The Rotary Diaries: Crashing my RX-8 and Dealing With the Aftermath

Pride comes before a fall, as yours truly can testify. More than two decades of driving, the best part of them behind test cars, I prided myself on having a clean record. Sure, I was handed some speeding tickets and I did have my share of near misses but, somehow, I had managed to steer clear of an accident.

Now that record has been blotted by an accident in my RX-8; it was a low-speed one and, thank God, no one was hurt. Ironic that I would return the keys to every car handed to me, from a low-rent mini to a Porsche or a Bentley (the latter the company CEO’s personal car, no less) with not a scratch on them but I would crash my own car in a spectacularly silly way…

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The CS Diaries: We Ride Shotgun in a Radical SR3 Around the Ascari Track [w/Videos]

Patience is not included in my (admittedly limited) repertoire of virtues so, being soaked to your underpants after spending the most part of a day exposed to rain in a race track would, in any other occasion, is too much to tolerate.

Uncharacteristically, though, the cold wind that’s making my body shiver cannot wipe the wide grin off my face. If anything, the past few minutes have erased my grumpy mood and, right now, I’m up for almost anything.

I am at the Ascari race circuit in southern Spain for the launch of Bridgestone’s new Adrenalin RE002 tire. The weather did, as mentioned, its best to throw off this nicely organized event and the cars brought along for us to sample topped off with an Audi TT 1.8 TFSI; hardly something to get truly excited about, right?

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My Rotary Diaries: An Owner’s Guide to the Mazda RX-8 Galaxy

"The RX-8 doesn’t just like a drink; it is the founding member of the AA institution for sports car engines"

Are you tired of my RX-8 reports yet? If you secretly nodded your head in agreement, then I have good news for you, because this will be the final one, in which I’ll try to recount the ups and downs of running Mazda’s last rotary sports car – until, hopefully, the next one comes up…

First of all, let me introduce you to the world’s first contemporary four-door coupe. The Mercedes-Benz CLS that supposedly invented the niche? It was launched a year later than the RX-8, which is a coupe and has four doors. True, the Merc and its clones are perched much higher in terms of pricing and none adopted the rear suicide doors that did without the B-pillar, but you get the point.

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Sounds Like GT-R Spirit: Why the New Renault Clio RS Sound App is Just Lame

Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like but, although I don’t believe in the “second shooter” theory or that those white lines in the sky are something other than contrails, I have a nagging thought that, in the past few months, some of the most charismatic CEOs in the automotive industry have been replaced by clones.

Nissan’s Carlos Ghosn is idolized in Japan for turning the ailing carmaker around; he even starred in a manga. Forming an alliance with Renault was also a very successful movement, allowing for parts sharing and cost-cutting while giving each carmaker its own distinct character and, in the process, churning out some pretty driver-oriented cars such as the Nissan GT-R or the Renault Sport Megane and Clio.

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