Mazda MX-5 Cup goes global!

The tradition of spec racing with Mazda’s popular sports car, the MX-5 Miata, has become entrenched in racing culture in the U.S., with Spec Miata being one of the most successful club racing classes in North America. Spec Miata has even had a series of professional races and has also spread to other parts of the world. That tradition expanded with the third-generation MX-5 and the SCCA Pro Racing Mazda MX-5 Cup, known in 2015 as the Battery Tender Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by BFGoodrich Tires.

With the launch of an all-new MX-5 for 2016, MX-5 Cup is going global. Beginning in 2016, there will be multiple

Global Mazda MX-5 Cup series around the world in North America, Europe and Asia, all based on the fourth-generation Mazda MX-5 and prepared to the same specifications. And today, at the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show in Las Vegas, Mazda showed a mockup of the car. The top drivers from each series will meet at the end of the year at the Global Shootout at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. Continuing Mazda’s tradition of helping drivers advance up the racing ladder, the winner of that shootout will receive, among other prizes, a one-day test in Mazda’s SKYACTIV Prototype racecar that competes in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship.

“We’re excited to take the elements of success of the existing Mazda MX-5 Cup series, and introduce them to a new global audience,” says Masahiro Moro, Managing Executive Officer in charge of Global Sales, Marketing and Customer Service for Mazda Motor Corporation. “It has long been our goal to see Mazda fans around the world

competing in identical MX-5s, and the launch of the 2016 MX-5 Miata is the perfect time to make this goal a reality.”

Since its introduction in 1989, the MX-5 has been a popular racecar, with its first SCCA Club Racing National Championship coming in 1992 at the hands of Randy Pobst. Since then, MX-5 variants have won championships and races in a variety of club racing classes and in professional series such as IMSA’s Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge and SCCA Pro Racing’s Pirelli World Challenge Touring Car. However, thanks in large part to its popularity and the huge numbers sold, it has found huge success as the basis for spec racing classes.

“Since the first Mazda MX-5 Miata took the green flag back in 1990, the car has been the ideal platform for both veterans and rookies alike,” says John Doonan, director of motorsports for Mazda North American operations. “Because the MX-5 is inherently such a good car to drive, it is an ideal platform to learn basic and advanced racecraft, and this has made the professional MX-5 Cup series very successful to date.”

In a first for Mazda, the company will sell the Global MX-5 Cup racecars ready to race from a single supplier, instead of selling cars and kits for racers and teams to build on their own. Beyond the use of a 2.0-liter SKYACTIV-G engine, the other specifications of the racecar are yet to be determined. Mazda will begin testing

components this winter to determine the best modifications for safety, the suspension and drivetrain, with final specifications to be announced when the car is ready for ordering. The car that Mazda showed at SEMA and of which it released pictures is not necessarily how the final version of the car will be equipped nor how it will appear.

Aside from the test awarded the Global Shootout winner, sources at Mazda say the MX-5 Cup will remain a fundamental component of the Mazda SportsCar Racing Academy. It has been both a reward – winners of the Mazda Club Racer Shootout receive a scholarship to compete in the series – and also a propellant up the ladder, with series champs receiving scholarships to compete in another series on the ladder. 2014 MX-5 Cup Champion Kenton Koch is using his to compete in the IMSA Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda series in 2015.

The third-generation MX-5s will continue to be the competition vehicles for the 2015 Battery Tender Mazda MX-5 Cup Presented by BFGoodrich Tires, which kicks off its season at Sebring in March, before being relegated to club racing duty when the 2016 car comes on board.