MARTINSVILLE, Va. (Oct. 20, 2025) – The Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin regular season may be over, but there’s still one race left on the 2025 schedule. This week the series makes its return to Martinsville Speedway for the Virginia is for Racing Lovers 300.
The hugely competitive series stages just its second-ever oval event, this time taking place in the buildup to this weekend’s NASCAR weekend, which will also see the Craftsman Truck, Xfinity, and Cup Series all in action at the longest-serving NASCAR track on the schedule.
Once again $25,000 is on the line from Mazda and a mix of familiar and new faces are taking on the challenge of ‘the short track.’
Most notably, the Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup welcomes two-time Le Mans winner Earl Bamber (No. 31 Hendricks Motorsports) to the grid. The Kiwi has a long list of international sportscar racing achievements, but this will be the first time he’s ever raced on an oval, which he says is a bucket list item for him.
The newest Mazda MX-5 Cup champion, Jeremy Fletcher (No. 22 McCumbee McAleer Racing), will take another crack at Martinsville this year after a promising, but ultimately disappointing oval debut last year. After running in podium contention for most of the race, contact late in the race resulted in a 12th-place finish.
Also back is last year’s Martinsville runner-up, Westin Workman (No. 13 BSI Racing). The 2024 Mazda MX-5 Cup Rookie of the Year was leading the race when the final green flag restart came out but was nudged out of the way by the eventual winner, Jared Thomas.
A true oval ‘ringer’ on the entry list is Brandon Pierce (No. 2 McCumbee McAleer Racing). A regular in the zMAX CARS tour, Pierce finished eighth in last year’s race and had enough fun to come back.
Just like last year, even without a championship battle in play, there is a lot on the line as $25,000 and a Ridgeway clock will go to the winner, with further cash prizes paid out through 10th place.
Also mostly unchanged is the format; a 100-lap race divided into two 50-lap stages and caution laps are not counted during the first stage. A big change this year is the stage break inversion. A random fan will be chosen to draw a number between 1 and 10. The number drawn will be the position the top 10 invert to. For example, if the fan draws a five, the top five drivers on the grid will invert to start the second stage.
Calling the action for the livestream once again will be Tony LaPorta and Matt Yocum, with the addition of MX-5 Cup regular season announcer Shea Adam. The stream will be available on the IMSA and RACER YouTube channels beginning at 6pm ET on Thursday.