Mazda scores first race win with SKYACTIV-D
Grand-Am Round 4 Road Atlanta

In only its fourth race, the all-new Mazda6, powered by a production-based SKYACTIV-D Clean Diesel engine, scored a win in the Rolex Grand-Am GX race at Road Atlanta. Joel Miller and Andrew Carbonell drove the #00 Visit Florida Racing Mazda6 to the win, with team-mates Sylvain Tremblay and Tom Long finishing third in the similar #70 SpeedSource Mazda6 SKYACTIV-D. It was a three-way battle for most of the race with a Porsche Cayman splitting the two Mazdas.

This win represented a day of firsts for Grand-Am competition and for Mazda Motorsports. This is the first-ever win for a diesel-powered car in Grand-Am competition. It also marked the first win for the all-new Mazda6 in any race series. It was the first Grand-Am race win for drivers Joel Miller and Andrew Carbonell. Miller is a former Mazda Motorsports Scholarship winner, having won the Skip Barber National Championship in 2007. Carbonnell has been racing Mazdas with Freedom Autosport for many years, and was part of the team that delivered the 2011 Continental Tire ST Manufacturers Championship to Mazda. Carbonell was substituting for Miller's usual teammate, Tristan Nunez, who had a schedule conflict with another race in Long Beach.

John M. Doonan, Director, Mazda Motorsports, Mazda North American Operations: “In 1991, we were the first Asian company to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and today's GX-class win with the Mazda6 SKYACTIV-D clean diesel proves that Mazda is not afraid to face a challenge. This is the first of what we hope will be many victories, but the best part of it is how well our road-car engineers from Mazda Motor Corporation worked with the racecar engineers from SpeedSource.”

23.4.2013
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