Magic Triangle Chump Car

[Maengelito]

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.

I was under the impression that the FIA was requiring 3.5L engines at the start of the next year but were allowing cars that had already been running in the series to still compete back in 91. I'm not sure what the politics involved were but I think the decision for the engine to be "outlawed" and was being phased out before it won Le Mans that year. I'm no historian though so I could be wrong. :dunno:

I do hear that the RX8s had to be wound up frequently and driving them at regular speeds isn't great for the engines so I guess it makes sense that it would do well when living at 7k rpms for long periods of time.