Magic Triangle Chump Car

[D_Eclipse9916]

If I were to pick up a cheap car to race for 24 hours straight knowing that reliability would be paramount over everything else, I'm not sure that a 25 year old rotary would even be near the top of the list.

Wankels aren't inherently unreliable, they don't respond to boost very well but in NA trim they're not bad. Mazda's 787B won LeMans in 1991, prompting a wankel outlaw in the series. Granted, that's a 4 rotor 700hp race motor but there's nothing inherently unreliable about a wankel. You just can't treat them like piston engines.

Funny enough, the Grand Am RX8s are really reliable and tough and won their championships in due part to reliability.

You have to think, a spinning, less moving parts, and incredibly good harmonics at high speed (where a race occurs) sounds a lot more reliable than a up/down, liftered, valvetrained piston engine at the same high rpm. Lemons aand Chump seem to have proved this is true. (we are talking crapcans here).