Mazda Survey results

To: MAZDASPEED Team Members

From: Robert Davis

Re: Survey Results & SCCA Update

Thank you for the strong response to our survey. Over 1,500 MAZDASPEED team members took the time to complete the survey. The comments were fantastic. I have personally read ALL 93 pages of unfiltered comments. I have also read as many of the on-line forum discussions as I could find. Overall the discussion has been very productive. This customer feedback was a major part of our club racing discussion with the SCCA leadership when we met face-to-face in Orlando last week.

The following is a recap of the survey, our recent meetings, as well as a few thoughts about 2008 and beyond.

Survey highlights:

My team is still analyzing the data, but some key results include:

· 76% of you currently race with the SCCA. That number is projected to drop ~10% next year based upon our question of where you will race in 2008.

· Approximately half of you have raced over 14 times in the past two years. You are an active group.

· The majority of our SCCA members were overall satisfied or fairly satisfied with the club BUT a majority also felt that the SCCA management could do better.

· 19% of those who wish for Mazda to maintain the same level of support said that they would take a more active role within the SCCA to facilitate change. Please do so, this is YOUR club. Don't do it as a Mazda rep. Do it as a club member who wants the club to succeed and grow. We enjoy the competition with our rivals at Toyota, Nissan, Honda, GM, Ford, etc. We hope their racers will likewise step up. No one should feel like they need to stop driving to become a regional club manager, but if we all take a turn, things can and will improve.

SCCA Meeting:

On Thursday, December 6th the MAZDASPEED management team met with the SCCA leadership at the annual PRI show in Orlando, Florida. To squash one rumor I saw in several forums the meeting was NOT just about the MSR package. That was just one agenda item. Rather we covered a multitude of topics related to both club and professional racing. Topics included:

· Court of Appeals process

· Classification/rule change process

· MX-5 Cup

· SPEED World Challenge

The meeting was lengthy and productive. After two plus hours we hopefully all came away with a better sense of serving our respective (and often overlapping) customers. I will not go into too many details as the SCCA leadership will be conveying a message to all of their members. I would like to note that:

The SCCA board expressed a unanimous position that Mazda participation is critical.

We were advised that changes to the Court of Appeals process will allow all manufactures their day in court.

The SCCA is handling the board member remark internally and we are satisfied with their course of action. Again, this one comment was not the issue.

Mazda racers who wish to contact the SCCA leadership should direct all comments to [email protected]

Note: In late November we had also met with the NASA leadership and are looking forward to serving our Mazda customers who race with NASA. NASA has not positioned themselves as a replacement for the SCCA, and we know that for certain regions of the country, NASA is not an option. Our support of NASA should be viewed like our support of the NHRA, contingency support of a national organization where our customers chose to race. End of story. We will support each organization based upon objective criteria. Being better than the other guy is not the issue.

MAZDASPEED in 2008:

Our contingency programs for 2008 will continue pretty much the same as in 2007. We plan to keep our MX-5 Cup Shootout open to racers from both the SCCA & NASA.

If you heard the news from Orlando you'll know that we had several announcements of our own, along with some from our partners:

· The 2008 MX-5 Cup will be sponsored by Playboy

· The 2008 Playboy MX-5 Cup schedule was announced (7 confirmed with one more to be announced)

· The 12-race 2008 Star Mazda schedule was announced

· Skip Barber announced a new MX-5 Cup regional series managed by their school.

· Skip Barber announced the "Elite 12" for the Skip Barber Mazda karting shootout in January.

Final thoughts:

Our success is collective. The MAZDASPEED Motorsports Development department exists to support you the Mazda racers. Feedback is always desired. When we do something wrong. Tell us. When we do something right. Tell us that as well.

Likewise I encourage you to work towards the betterment of any organization with which you race. Regardless of whether you prefer the SCCA, NASA, NHRA, GrandAm, IMSA, etc., all racing organizations need the active involvement of the racer to succeed and grow.

Thank you again for your collective support in 2007. We wish everyone a happy holiday season and hope to see you at the race track again in 2008.

Thanks for racing a Mazda!

Sincerely,

Robert T. Davis
Senior Vice President, Research, Development & Quality
Mazda North American Operations
Mazdaspeed Motorsports Development

SURVEY RESULTS

Man you're quick!

My email was timestamped 12:46. I didn't even get done reading it and it was up here!

Quote:

We were advised that changes to the Court of Appeals process will allow all manufactures their day in court. [/b]

This is a TERRIBLE idea and one that we will live to regret. Mazda might think it's a grand idea when it's perceived to be in their favor, but (formally) opening the door to manufacturer - NOT MEMBER - input into judicial matters is insane.

It's interesting that club racing and pro racing issues were comingled for the purpose of these discussions. A firewall between these elements of the organization would be a very good idea and again, while it might be important for Mazda right now, they (and we) might regret it when the balance of power and interests shift.

K

I'd like to hear the specificsa of the "changes". My information suggested that there was some miscommunication, shall we say on the whole MSR deal, and it kind of snowballed. I'll reserve judgement until I see the wording.

On a positive note, that email is impressive, and I applaud Mazda and the transparency in which it has dealt with this,

From my digging around when this first happened the COA case that threw out the MSR deal was over before Mazda know about the appeal as manufacturers have no standing in such an appeal. Maybe they are implementing changes so the manufacturer can at least present evidence. Kind of a friend of the court brief.

Quote:

On a positive note, that email is impressive, and I applaud Mazda and the transparency in which it has dealt with this,
[/b]

I also felt it was well done and addressed the topics of concern. Transparency is a word that does not come to mind when I read Julow's statement on the same subject.