page_title: Mazda RX-8
section_title: Motorsport
hierarchical_section_title: Mazda RX-8 / Motorsport
caption_attribution_description: Mazda RX-8 in the Grand-Am Cup race at the 2006 Porsche 250 at Barber Motorsports Park
context_page_description: The Mazda RX-8 is a sports car manufactured by Japanese automobile manufacturer Mazda between 2002 and 2012. It was first shown in 2001 at the North American International Auto Show. It is the successor to the RX-7 and, like its predecessors in the RX range, it is powered by a rotary Wankel engine. The RX-8 was available for sale in North America from the 2003 model year.
  Mazda announced on August 23, 2011, that the RX-8 was to be discontinued citing 2012 model year to be the last year of its availability. The RX-8 was removed from the European market in 2010 after the car failed to meet emissions standards.
  Due to falling sales from Europe coupled with rising Yen prices, Mazda could not justify the continued sale of the RX-8 in other markets.
context_section_description: The RX-8 has been campaigned and used in various racing series by privateers. It has seen a considerable amount of success, the most prominent of which being the 2008 and 2010 24 Hours of Daytona GT-class wins campaigned by SpeedSource Race Engineering. This victory also marks the 23rd endurance race win at Daytona by a Mazda rotary-powered race car. While the cars are powered by the 20B rotary engines, the car is in fact built on a tube frame chassis and not on the production car.
  Ryan Eversley won both races of the 2010 SCCA World Challenge Mid-Ohio Grand Prix in the touring car class.
  Other racing series include the KONI Challenge Series in the Street Tuner class.
  In the UK, the RX-8 featured in the Mazda sponsored "Formula Women" series (2004), which involved all women drivers with slightly modified RX-8s, and the RX-8 was also campaigned successfully in the Britcar series endurance races (2005/2006). In Belgium, Mazda are currently sponsoring an RX-8 silhouette racer in the GT series. The car also won the IMSA Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge in 2005.
  In 2014 the North Island Mazda Rotary Racing Association in New Zealand launched a RX8 category in its Pro7 racing series which is the oldest MotorSport NZ sanctioned series in NZ.  The RX8's now dominate this racing series and is competed in the North and South Islands as well as a NZ championship. The category was renamed in 2019 to the Mazda Racing Series and now some of the largest grids in the country. 
  In 2019, the Classic Sports Car Club in the UK launched the RX-8 Trophy for road legal first generation Mazda RX-8's. Developed in two years, the class was designed to provide the cheapest way of going racing in a performance car. The class stipulates that the RX-8 entering the race must have a valid MOT and retain creature comforts such as air con, heater and stereo, therefore allowing the car to be used as a daily driver, as well as to and from the race track.
  The RX-8 has been used occasionally for professional drifting (Formula Drift), with drivers like Masao Suenaga from Japan, "Mad" Mike Whiddet from New Zealand, and Kyle Mohan from the USA choosing the develop the chassis each to suit their own goals.
caption: RX-8 competing in a Grand-Am Cup race in 2006
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