CTSCC: Road to Track - beginning with a bare basics Mazda

There are a number of ways to build a car for competition in the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge.

The usual method involves taking a new – or used – automobile and making the safety and performance changes necessary to prepare it for the race track.

Another option involves taking a “body in white” purchased directly from a manufacturer. This is a stripped-down version of the street car, with only the unibody and minimal exterior bodywork. In using this route, builders often also use a “donor car,” frequently a damaged race car, for parts.Chris Degioanni, crew chief for Freedom Autosport, has used both methods. He recently built a car using the latter approach, preparing the No. 25 Mazda MX-5 that the team raced at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.“We did that particular car from a body in white,” Degioanni explained. “We had one available, and we also had a donor car, one of the previous Long Road (Freedom Autosport) ST cars, and we were able to use a lot of parts from it.” After receiving the body in white, the first step is to install the roll cage“I use the fundamentals, making sure every bar hits the other bar in the right position where there’s another bar coming off of it,” Degioanni said. “I aim for the most strength with the least amount of bars. I’ve seen some cages that seem to have bars everywhere – that slows down the build and adds to the expense. You build a nice race car that’s easy to work on and one that your crew can fix or rebuild in the shortest possible time. At the end of the day, that’s your championship-winning racecar.”After building the cage, four days after receiving the car it was sent out to be painted. But it was not shipped to an ordinary shop. Instead of painting the car, it got powder coated, which basically involves electrolysis to adhere the paint to the car before baking it on. “It’s much stronger,” Degioanni said. “Not everybody likes us, because when you have to do something to the body you have to grind it off. It’s becoming cheap enough to do – it’s about have the price of painting the car. It holds its color better, and doesn’t chip nearly as easily.”Normally, this process takes about three days. But since the shop Freedom sent the car to was backed up, it wound up sitting for several days and was gone for a total of eight days. But that wasn’t time wasted on the project.“While it was away at powder coat we did our best to build the sub-assemblies, such as the engine and the front end,” Degioanni said. “Mazda’s done a real good job designing its cars. For instance, on the front suspension, everything bolts to the sub-assembly, nothing bolts to the chassis. So we were able to build the entire suspension while the car was away. One day after the car was back, it had the engine and front end ready to go on, and the rear end was already hanging in the car.”At that point, the car looked like it was almost completed. The final week was spent doing final touches and testing the systems. In addition, older components from the donor car were updated to current equipment.The electronics are the most expensive part of the build.“We start off with a $35,000 car, and stick $40,000 in electronics into it,” Degioanni said. “My management style has always for me to get people smarter than me to do these kind of jobs. So I make a phone call and have someone put the electronics in the car. Building this car, I was able to pull in a lot of good people who knew their section of the car extremely well. There are a handful of good electronics guys who probably built the electronics in 95 percent of the cars in the paddock.”The car passed its debut race with flying colors. Britt Casey qualified third in the No. 25 SemperFiFund.org Mazda MX-5 and joined Tom Long in finishing second. Long led the race on the final lap, but was passed only two turns from the finish by Andrew Carbonell in Freedom’s No. 26 Mazda started by USMC Staff Sgt. (retired) Liam Dwyer.The car took an estimated 300 hours to build. “It was a little heavy on the hours because of how quickly we built it, which meant people put in long hours.”While this particular project began as a body in white, Degioanni prefers the other approach.“If I had to do it again, I’d do it from a street car,” Degioanni said. “There are multiple plusses and minuses for either approach. A lot depends on the budget and the manufacturer’s support. Obviously, Mazda has been huge in helping teams in situations like this. Starting with a street car – either new or used – you’re starting off with a lot of the parts that you’re mandated to use in ST, anyway. These are not GT cars – you’re not replacing every bolt on them. Probably 90-percent of the stuff you use on in ST is there on a factory car.”