2nd round of the Rolex Grand Am series was held on March 2nd (Sat.) at the Circuit of the Americas, COTA, in Austin, TX. The #70 SpeedSource Mazda GX6 finished in the 2nd place in the class.

COTA is a European style race track developed for F1 Grand Prix with ups and downs, and twisty corners. Good performance in handling and reliability are requited for racing cars in this circuit.

The event started with free practice session on Thursday. Both #70 and the #00 VISIT Florida Mazda 6 completed all sessions without trouble before the final race. At 15:00 o'clock on Saturday, GX class cars as well as Daytona Prototype and GT classes started together for the final race.

This race was semi-endurance event of 2 hours 45 minutes. Two Mazda 6 GXs ran smoothly without problem despite “yellow caution” twice. However, #00 came into the pit, right after a regular pit stop for re-fueling, due to drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit lane for the first pit stop.

After a while, #70 also came into the pit at irregular timing with some smoke from the engine hood. It was proved to be minor fuel leak from fuel line, and the car regained the speed after the issue was fixed. On the other hand, #00 returned to the box again after 39 laps and retired from the race due to trouble on the drive shaft.

On lap 53, #00 SpeedSource Mazda 6 passed the checkered flag in the 2nd place in the GX class. Team principal, Syrvain Tremblay, commented; “It's a big achievement that we didn't have any engine trouble on both of the cars. It might be a small step forward but means a lot for us. We will get more speed as a next step.

The SKYACTIV-D racing engine has made just a small step for the new challenge but we can expect great news in the future. When development of the engine reaches to the next level, it will be evolved as a power source for LMP2 machines.