MX-5 Cup Back in Action at Miller Motorsports Park
TOOELE, Utah - After a month of rest and relaxation, the SCCA Pro Racing Playboy Mazda MX-5 Cup is eager to return to the track and discover the next twist in the 2009 Championship. For Round Eight of the 10-race season, the series heads to Miller Motorsports Park, just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah, a track at which the MX-5 Cup has stopped every year since its 2006 debut.
Start of last year's MX-5 Cup race at Miller Motorsports Park (Lievonen image).
The Championship point
standings were shaken up following Round Seven at Road America, as
then-leader Marc Miller was
penalized 29 points for contact during the race. The penalty dropped Miller to
second in the Championship and promoted Todd Lamb to the lead. With three races
remaining, Lamb now leads Miller by eight points. Every driver will be allowed
to drop his or her lowest scoring race from their point total at the end of the
season. If Lamb were to drop his non-appearance at Road Atlanta, and Miller his
penalized Road America
race, Lamb would still be leading Miller in the Championship by a healthy 37
points. For Miller, the writing is on the wall: he needs to win and he needs
Lamb to have some bad races.
The numbers are certainly in
Lamb's favor; six race wins and five pole positions in the No. 84
AMG/Traqmate/Luna-C Racing MX-5. Including his lone race start in 2006, that
gives Lamb a career winning percentage of 75 percent. That"s better than any of
the previous MX-5 Cup Champions thus far, including Jim Daniels’ five wins in
the eight-race 2006 season. Expecting anything but more race wins from Lamb
this season is a stretch.
The overwhelming success of
Lamb and Atlanta Motorsports Group has left Team MER scratching their heads.
The team has produced the MX-5 Cup Championship-winning driver every season
since the series was created in 2006 (Daniels in 2006, Jason
Saini in 2007 and Eric Foss in 2008). But now, its top
candidate, Miller, who has worked as an engineer and driving coach for the team
since 2007, is running out of time to catch Lamb in the point standings. If
hard work alone could get them there, the battle for the Championship would go
down to the wire, but it will likely take a little magic and a little luck for
the No. 28 Team MER/MOCA/RaceNowForAutism/MMP MX-5 to beat Lamb to the Title.
There is one driver in the
paddock who can claim to have beaten Lamb, and that’s Justin Piscitell, who
beat Lamb to the Road America pole position in Round Eight. Driving the No. 89
ALARA/DAMG Racing MX-5, Piscitell snapped Lamb’s streak of pole positions by
taking the first of his career. The 20-year-old was unable to translate his
qualifying success into a podium finish at Road America, but with Miller’s penalty,
he was still able to make up ground in the Championship and is now only eight points
out of second place.
Zach Ply has really picked
up the pace in the second half of the season. The driver of the No. 27 Team
MER/Insight Beverage Co. MX-5 has scored two consecutive podium finishes and moved
into fourth in the Championship. Ply has already stated that he’s looking
forward to racing at Miller
Motorsports Park,
which reminds him of his home track, Autobahn Country Club.
After a rough couple of
races, Stan Wilson was finally able to show his true speed in the No. 92 Hale
Motorsports/NetEvidence/Alliance 1 MX-5 at Road America. Qualifying fourth, Wilson was in the hunt
for his first win for much of the race, but was eventually shuffled back to
fourth at the checkered flag. Though that might be a successful weekend in most
drivers’ books, Wilson left Wisconsin
disappointed, but looking forward to giving it another go in Utah.
Ara Malkhassian returns to
the MX-5 Cup grid once again after missing Round Eight. The driver of the No. 11
ALARA MX-5 looked like he had a second-place finish wrapped up at Miller Motorsports
Park last year, before a
last-lap incident dropped him to third. A fourth-place finisher here in 2006,
look for him to charge to the front once again.
An unusual schedule awaits
MX-5 Cup in Tooele, with the first official practice session taking place late
Thursday and only one practice session on Friday. Qualifying and the 45-minute
race will both take place on Saturday with little more than two hours between
sessions. The series Web site, www.mx-5cup.com
will offer live timing and notes for all official sessions as well as news and
results from throughout the weekend. The series is also on Twitter
@MazdaMX5Cup.
