Winding Road Racing Takes On MX-5 Cup

Fast-growing motorsports company expands its Mazda-based offerings.

"You can blame it all on Spec Miata, in a way," says Tom Martin, CEO of Winding Road Racing. "We formed our team in 2010 to run the week-long Targa Newfoundland tarmac rally. To qualify for Targa, our drivers – me included - had to have road-racing licenses. The simplest way to do that was to rent Spec Miatas and go to SCCA school. So, we did," says Martin. "The trouble began at those schools, because we realized that we absolutely loved racing Spec Miata. We started thinking that Targa was great as a bucket-list event, but we could sense that road-racing was a life-long pursuit," he notes.Winding Road Racing did go to Targa Newfoundland in 2011, where they won their class and had a great time, in a specially prepared BMW E30 M3. Martin says "We kept racing Spec Miata, while we built our Targa car. For club racing, we were lucky enough to partner with SM expert (and Spirit of Mazda winner) Dave Wheeler. Dave showed us the benefits of an arrive-and-drive type of program."