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MAZDA RX-7 253 (1981)
Car No. 37: T. Walkinshaw / T. Ikusawa / P. Lovett
Car No. 38: Y. Terada / W. Percy / H. Fushida
Qualified: 49th (#38 - 4'04.79), 51st (#37 - 4'07.18)
Withdrawn from the race (#37 - gearbox, #38 - differential)
After an absence of two years, Mazdaspeed (Mazda Auto Tokyo) finally started their assault on Le Mans in earnest, aided by sponsorship from the fashion brand JUN/DOMON, a line popular with young Japanese. They ran the team in cooperation with TWR (Tom Walkinshaw Racing), who had been running an RX-7 in the British Touring Car Championship. The team also received support from Toyo Kogyo, with two RX-7 253s being built at the company's workshop in Tsukishima, Tokyo. Prior to Le Mans, one of the cars contested the 6-hour endurance event at Silverstone in the U.K. in May. The machine took an unexpected 8th place overall in the race, winning the IMSA GTO class.
Despite such a promising preparation for Le Mans, the team suffered a crushing defeat in the big race. This was the final season for the Group 6 class, the main category in the event until that time, and was expected to be replaced by Group C from the following year. For this reason, the works' Porsches, Ferraris and locally-made Rondeau entries desperately wanted to win. Under such intense conditions, the pair of RX-7s barely made it through qualifying. In the race, the #38 car stopped after only two hours, while the sister #37 machine, "DOMON", led by Tom Walkinshaw, went out with a broken gearbox after 10 hours. The total number of competitive hours by both cars was less than half the duration of the race, with both cars being withdrawn before sunrise.
Although they were not included in the final classification, Mazdaspeed never lost their desire and went back to Japan swearing revenge the following year.
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