Tri-Point Motorsports is opening the doors to its facilities tonight. The Tri-Point team has taken its familiar blue Mazda6 and Mazda3 Touring Cars to the Speed World Challenge podium more than 12 times over the years. This makes Tri-Point BFFs with MAZDASPEED and as such Mazda’s motorsports arm is also using this opportunity to preview its 2010 World Challenge efforts. Did I mention that this is going down tonight? If you find yourself in SoCal’s San Fernando Valley (yes, it is home to more than porn and Valley Gurlz) feel free to swing by. I’ll be the one caressing the Tri-Point cars inappropriately. Here’s the deets:

Who: Members of the Automotive and Motorsports Press, MAZDASPEED enthusiasts, current, retired & future Mazda racers

What: 2010 MAZDA3 –World Challenge Touring Car Spec Product Walkaround. Join us for a soda, snacks, and high quality bench racing.

Where: Tri-Point Motorsports 21345 Deering Court Canoga Park, CA 91304

When: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

Why: To check out what will be Zoom-Zooming World Challenge in 2010. Tri-Point Motorsports is now taking orders for customer cars.

How: RSVP to nicolen@tripointengineering.com

This RX-8 in the Vibe Audio booth sure did a lot of flashing and blinking and thumping and carrying on, so it was kind of a letdown to find that all of its features were just for show. Like, those bubbling mineral-oil-filled amps? No functional purpose whatsoever. The rotating-ball sub in the trunk? Nothing but a gimmick. Nothing too impressive under the hood in terms of mods, just a lot of dress-up and neon. I guess that’s often how it is with sound-stage cars. Oh well, at least it put on a show–go below the jump to see the video.

Continue reading "Vibe Audio RX-8 Screams For Attention" »

I figured it was time for some import tuner love in this week’s eBay Motors Showdown. The Veilside RX-7 is a magazine quality FD with $50k in mods according to the seller. And the Hakosuka Clone looks sweet and has lots of authentic JDM touches. Oh, and both of these rides are John Naderi approved. So, which would you choose?

I had to be down in Portland for the weekend, so I thought I’d take our Mazda 3 test car over to the Burnside skate ramp where a Jeep had famously rolled over a few days earlier. Once I saw the ramp, I wasn’t sure that the Mazda would fare any better, plus I was pretty sure no one would ever give me a test car again.

Skate ramps notwithstanding, I came away pretty impressed with this little car. Actually, it didn’t feel little. It felt just about right. Continue reading after the jump!

Continue reading "A Week With the Mazda3 i Touring 4-Door" »

Check out our new copper red mica Mazda3 i Touring 4-Door test car! Ok, so it’s a boring FWD automatic sedan, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun with it. With the auto and the moonroof/6CD/Bose package, the MSRP is pushed up close to $21k. But still, it seems like a pretty decent car for the money. I’ll be driving it around town and then down to Portland this weekend, and will give you my full review next week. Stay tuned…

Continue reading "In the CarDomain Garage: Mazda3 i Touring 4-Door" »

This is a car I’ve been meaning to feature for a while now. It was built by my friend Russ, the man behind the RE-Extreme blog, the place to go to for the latest news on anything and everything related to the RX7. Before Russ got rid of this, his second RE-Extreme project car, we met up in the Tokyo Bay ready to immortalize his very unique ride. After much searching we ended up at a Hotel in Tokyo Disneyland, which provided a very nice, yet very un-Japanese backdrop!

Before embarking on this project Russ took lots of time to think about what direction to go with his FD. One definite requirement was to be as original as possible choosing a good mix of bits and pieces for that bespoke look. There is no denying the FD3S is by far one of the most aesthetically pleasing cars ever to come out of Japan, without even beginning to consider the possibilities the aftermarket offers. Flick through the pages of the Hyper Rev series of books dedicated to this shape and you will be surprised at just how many body parts are available, a list that keeps growing even if the car has been out of production for years now! Continue reading at Speedhunters

By Dino Dalle Carbonare

You have to love factory tuner cars and the companies willing to sell them. They put their reputation on the line, slapping their badge and warranty on big-winged, look-at-me designs that boast bloated horsepower numbers and raspy exhaust notes. With some automakers, you know you aren’t looking at much more than some fatter wheels wrapped in ultra low-pro rubber and a fake hood scoop, so it’s hard to get excited. But when Mazda gets involved in the factory tuner game – a company where Zoom-Zoom conveniently works both as a catchy marketing riff and a to-the-death engineering mantra – you know good things are just around the corner. Bizarro two-tier semantics aside, Mazda got a lot right with its first shot at the Mazdaspeed3 back in 2007. Wisely then, they aren’t fiddling with the recipe too much. Crammed into the shell of the new 2010 Mazda3 is the same drivetrain as the last Mazdaspeed3, which would be a 263 horsepower turbocharged engine, six-speed manual transmission and a limited-slip front differential. And because Mazda is mindful enough to keep a North American engineering staff on hand to fine tune vehicles for our market, we get the most hardcore version of them all. Front-drive hoons have never had it so good.

Continue reading "We Drive the Mazdaspeed3" »

With fall fast approaching, that means it’s time to once again start looking towards the auto show season and the concept cars that come with it. One of the concepts that’s already been revealed is the Mazda MX-5 superlight concept for the Frankfurt Show. As it’s name suggests, this car takes the standard MX-5 and strips away “excess” weight , doing away with things like a windshield or top. The resulting car is a unique creation that’s one my favorite concept cars in recent memory – the raw spirit of the MX-5 turned up to eleven. Hopefully it comes with a pair of leather driving gloves and some goggles.

By Mike Garrett

We’ve had mega coverage of the Pacific Northwest’s incredible drift scene lately, so how ’bout a stroll down the path less traveled with some Olde World European classics? These are cars you won’t see hanging their tails out in a wall-scraping slide, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less fascinating. To find them, we had to hop onto one of Washington’s many state ferry boats and hitch a ride to Whidbey Island, about an hour north of Seattle and home of Simpson Design. Continue reading and view more photos on MotorMavens

This is one of the more disturbing images I’ve seen come out of Cash for Clunkers debacle. Via VWVortex

Here’s an interesting development! Not only is a plant re-opening, but it’s going to be run by a whole new car company! Obviously, the history of such projects makes me wonder if high-profile investor T. Boone Pickens—you know his energy ads—has bitten off more than he can chew, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed for him! Get the full story over at Automotive News.

So that’s why there was a big cloud of smoke coming from the oval course at Willow Springs this weekend. The new car looks and sounds awesome. Can’t wait to see how JTP does with the RX8 this weekend in Jersey.

By Mike Garrett

Snapped these pics last week while walking back to my car after work. I thought they looked kind of cool together.

Continue reading "Two British Racing Green Roadsters in the Rain" »

Jason Joaquin from Barbados has recently been sending us emails about a Pan-Caribbean series called the CMRC or Caribbean Motor Racing Championship. It consists of three rounds: the Jamaica meet is on May 24th, this is followed by round two in Barbados in August and finally the championship concludes in Guyana in November. There are some pretty wild cars running in the CMRC like this 20B powered RX3 along with a whole host of hotted up tarmac spec ex-rally cars.

I’ve heard the ex-AMS unlimited Evo is in the Caribbean now…. looks like we’ll need to uncover this scene in more detail! Follow this link for a taste of the crazy cars running in this series.

By Rod Chong

StreetFire member b00st3dmx5’s motor was shot so he decided to finish it off for good. I think David Wallens is crying right now.