Mazda Motorsports is known for several things: sports cars, endurance racing, and taking the engineering path less traveled. This coming weekend, Mazda Motorsports will begin a new era of professional sports car racing when its latest SKYACTIV-powered Mazda Prototype takes the green flag at the first ever TUDOR United SportsCar Championship race.

The season-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona is one that Mazda knows well, having scored 23 class-wins in the endurance classic since 1975. The challenges for 2014 will be bigger than in any previous season as Mazda will be competing for the overall win against some of the world's best racers, teams and manufacturers.

“Mazda is thrilled to once again be coming to a new series in our own unique manner. Our SKYACTIV Technology is a perfect match for racing as the mindset is the same: every single component and system can be optimized for increased performance and efficiency - for both the street and the track. By using a production Mazda SKYACTIV-D Clean Diesel engine we are charting our own course. The work is compounded by the fact that our team is having to invent new ways of doing things, as there are no racing components on the shelf that fit our engine. All of this just means the rewards will be that much sweeter for all of us and the many partners who have helped us get here when we achieve success,” noted John Doonan, director of motorsports for Mazda North American Operations.

The #70 Mazda SKYACTIV Prototype will be driven by Sylvain Tremblay, Tom Long and James Hinchcliffe while the #07 machine will be shared by Joel Miller, Tristan Nunez, and Tristan Vautier.