Championship, and is now leading to a B-Spec racer available right here in the United ...

On any given Sunday, you can expect to find a Ferrari 458 Italia racecar screeching around one or more circuits around the world. Unsurprisingly, Maranello is serious about challenging the Porsche 911 for shear proliferation in sports car racing. That's why the mid-engined GT has already spawned ...

During the weekend's Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car race at Road America, Günter Shaldach radioed his crew to report what he called "a brake issue." Shortly after that, as Shaldach's CoolTV Chevrolet Camaro was hurtling toward turn one behind Joe Foster's Florida.com Mazda RX-8, he locked up at ...

In an attempt to reduce costs and get more brands into the field, it's beginning to look like as many as three different race series in Europe, Asia and the United States may adopt a more-or-less common set of rules. The German Touring Car Championship (shown above) is set to introduced a new ...

Watkins Glen is in for some renovations. The historic road course in upstate New York was once the home of the US Grand Prix, and today hosts races in the Indy Racing League, NASCAR, the Rolex Grand-Am series and the SCCA Speed World Challenge, not to mention several vintage racing series. It's a ...

This year's Sprint Cup was awarded this past weekend at Homestead, where Jimmie Johnson scored his record fourth consecutive championship with a fifth-place finish behind race winner Denny Hamlin. (Oh yeah, "spoiler alert".) Anyway, on to the interesting part: the oval speedway had some unlikely ...