Audi Presents Petit Le Mans - 06/10/2001   The Mazola Lives To Fight Another Day   © Andrew S. Hartwell Prior to the Petit coverage we told you about Dennis Spencer’s attempt to put a 2-rotor Mazda engine in a Lola B2K40 chassis. The ACO decided the car would not be homologated in time for the Petit and that would have seemed to be the end of that little bit of ambitious endeavor. Ah, but the Mazola lives! It was decided the car could be homologated in time to race, but not this year. Instead, the craftsmanship and attention to detail shown by the Spencer team provided the ACO officials with a clear case of what determined Americans could do with a car. And the ACO decided the Mazola deserved a shot at being in a race. That race will be the 12 Hours of Sebring, 2002. Why Sebring? “Because of some past experiences the ACO had with trying to homologate a car at the racetrack, they elected that they would grant a homologation at the track but they would not let you race until the next event. This is essentially a new situation. So we have gone through tech and scrutineering and the homologation process and all that will be completed and we will be at Sebring.” “The gentleman from the ACO was impressed. It is unfortunate that they had experienced an attempt at homologation that was unsuccessful and was bothersome to them. I understand it and respect it and we will just live to race another day. Spencer explains what the 2-rotor conversion could mean to his team, and those who would choose to follow his lead. “There is about a 75 pound weight savings just in the switch from the Nissan motor to the Mazda. The car right now is sitting at about 1,620 pounds and we have about another 60 – 70 pounds we can take out of the car in different ways. As we continue to test we will do that. In fact we are going to Sebring next week to test. “The plan of course is to win at Sebring, but it’s one spoonful at a time and let’s see where it goes. See how things feel. We are also anxious to get the 24 hours under our belt. And we will look at what Grand Am has to offer and what format intrigues us. “This car would not be eligible for the 24 hours of Daytona. It just doesn’t fit the Grand Am’s rules. By the time we get to Daytona, we will have a car for that race. Whether it will be a Kudzu or a 3-rotor Lola remains to be seen! “The goal is to have a 3-rotor conversion kit that will allow guys in the Grand Am series to be able to put a 3-rotor in the Lola. The project is starting out like that, but projects like this are not overnight things. They take a long time. There are mistakes you make and you go back and you correct those mistakes. And even though you may have done this many times, there is always new technology and new ways to do things and you have to discover those things. At the same time we have to continually watch the evolution of the rules. “Racing being the political game that it is, there is significant consequences when it comes to developing something, or even in expressing out loud what you are going to develop, and parties may legislate contrary to the way you are developing. It happens in every series; I’m not singling out any series. “If we were to run the 3-rotor here (in ALMS), we would have to get the car homologated again. But we don’t think it would be successful because of the way it would be restricted, and we would have an increase in weight. Right now we think if we have six months to a year to sort it out and to develop the Lola chassis, I think we will have a real winning car. “With the conversion kit, you will have people who are on more limited budgets who can pick up a year old chassis but it will have engines that are gone, so they will have rolling chassis. It gets a home for that with a more economical package, if we are able that to keep the conversion price down. The strength of the rotary is a given and Spencer provides additional evidence when he says: “We ran the same engine the entire inaugural season of Grand Am. Last year, we did not run the whole season but we ran the 24-hour. And we ran at Homestead and Watkins Glen, which we won for the second time in a row, and we will go to the finale, and all of that racing will be with the same motor. “Between races all we really have to do is change the oil filter and not much more. And even there the oil doesn’t get that dirty the way the rotary runs. The teams that don’t have full time motor people can run at a more limited skill level. There isn’t the kind of tinkering and adjustments and replacements of motors that goes on.” And how did the folks at Lola take this modification to their creation? “We gave the guys from Lola special T-shirts with the modified Lola logo. It now reads “Mazola”. They were good natured about it and we hope to keep that same kind of relationship moving forward as we compete both in the same class with different cars and the same class with similar cars. So this American businessman and racer / engineer has made an impossible mission a success. And his pride shows. He proudly displayed his creation in the paddock and it was suitably painted up in a patriotic red, white and blue color scheme. And he let us have a ‘first peek’ at his handiwork. “Let me have the guys take the engine cover off so you can go ahead and take a shot of that beautiful engine inside that Lola!” Well, the drivetrain, anyway, Andy Hartwell! Ed. Copyright ©2000-©2023 TotalMotorSport