The racecar is powered by a production-based SKYACTIV-D Clean Diesel engine.

Joel Miller and Andrew Carbonell drove the #00 Visit Florida Racing Mazda6 to the win, with team-mates Sylvain Tremblay and Tom Long finishing third in the similar #70 SpeedSource Mazda6 SKYACTIV-D.

It was a three-way battle for most of the race with a Porsche Cayman splitting the two Mazdas.

“The new Mazda6 prepared by SpeedSource ran perfectly,” said Joel Miller, co-driver, #00 Visit Florida Racing Mazda6. “The torque of the SKYACTIV-D pulled up the elevation changes around Road Atlanta circuit strongly and the Mazda6 handled beautifully.  During the course of the race we attacked when needed and paced ourselves when required.  The event had only one caution during the two-hour and 45 minutes race, thus there was hardly any time to relax.”

This win represented a day of firsts for Grand-Am competition and for Mazda Motorsports.  This is the first-ever win for a diesel-powered car in Grand-Am competition.  It also marked the first win for the all-new Mazda6 in any race series.

It was the first Grand-Am race win for drivers Joel Miller and Andrew Carbonell.  Miller is a former Mazda Motorsports Scholarship winner, having won the Skip Barber National Championship in 2007.  Carbonnell has been racing Mazdas with Freedom Autosport for many years, and was part of the team that delivered the 2011 Continental Tire ST Manufacturers Championship to Mazda.

Carbonell was substituting for Miller’s usual teammate, Tristan Nunez, who had a schedule conflict with another race in Long Beach.

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The all-new 2014 Mazda6 had its first full month on sale and increased sales by 219 percent over February 2012.

The refreshed 2013 CX-9 also experienced record February sales, jumping 176 percent over 2012. In all, the CX-line of crossovers is up by 59 percent year-over-year.

“The all-new Mazda6 is Mazda’s most technologically advanced vehicle,” said Vito Paladino, Director of Sales Operations at Mazda Canada. “And with its sleek and attractive styling, excellent fuel economy, and outstanding value, consumers are taking notice.”

The Mazda3 compact sedan and hatchback also saw sales increase by 4 percent year-over-year with 2,345 total sales for February, making this the Mazda3′s best February since 2010.

With the addition of the fully-SKYACTIV Mazda6 in the line-up, sales of vehicles equipped with the fuel-saving SKYACTIV Technology equaled 55 percent of all Mazda Canada sales in February 2013.

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SKYACTIV Technology maintained its prominence in Mazda sales in Canada, with 56 percent of the 5,220 Mazda vehicles sold in November being equipped by said technology.

The Mazda3 with SKYACTIV Technology also dominated the sales figures, representing over 70 percent of all 2,752 Mazda3s sold in Canada in November.

This is good news for the company’s future lineup. Mazda showed last week the North American-spec 2014 Mazda6 at the Los Angeles Auto Show, which will be available with a 2.2L SKYACTIV-D clean diesel engine in the second half of 2013. Other SKYACTIV news from the Los Angeles Auto Show included the updated 2014 CX-5, which will be available next year with a new 2.5L SKYACTIV-G engine.

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