This past weekend was a special one, because I got to enjoy the Mazda Heritage Collection at the annual Classic 12 Hours of Sebring. Mazda and Flis Performance were there, campaigning three of Mazda’s incredible four-rotor pieces of machinery from the 80s and 90s era of IMSA racing.
These fire-breathing monsters are absolutely a crowd favorite, and it was so much fun to engage with fans during the course of the event, especially since many of them came out just to see these cars in person and to watch them race.
I was fortunate enough to be driving the 792P, which was Mazda’s newest of the three cars racing at the event. Although all three cars share a similar engine layout, the aerodynamic design on the 792 is more developed to fit the IMSA GTP rules of the early 1990s.
Not only does the 792 have the biggest rear wing I’ve ever seen, but it also has huge tunnels under the car that suck it to the ground. With over 700hp, it screams through the gears, which is a lot of fun as it’s still an H-pattern gearbox. However, it doesn’t need the clutch because of its dog-ring synchros.
Look at the size of that rear wing!
Not only did I enjoy driving the 792P, but I also really enjoyed my teammates at this event! It was great to have Andrew Carbonell, a longtime friend and teammate, driving the 767 and newly crowned (for the second time) Mazda MX-5 Cup champion Gresham Wagner driving the RX-7 GTO.
Overall, we had a terrific weekend filled with beautiful weather and lots of great track time for the fans to enjoy seeing the cars be put through their paces and to hear that incredibly unique Mazda rotary scream.
Mazda is looking forward to campaigning these cars and others throughout the coming season, so stay tuned for more details on that!
It was also exciting to see plenty of historic planes on the grid over the weekend as part of the draw.