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GRAND-AM
GRAND-AM: Q&A With Sylvain Tremblay
SpeedSource team owner/driver discusses Mazda6 debut and GX class in this weekend’s Rolex 24 at Daytona...
SpeedSource team principal Sylvain Tremblay, center, has played a key part in the development and debut of the new Mazda6 in GRAND-AM. (Photo: LAT)
It’s a history making weekend at the “World’s Center of Racing” as the 51st Rolex 24 will mark the first time a diesel-powered car will race at Daytona International Speedway, let alone in GRAND-AM.
The new Mazda6 broke cover earlier this month, with three of the SKYACTIV-D clean diesel entries turning up for the twice-around-the-clock endurance classic in the new-for-2013 GX category.
Based around Mazda's successful RX-8 GT contender, the Mazda6 features an all-new powertrain, developed by longtime engineering partner SpeedSource.
The 2.2-liter four-cylinder turbo engine has successfully completed a 50-hour test as well as hundreds of laps, according to Sylvain Tremblay, owner of the Florida-based firm, which also fields the three entries in the car's debut weekend.
SPEED.com caught up with Tremblay, who shared his thoughts on the project and the new GX class.
Q: How has the Mazda6 program been up until this point?
TREMBLAY: It's been a huge amount of work. Obviously, we're proud to be involved to help write a couple of pages of Mazda history with the RX-8 and we're really excited to be writing a whole new chapter. For us, the program began with a single car, and as we grew our mountain, the idea was always to allow our current customers transform the cars. So we were able to do two more on top of that.
To show up with three complete cars, in a very short amount of time... It's pretty staggering considering the amount of work done.
We had some belt issues at the test days that we could simulate on the chassis or on engine dyno. The guys came out with four different solutions and four different changes to the cars and we ended up implementing all of those. So it was a huge amount of work to do that. We're happy with what we've done.
Q: Explain SpeedSource’s involvement in race operations of all three Mazda6’s
TREMBLAY: Being the technical partner to run this program, we're helping run Freedom Autosport's car [in addition to the No. 70 SpeedSource entry]. It was prepared in our shop and the same thing with the No. 00 car. Both Visit Florida and Freedom Autosport are overlooked with SpeedSource personnel for this event.
We're going to run two cars for the rest of the year. We hope to run a third one, and possibly a fourth one at some events. By Austin, four cars will exist as we'll have a new car for the No. 70 there, that's already in build.
Q: How is the car to drive? Is it a major difference from the RX-8?
TREMBLAY: You can tell the lineage of the car, as far as the chassis. But driving the car, it's a completely different experience. The torque curve is very flat. You need to be on the boost for it go anywhere. Gearing is going to be very crucial. The downshifts are fantastic, upshifts are fantastic. It has lots of torque.
Luckily the chassis is very good and I think we have the aero balance pretty good right out of the box. It does have more downforce than the RX-8, which was really one of its downfalls. We've solved that. It's been a wonderful car so far.
The new Mazda6 broke cover earlier this month, with three of the SKYACTIV-D clean diesel entries turning up for the twice-around-the-clock endurance classic in the new-for-2013 GX category.
Based around Mazda's successful RX-8 GT contender, the Mazda6 features an all-new powertrain, developed by longtime engineering partner SpeedSource.
The 2.2-liter four-cylinder turbo engine has successfully completed a 50-hour test as well as hundreds of laps, according to Sylvain Tremblay, owner of the Florida-based firm, which also fields the three entries in the car's debut weekend.
SPEED.com caught up with Tremblay, who shared his thoughts on the project and the new GX class.
Q: How has the Mazda6 program been up until this point?
TREMBLAY: It's been a huge amount of work. Obviously, we're proud to be involved to help write a couple of pages of Mazda history with the RX-8 and we're really excited to be writing a whole new chapter. For us, the program began with a single car, and as we grew our mountain, the idea was always to allow our current customers transform the cars. So we were able to do two more on top of that.
To show up with three complete cars, in a very short amount of time... It's pretty staggering considering the amount of work done.
We had some belt issues at the test days that we could simulate on the chassis or on engine dyno. The guys came out with four different solutions and four different changes to the cars and we ended up implementing all of those. So it was a huge amount of work to do that. We're happy with what we've done.
Q: Explain SpeedSource’s involvement in race operations of all three Mazda6’s
TREMBLAY: Being the technical partner to run this program, we're helping run Freedom Autosport's car [in addition to the No. 70 SpeedSource entry]. It was prepared in our shop and the same thing with the No. 00 car. Both Visit Florida and Freedom Autosport are overlooked with SpeedSource personnel for this event.
We're going to run two cars for the rest of the year. We hope to run a third one, and possibly a fourth one at some events. By Austin, four cars will exist as we'll have a new car for the No. 70 there, that's already in build.
Q: How is the car to drive? Is it a major difference from the RX-8?
TREMBLAY: You can tell the lineage of the car, as far as the chassis. But driving the car, it's a completely different experience. The torque curve is very flat. You need to be on the boost for it go anywhere. Gearing is going to be very crucial. The downshifts are fantastic, upshifts are fantastic. It has lots of torque.
Luckily the chassis is very good and I think we have the aero balance pretty good right out of the box. It does have more downforce than the RX-8, which was really one of its downfalls. We've solved that. It's been a wonderful car so far.
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