In his second stint as a car owner, Larry Mason made a successful return to the cockpit in 2012 by earning a third place finish in SCCA national points in the Southern Pacific Division. The result was built on the strength of three podium finishes in four races. The Formula Mazda class has seen numerous top drivers pass through its ranks over the years and is a stout and reliable race car.

One of the main benefits of becoming a car owner is having the control and flex-ibility when it comes to

Mason Finishes The Season Third In National Points!

December—2012

Volume 25, Number 3

Mason Racing News

Inside this issue:

Appearances 2

Fitness Focus—Tips From Your ACE-Certified Personal Trainer — Larry Mason

2

Team LMR on Facebook and Twitter

3

Tech Tidbits—Team LMR Formula Mazda Gearbox

4

Join Team LMR 4

scheduling races and spe-cial events. Exciting plans for 2013 are being crafted right now that may include a sponsor appreciation

Larry Mason took his new Formula Mazda to three podiums in four races, finished third in National points in his division and qualified for the prestigious SCCA Runoffs! Photo credit: Dennis Baer Your Name

Here!

Ask us how at LMRUSA.com

track day where you as a marketing partner could get seat time. Stay tuned for more info or if inter-ested contact Larry today!

For the second year in a row, I was a member of Team USA at the ITU Du-athlon World Champion-ships. However, the week before Larry and I left for Europe, I had a cycling accident at my final prep race that nearly toppled that dream. However, with some determination, faith, and a lot of intrusive (and sometimes painful) testing, I was cleared to travel and race (albeit carefully) by my personal medical team less than 24 hours before our flight left. It was great to know

that Team USA had its own medical team on site so I knew I would be well taken care of should any-thing happen out of the country. Upon arrival in Luxem-bourg (to then travel by team bus to Nancy, France), we found that the luggage for all the plane passengers did not transfer from CDG Airport in Paris. No suitcases, no bike case, nothing but what we had in our carry-on bags (which wasn’t much). We received our

Sonia’s View From The Passenger’s Seat items 2 days later, just in time to make the bike course practice ride. Unfortunately, for the first time ever I had a flat tire (must have been all those cobblestones I took to get to the start of the practice ride) and my ride ended before it got going. We had a parade of na-tions and opening cere-monies; these made us all feel like we were at the Olympics! Race day, continued on page 3

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Thanksgiving has come and gone; however, a few extra pounds may still be lingering. Many weight loss pundits preach counting calories of the food you eat—and there’s nothing wrong with that. But what about the calo-ries you burn through dai-ly physical activity? How do you get an accurate number for that? The best way is by completing tests for this in a lab setting. For most of us, that’s not going to happen. Typically the treadmills and bikes in the gym have calorie

counters but I’ve found that some of them can be quite optimistic in their numbers. As long as you factor that in, you’re still getting a number that you can use in your daily(?) fitness activities.

Here’s another way to lis-ten to your body and count calories. A simple and inexpensive Polar heart rate monitor such as the FT7 works great for this and also is compati-ble with most gym equip-ment. The setup is straightforward. Enter your user information and

Fitness Tips From Your ACE-Certified Personal Trainer — Larry Mason

press the start button. The FT7 gives you choices of screens to view such as calories burned, heart rate (HR) (bpm or % of Max), and even has a graphical zone pointer to let you know which train-ing zone you’re in (fat burn, aerobic fitness, etc.). At the conclusion of your exercise session, the FT7 gives you a summary of session time, calories burned, HR (avg & Max), and time in the fitness and fat-burning zones. With the optional Flow-Link unit you can transfer

your data to: www.polarpersonaltrainer.com where you can track your progress over time, join fitness challenges or create your own. It’s a cool motivational tool. I personally use this often.

Remember to always check with your physician before starting any exer-cise program. If you expe-rience pain - stop! For more information or for a FREE no-obligation fitness consultation, contact Larry at:

info@LMRMC.com.

Appearances

Fitness Focus

As Polar Brand Ambas-sadors, both Larry and Sonia were proud to rep-resent Polar and edu-cate sales consultants and fitness enthusiasts as a lead-in and during the November Iron Girl women’s running event in Del Mar, California.

The first stop was at REI in San Diego to show off the latest Polar RC3 GPS watch. This is the first Polar monitor ever to have GPS built into the wrist unit. Benefits of this unit include its slim

and lightweight design, 12 continuous hours of GPS use, running index (measures efficiency) and numerous Smart Coaching features.

At the Iron Girl event, the Masons set up the Polar booth in the expo area and were there to an-swer questions as well as raffle off two Polar heart rate monitors. One of the competitors who came by had visited the booth last year and upon Larry’s recommendation had purchased an FT60.

She absolutely loved it and was using it for her race this year. Although many of the competitors were drawn to the new RC3 GPS watch, we found that many didn’t actually need GPS as they tended to run the same loop all the time or do track workouts. For that aspect we let them know about the foot pod accessory that would give them speed, cadence, dis-tance and stride

length.

Lots of brochures were handed out and Sonia even competed in the 5k portion and finished 14th out of 101 (AG)!

Larry shows off his RC3 GPS watch at the Polar booth in Del Mar, CA. Photo by Sonia Mason

I knew I would not be as competitive as I was last year because of the unex-pected injuries I sus-tained, so I had no illu-sions as to my perfor-mance. The distance was also twice as long as what I did last year, and it was an even more challenging course. In fact, we were told that this bike course was the toughest seen for any ITU World Champion-ship. Larry and I had a strategy session the day before on course and he showed me how to take the corners for the maxi-mum speed and safety. I really enjoyed the cycling portion as there were steep inclines and picture postcard scenery; I saw

Larry several times along the course as he cheered all the Team USA athletes. It was wonderful coming across the finish line giv-en what it took to get there. That evening, we

Sonia’s View, continued

enjoyed a wonderful post-race dinner party where we made friends with ath-letes from all over the world.

Team LMR on Facebook and Twitter!

Team LMR has launched a Facebook Fan Page as well as a Twitter account. During the off-season, posts will be coming out about the upcoming sea-son preparations as well as some fun contests where viewers can win prizes.

“We’re in the ‘soft launch’ phase right now as we ramp up for the 2013 rac-ing season,” said Team owner Larry Mason. “The

plan is to have more time-ly updates as well as posts from race week-ends and other events. This is also an opportunity to obtain instant feedback from our fans. The ulti-mate goal is to provide content that is valuable and timely to Team LMR fans worldwide.”

To help implement this strategy, feedback from fans will be solicited and perhaps some prizes will

be awarded for top ideas.

If you have any requests for content you’d like to see or read about on the Team LMR Facebook fan page or Twitter account please log in today and let your voice be heard. Re-member we can’t imple-ment what we don’t know about.

To access the Team LMR Facebook fan page, go to: Face-

book.com/TeamLMRUSA

For the Team LMR Twitter account, go to: https://twitter.com/TeamLMRUSA

Left: Sonia is hap-py to finish the 2012 ITU Duathlon World Champion-ships in Nancy, France.

Above: Larry and Sonia share a mo-ment together after her success-ful race.

Photos courtesy of Larry Mason

In this column, Larry will be taking you on a virtual tour of the technical as-pects of the Team LMR Formula Mazda. The man-ual transmission for the FM is a Hewland MK9 manufactured in England. Shifting is done in the standard H-pattern with first gear being down and to the left and 2nd-5th to the right. Reverse is down an up to the left. Although there is a clutch for the gearbox, it’s typically only used for leaving the pits in first gear. All other shifts during the race are

done without using the clutch with just a short “breathe” on the throttle for upshifts and utilizing the heel/toe downshift technique whereby the brake and gas pedal are both used simultaneously. A slight blip of the throttle helps to smooth the downshifts by rev match-ing the next lowest gear and also helps with the overall forward to rear-ward weight balance of the car. Furthermore, a smooth technique here also extends the working life of the internal gearbox

Tech Tidbits—An Inside Look at the Team LMR Formula Mazda Gearbox

compo-nents.

The hard-ened steel straight-cut gears are shift-ed and engaged by the shift forks (bronze color on top right) and dog rings. Regular mainte-nance is required. In this photo, the layshaft on the left is what broke at the

Join Team LMR today!

Team LMR is actively seeking marketing partners to join

us as we race towards an SCCA National Championship and

enter the 2013 Firestone Indy Lights Championship. This

series is the final step in the “Mazda Road to Indy!”

YOUR NAME HERE! Find out how your business can gener-

ate positive Return on Investment by joining Team LMR—

please contact Larry Mason today!

Thank you for your support.

We Welcome Your Feedback!

Contact us at:

info@LMRMC.com

Find us at: Facebook.com/TeamLMRUSA

Twitter.com/TeamLMRUSA

Youtube.com/TeamLMRUSA

We look forward to hearing from you soon!

Web Special—If you’d like to be notified of when the next MRN Newsletter will be posted online, then send an email to info@LMRMC.com. You’ll receive an email with a direct link to the newsletter. You can opt out at any time. We will not rent, sell, or loan out your email address.

“Unless you’re leading, the scenery never changes.” Larry Mason

VISIT

WWW.LMRUSA.COM

AND CHECK OUT WHAT’S NEW!

Our goal is to deliver maximum positive Return On Investment for our clients by cultivating long-term partnerships with the utmost integrity, concern, passion and commercially-viable, value-oriented results. Copyright © 2012 LMR All Rights Reserved

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race in Texas this season.

The gear stack inside the transmission From bottom to top on left shaft is 1st-5th and reverse. Photo credit: Larry Mason