I never paid much attention to the Mazdatrix advertisements in the back of Road and Track -- not even after buying my RX-7 in 1985. There was something about the name "Mazdatrix" which seemed lightweight; too cutesy. I figured it was just another boutique for voodoo gear shift knobs, and mudflaps that said "Mazda" on them. Reading this list changed all that. Many of us are long-time customers and swear by Mazdatrix. There are also some of us who swear at Mazdatrix. Either way, Mazdatrix seems to be a significant player in the world of rotary cars.

   Business travels brought me to California, and unforeseen circumstances left me with most of a day free. The weather sucked (as Southern California weather goes). It was about 51 degrees and raining. I had a rental car, so I called Mazdatrix and told them I wanted to come out, "just to look around." The nice lady on the phone gave me directions and said it would be a good day to do so. Business was light. She warned me that there would be standing water from the rain, but not to worry about it. I didn't. The Lincoln Town Car I had rented was Coast Guard approved as a boat, and it gave the impression of floating, even on the driest of days.

   Mazdatrix is located in an industrial park pretty close to Long Beach California, and only a minute or two off of the San Diego Freeway, a name which has roots in an early Mayan phrase, the literal translation of which is: "The horse runs, and yet does not move." When you enter the building the first thing you notice are two rotary gizmos on the counter; one on each side. Each is made up of a side housing and a rotor housing laying flat to look like a swimming pool. Inside is a rotor, complete with eccentric shaft pointing straight up. You can grab the shaft and rotate it, watching the tips of the rotor trace their paths around the interior of the housing. One rotor housing is a standard set-up. The other is a peripheral port design. Neat! Looking back toward the door, there is a three-rotor engine made up of 13B housings, and another motor set up with a Weber carb. To the left is a fairly large waiting area (complete with all the right magazines). In back are the offices. To the right is the shop.

   "May I help you?"

   Hmm. It would have been one thing if I had called ahead and made an appointment to interview Dave Lemon (the founder and owner of Mazdatrix), but I hadn't. I toyed with the idea of asking for a quote on putting a 20B in the Lincoln, but that would have led nowhere. I didn't know who I was speaking to, and they didn't know me, so I introduced myself and asked if Dave was around. As it turned out, Dave was working on the company web page, and was willing to take some time to chat.

   I have to admit to being a bit shy about talking to Dave. People who really know what they are talking about make people like me -- who often don't have a clue -- nervous. We don't want to seem too ignorant, but in fact, on a relative scale, we are. I guess my worst fear is being somehow chastised for not knowing more. Further, several posts to the net had characterized Dave as being, well, a little gruff. As it turns out Dave has a low voice which doesn't change pitch very much (he says everyone in his family is like that). Even without trying, he can sound mildly menacing over the phone. If you are there with him, you can see that he is smiling, animated, and genuinely concerned about your problems.

   You'd never know it by looking at him, but Dave describes himself as a "child of the 60's," and said he "did all the Vietnam war era stuff." Apparently he experienced the era quite fully. Back then he had hair almost down to his belt, and an attitude to match. He has been into mechanical things for as long as he remembers. In his pre-teen years he messed with bicycles, and created a lawn mower right out of "Home Improvement." The engine was ported and polished, and there were flames painted on the side (insert Tim Allen's ape noises here). He has been overhauling motors since he was 14.

   Born in California, Dave spent his teen years in Maryland. He went to Walt Whitman High School near Bethesda, and then to the University of Maryland where he did two years of mechanical engineering and a year and a half in computer science. Cold weather is not his thing (he was wearing gloves in his office when I spoke to him), so in the early 70's he moved back to California, earning a degree in Operations Research and Statistics from the business school at Long Beach State University. He still had the hair, and even though he gave the professors fits, he managed to earn top grades, so they didn't complain. They were, however, surprised one day when he came to class reconfigured as a young business type; haircut, suit, the whole enchilada. He was scheduled for a job interview with Douglas Aircraft and knew he would have to change his image if he were to be a serious contender. Dave is not the kind of guy to get into philosophical angst over something that needs to be done. He just does it.

   As it turns out, corporate life was not his style. So after a few years, he made plans to open a service shop for British cars. By the time he left Douglas, the shop was ready to go. He says it was full from day one--servicing MGs, Jags, Healeys, and even the occasional Jensen. The shop took in enough money for Dave to go racing.

   By this time Dave had married Robbie (the nice lady who answers the Mazdatrix phone). They were a real racing couple. (Dave started autocrossing when he was still at the University of Maryland in 1967, got involved with SCCA events, then IMSA pro racing in an RX-3. He did a year in a Trans Am Pontiac, then raced a tube-frame Trans Am RX-7. He also participated in the Escort SCCA series for a few years.) Robbie proudly points to the motor home parked in the back of the shop--a veteran of 24 trips across the country.

   Maybe it was from his early days in racing, or the experience with British cars, but Dave just flat out hates piston engines. "Just did 'em too long," he says. As the story goes, he was sitting in the pits at Sears Point one day. His engine had blown up again, and he was watching the rotary cars going around..... and around..... and around. He started talking to the rotary racers and learned that they were getting two or three seasons out of an engine. Dave was lucky to get ten races out of his. Then he found out how little the rotaries cost to rebuild. It hit him:

   "Rotaries are loud, fast, cheap -- and they win. I am doing this wrong."

   The next week, he sold his race car and started working on the IMSA RX-3. The following year the shop started working on RX-7s. For awhile, there were actually two separate operations going. As soon as the rotary business caught on, he closed the British car business. Mazdatrix was born. This was around 1982. The business has grown about 25% each year since then.

   The name of the company is a combination of "Mazda" and "matrix," a ploy that would result in a yellow pages listing under "Mazda," without ruffling anyone's feathers. As originally conceived, the "matrix" consisted of on-site service, products produced in-house, and rotary oriented items from other manufacturers. Dave figured this one-stop shopping approach would give the company stability, and provide a breath of solutions and services not available elsewhere. Also, problems uncovered while servicing customer's cars lead to the development of Mazdatrix products.

   Racing is still in Dave's blood. You should see the glint in his eyes when he talks about being clocked at 166 on the banking at Daytona in the RX-3. The cars pictured in the Mazdatrix catalog are all being driven by Dave -- probably after late nights of preparation and many miles traveled. One year Robbie and Dave did 17 races, and they realized it was time to change priorities. That must have been around 1983 because their daughter is now thirteen and their son is nine. It was time to concentrate on the business.

   As it turns out, the adrenaline rush of racing was actually necessary for balance in Dave's life. After quitting, and after the sprint to get Mazdatrix established, Dave started experiencing a loss of energy. He would fall asleep at work and display symptoms of Narcolepsy. The doctors seemed unable to help. He went to a shrink who announced that he had been clinically depressed all his life -- citing his vocal patterns and tiredness as symptoms. Dave, in his typical direct, race-driver fashion, said to her, "Lady, you are so full of crap you shouldn't be allowed to practice medicine." Eventually, he went to an "alternative medicine" Doctor, and learned that he was intolerant of carbohydrates. He started on a new diet. The next morning he came to work, and people hardly recognized him. The old energy was back.

   Currently Mazdatrix is a five-person operation. On a busy day they handle about 200 phone calls on five lines. Robbie and Dave are there every day, as is Geoff, Mike, and John. The company is run like a pit crew in that everyone has a specialty, but is also capable of taking over wherever needed -- including doing mechanical work in the shop. The first catalog was a hundred pages long and was published in 1989-90. Dave said he wrote most of it off the top of his head. Currently, the company responds to requests for 20-25 catalogs a day, and the business is now about 80% mail order. Ten percent is service and 10% is over-the-counter parts. About 10% of the parts are shipped out of the country, with the most frequent destinations being Europe, Canada, and (believe it or not) Curacao where there are about 15 active customers. I always thought Curacao was a liqueur, but turns out to be an island in the Caribbean.

   A lot of the over-the-counter business occurs during lunch hour, which is why you can't reach Mazdatrix by phone between twelve and one (Pacific time). At 4:30 in the afternoon the phones are again put off line, freeing up the staff for completing customer's cars, packing parts and catalogs -- and anything else that needs doing. Even though the mail-order phones shut down, the lights are often on well into the evening.

   Mazdatrix is housed in a building of about 10,000 square feet; 60% of that is shop space, and about half of that is taken up with service bays. Dave showed me around the place, starting out back where he keeps a few cars that he bought -- either to resell or to use for parts. Dave likes to keep these around, and he has a significant supply of used parts. But other than an invitation in the catalog to "call about used parts," it is not the main focus of the business.

   Dave knows rotaries. He says he has disassembled and rebuilt his race car engine on the table of the motorhome at trackside, so it is not surprising that a good deal of the shop is dedicated to building engines. One of the neatest toys there is an engine test stand with side-by-side mounts for both a 12A and 13B engine. Oil sumps are built into the stand, as is full instrumentation. He even has a six-port manifold set up with a carburetor for testing EFI engines. Initial break-in is done on every engine they build -- usually one to two hours, but it can be up to eight hours on an engine that is being built to go directly into hard service. Dave says he has never had an engine returned to him, and he credits this "test before shipping" policy for that.

   Next to the engine stand is a dyno, used to test the effectiveness of power-oriented modifications. Nearby there are roller cases full of used side housings, and a storage area for rotors. I didn't see any rotor housings, and Dave told me that he had hundreds and hundreds of side housings, but decent used rotor housings were much more difficult to come by. My guess is that there were fewer than twenty recycled rotor housings in the whole place.

   The next station contains a custom-built lapping machine, used for refinishing end and intermediate housings. The thing is about 5 feet in diameter, with a rotating table that looks like a clutch disc from the Queen Mary. It can resurface four housing surfaces at once. Finally, we come to the engine assembly area. Above that there is a loft, which holds about $100,000 in new parts. Next to that is another area containing a small sea of used stuff; carburetors, distributors, etc.

   Anyone who has contemplated ordering an engine from the Mazdatrix catalog knows that they offer a bewildering array of options based on the most frequently ordered configurations. Dave showed me a computer program (he writes his own) that he uses for on-the-spot quotes. Once you know the general characteristics of the engine you want, he pulls up a list of everything that goes into that engine. You want special apex seals? How about low compression rotors? Do you have to work to a limited budget? Would you like fries with that? Dave can punch it in and give you an accurate estimate over the phone. He is used to it. He gives about five engine quotes each day.

   I wanted to talk to Dave about the perception that Mazdatrix could be hard to deal with. I was cautious, but Dave has obviously thought a lot about it, and had some interesting insights. He started by pointing to a returned Tokico shock sitting on his desk. The customer had taken the shock to his mechanic -- who insisted it was the wrong one. Incompetent mechanics seem to be the bain of rotary car owners, and this guy was absolutely positive that it was the wrong shock. Dave paid to have the shock returned, and also paid for quick shipping of a replacement. As it turns out, the originally shipped part was correct. Time was lost for the customer, and Dave had to eat the rest of the shipping cost -- which was far greater than the profit on the shock. "What do I tell the guy?" Dave asked. "We authorized the return so I will have to eat the cost, but he really ought to know the truth." Quite a dilemma.

   To avoid delays (and situations like the above), Dave, Geoff and Mike have to do a lot of questioning when a customer says a part is not right. This necessity is a recipe for difficulties considering the technical nature of the products, and the widely varying mechanical experience of the customers--many of whom don't want to seem ignorant, but in fact may have limited understanding of mechanical terminology. Further, the hard core racers out there have a different set of priorities than street drivers. A single phrase (for instance "a handling problem") can have very different meanings. It takes patience and good will on both sides to come to an understanding of the situation--and the best path to a solution. Further, as one who spends a lot of time on the phone, I can verify that just figuring out whether or not a customer understands what you are asking is a difficult task. Unfortunately, a small percentage of people out there react to being questioned by getting belligerent -- figuring that the questions must mean that they are not being believed. "I said it didn't fit! That should be enough for you! The customer is always right!!"

   Sadly, it ain't always true. In the majority of cases, the customer just needs a better understanding of what is going on. So, the guys at Mazdatrix will do their best to figure out the problem and deal with it. However, company policy does not mandate that the staff has to stick with a rude or threatening customer--especially with the phones ringing off the hook on a busy day. Be nice to them and they will be nice to you.

   Although Dave designs and manufacturers some of the items in the catalog, Mazdatrix gets the majority of its items from other sources, including Mazda itself, Mazda Competition Parts, Racing Beat, and other specialty manufacturers. In fact, the majority of the catalog business is reselling other manufacturer's products. This can also cause headaches, as was the case with a special part -- built in California exclusively for another company, and sold through the Mazdatrix catalog. A call came in from a customer who said that the part didn't fit. It seemed impossible. Any problems in the past were caused by people trying to put the parts in backwards, or just needing a little coaching to get it right. After a whole lot of questions, Mazdatrix authorized the return... and the guy was right. The part didn't fit. A quick check of their stock revealed that the whole shipment from the intermediate supplier had the same hard-to-see goof in construction. Further, both the intermediate supplier and the original manufacturer were aware of the error. Neither had told Mazdatrix about it. Dave had three more of the units out there and called his customers -- luckily before they tried to install the parts. Sometimes it is tough to be the middle man, er, person.

   I asked Dave if he dreaded it each time the phone rang. He grinned and said there were very few problems considering the number of phone calls they handle each day. "Each time the phone rings, it's an adventure." He popped up the transaction records for the past few days -- an impressive list. A simple phone call from a shade tree mechanic who needs "the doohicky that fits next to the engine on the left side of the car" can take a long time. On the other hand, thousands of dollars worth of parts can be ordered in a minute or two by someone who knows what they need. I guess it averages out.

   Before leaving, I asked Dave about the future of Mazdatrix, especially considering that there is some question about rotary cars being manufactured in the coming years. Most of Mazdatrix's business is with 1st and 2nd generation cars. If the market for rotary parts and service dwindles, would Dave go back to working on piston engines? Not a chance.

   "I'll just do something else."

   I left Dave, and on the way back to the hotel I mulled over our conversation. He wasn't what I expected. On an average day he deals with the controlled chaos of telephones, walk-in traffic, manufacturing and servicing. He even takes time to read this list whenever possible. Mostly, he is a racer who knows business, and as soon as you get that image in your mind his directness makes perfect sense. More than anything else, the man loves rotaries. He has 20 years of his life dedicated to these unique engines, and his company is totally focused toward supporting those of us who feel the same.

   The rain had stopped, and it was one of those very rare times when the smog had been washed away, and you could see snow covered mountains east of the city.

   Nice.