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" Mazda dabbled, buddied, and partnered with teams to field a prototype in the American Le Mans Series since 2005, but one thing the American arm of the Japanese brand hadn&amp;#039;t done was to go the extra step and field a full factory program. The last hurdle was cleared this morning when Mazda confirmed its long-rumored return as a proper works team, utilizing its de facto competition arm at SpeedSource Race Engineering to enter a pair of diesel-powered LMP2s in the new TUDOR United SportsCar Championship starting in 2014.      The shift to prototypes comes at the expense of the factory Mazda6 SkyActiv diesel program, which netted nine wins and the Manufacturers&amp;#039; Title in Grand-Am&amp;#039;s Rolex Series GX class. Losing the four-door silhouette Mazda6s, which took part on Grand-Am&amp;#039;s slowest category, should be mitigated by the brand&amp;#039;s ability to vie for overall wins in the TUDOR Championship&amp;#039;s fastest class. It also gives Mazda the chance to race against the likes of Chevrolet with its Corvette Daytona Prototypes, Ford and its EcoBoost turbo DPs, Honda and its turbo P2s and other prototype machinery in the 11-round championship.  &amp;quot;This is the most significant step Mazda has taken towards returning to the global racing stage since our overall victory at Le Mans in 1991,&amp;quot; said Mazda motorsports director John Doonan, &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re confident that our two prototype cars will challenge the best North America has to offer.&amp;quot; Mazda&amp;#039;s oil burners will be carried in the back of P2 chassis built by Canada&amp;#039;s Multimatic, which took over production of Lola when the storied British constructor was liquidated. Possibly the most interesting aspect of Mazda&amp;#039;s new P2 program can be found with the changes to the 2.2-liter bi-turbo four-cylinder diesel engine. The little mill sat in the GX cars as a non-stressed portion of the tubeframe chassis, but with the P2 car, the SkyActiv diesel is subjected to some of the high-downforce loading and twisting that takes place.  Despite sitting in a fairly robust cradle-style framework, changes were required from the GX powerplant to improve stiffness, and with a need to lower the engine&amp;#039;s center of gravity, the bottom-end also underwent a redesign. &amp;quot;It has the same basic internals as the GX engine; connecting rods, pistons, crankshaft, and all of the valvetrain stays pretty much identical from one program to another,&amp;quot; SpeedSource owner Sylvain Tremblay told RoadandTrack.com. &amp;quot;The big difference is in the lower engine cradle. We had to lower the crankshaft considerably, and packaging in the engine bay is very tight, so that had to be a new piece. &amp;quot;Then the engine&amp;#039;s front cover is to be a stressed load carrying member. The turbo packaging had to change slightly because of the aero constraints of the P2 car. And then the complete cooling system including water pump is also different from one car to the other. It&amp;#039;s roughly the same pump in a different location; we tried to mount everything basically just lower and tidier because of the big undertray on the P2 car.&amp;quot; Targets for horsepower and torque fall in the 450-500 range. Private testing with Mazda&amp;#039;s P2 diesels will continue through December, and the first public showing of the two-car team is expected to take place in early January at Daytona International Raceway. The first race for the cars, and the TUDOR Championship as a whole, takes place at Daytona on January 25-26. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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