[Nutsid]

I just headed over here to post this story as well, only reported via Motor Trend.

To celebrate its 20th anniversary of its historic Le Mans win in 1991, the Mazda 787B will make an appearance at this year’s 24-hour race. As the first and only Japanese manufacturer to take the win at one of motorsports’ most challenging and prestigious endurance races, Mazda’s attendance at the 79th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans also coincides with the 50th anniversary of its development of the rotary engine — the engine that carried the 787B to victory.

Along with being the only Japanese competitor to win Le Mans, the 787B was the first and only winner powered by a rotary engine. Jointly developed by Mazda and Mazdaspeed, Mazda’s performance wing and manager of its racing efforts, the 787B was the product of 17 years of sports car racing as well as Mazda’s advancement of the rotary engine. The 787B’s 4-rotor engine was tuned to 700 PS (690 hp), but was capable of producing upwards of 900 hp. While the 787B’s rotary played a major role in its 1991 win, running that engine at Le Mans the next year wasn’t an option, thanks to changes to the World Sports Car Championship’s (WSC) Group C regulations. Still, Mazda continues its participation in sports car racing and occasionally contests the famed 24-hour race in France.

Having sat in the Mazda Museum in Hiroshima, Japan, since its Le Mans win, the 787B needed to be restored to driving condition before it could take to Le Mans’ Circuit de la Sarthe once again. For this, Mazda tapped its current employees who originally participated in the 787B’s racing campaign as well as engineers from its subsidiary engineering company Mazda E&T. Once thoroughly inspected and reconditioned, the race car was put through its paces by Mazda’s in-house development drivers, who confirmed that the 787B was ready for duty again. Now back in top form, the 787B can properly demonstrate its 10,500-rpm redline to crowds at Le Mans before this year’s race in June.

Various members of the 1991 Mazda team will be attending the race to witness the 787B’s return to the track they conquered 20 years ago. Among them, one of the three winning drivers, Johnny Herbert, and Mazda drivers of the 1991 WSC season, David Kennedy and Pierre Dieudonné, will be in attendance. Representing Mazda’s new crop of drivers, actor and racing driver Patrick Dempsey, who races a Mazda RX-8 in the GT class of the Grand-Am Rolex series, also plans to attend. Although rotaries aren’t favored by the current rules governing Le Mans, Mazda’s commitment to the engine design is still strong in other series, such as Grand-Am and the Star Mazda Championship, a spec series that employs rotary-powered open wheel racers. Since first tinkering with the rotary engine in 1961, Mazda has since developed the power plant for applications in passenger cars and, of course, race cars. Mazda says that its Le Mans win, while historic in its own right, was just one step in the evolution of its engines, which will soon enter another phase of advancement through the company’s next-generation SkyActive technology. With a history rooted in competition, the lengths gone to by Mazda to celebrate the anniversary of its Le Mans win certainly shows how much that achievement means to the brand.

Source: Mazda

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