Saturday February 4th saw the famous #55 win another race for Mazda, but this time it was a most unlikely vehicle, a Mazda BT-50 Turbo Diesel in the Thailand Super Pick-Up Truck Series, proving Mazda does indeed put a little ZOOM-ZOOM into everything it builds. The victory was at the most prestigious round of the Thai series calendar; The Bangsean Thailand Speed Festival, which is called the Monaco of Asia. The RMA Motorsports-Mazda City-Auto-Exe truck with driver Michael Freeman ran at the front of the pack for most of the race controlling the pace in a perfect manner, finishing the race in a comfortable first place.

The race weekend consisted of two 20 minute sprint format races, one on Saturday and Sunday respectively, on the temporary street circuit that resembles the tight confines and elevation changes of the Macau street circuit. Race #1 showed the true potential of the Mazda truck as running from the front allowed it to display its strength and class above its competitors from Isuzu, Chevy and Mitsubishi. One of the major advantages displayed was the lack of diesel particulate and smog emission, with almost none to be had; so much so that it seemed not to be a diesel vehicle, but a standard gas engine. This turned to be one of the most important details of the race weekend, as Thai television has new regulations that do not permit the televising of diesel vehicles that spew the typical black smoke in heavy quantities. Again a win for Mazda in TV race airtime!

When queried about why race in a diesel truck series, RMA Motorsport Head Race Engineer, Ross Holder, commented: “with 90% of Mazda's 1-ton global trucks being built and shipped from Thailand, and a huge part og the Thai market, it is vitally important that we showcase and highlight the platform in this market, and it is also a crucial piece of the RMA Group's strategy to train our young engineers in the competitive arena of motorsports. Racing also allows the RMA Group to test vehicle pieces in a high stress environment, before being sent out into the field in our fleets of custom purpose-built truck based vehicles”. RMA Group, based in Thailand, is one of the largest providers of custom purpose-built vehicles on globe.