The B-K Motorsports Lola Mazda Breaks Cover
MAZDASPEED Motorsports Development and B-K Motorsports today announces its programme for the 2007 American Le Mans Series: the two concerns have commissioned Lola and AER to develop a purpose built chassis and an all-new engine for the LMP2 class of the ALMS.

So Mazda will be going head-to-head with Acura and Porsche in the ultra-competitive LMP2 category. The drivers of the Lola Mazda will be Jamie Bach and Ben Devlin. The former has raced for B-K Motorsports in its Courage Mazda for the last two years, while Ben Devlin has been a semi-regular in the ALMS for a number of seasons – and now gets his big chance.

“Mazda thrives on innovation, and the American Le Mans Series supplies a great challenge to our engineers and teams,” commented Robert Davis, Senior VP, Product Development and Quality, Mazda North American Operations. “Over the past two years we have enjoyed a number of successes in the P2 class and are looking forward to the increased competition in 2007.”

Those successes came as a result of reliability rather than outright speed, but now with the three year old Courage replaced by a brand new Lola, and the Mazda rotary replaced by a purpose-built new design from AER, the target has to be class wins.

The all-new MZR-R four cylinder turbo engine will make its race debut at the Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring. The performance goals for the engine are 500hp and 400 lb-ft, with the durability to succeed during 12 hours of pounding around Sebring.

“Given the rules package, we needed to make a radical change to be able to match the competition,” said MAZDASPEED Motorsports Development Manager Steve Sanders. “The current conditions and rules simply do not allow our rotary engine to have any competitive advantage, hence the move to piston power this season. “The Mazda and AER engineers are working closely with Honeywell Turbo Technologies on the development of a new Garrett motorsports turbocharger design for this engine program. The overall LMP2 program is driven by Mazda engineering, as we use motorsports to help develop future advanced technologies with the potential to transfer over to our production vehicles.”

The new engine is exclusive to B-K Motorsports in 2007, but the long-term goal for 2008 is to add teams in both the American Le Mans Series as well as the Le Mans Series in Europe.

The Lola is designated the B07/40.

“The partnership between Mazda, Lola, AER, Honeywell/Garrett, Kumho Tires, and many other suppliers on this project has been excellent,” said Marcus Haselgrove, B-K Motorsports Team Manager. “Jointly developing race and road car technology with the MZR-R is what sportscar racing is about. We hope to be competitive from round one, but the P2 competition will be the toughest in ALMS history.”

Jamie Bach and Ben Devlin will be joined by Brazilian Raphael Matos for Sebring, as well as the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta.

The team expects to announce a new primary sponsor prior to the Sebring race, but Road & Track will be returning as an associate sponsor. Additional support is coming from ASG, Sparco, and Sirius Satellite Radio.

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