Adding "woodpusher" to my vocabulary, by the way.
MX-5 Cup seems like the most chaotic fun you can have in a race car.
Photo by Darin McNeal
How to get quickly checkmated in MX-5 Cup? Race like a woodpusher–aka an unthinking novice in chess circles. MX-5 Cup is well suited for chess players, according to Rolex 24 At Daytona winner Sebastien Bourdais. He experienced his first taste of Mazda MX-5 Cup racing at the end of February on the street circuit of St. Petersburg.
“It’s nothing like I ever raced before,” Sebastien quickly admits. That’s a bold statement from someone who’s raced just about everything from Indy cars to GT sports cars to prototypes at some of the most storied venues around the world.
Sebastien Bourdais. Photo by Darin McNeal.
His first takeaway from racing the Mazda? “There’s no way to make up time if you’re late on power,” Sebastien says. “You have to find ways to maintain minimum speed, charge into the corners, but you really need to get back to the power quite early. Any kind of backing off the throttle once you commit to it absolutely kills momentum and time.”
As much as the gas pedal provided a challenge, the brake pedal did, too–specifically the ABS. Sebastien’s first MX-5 Cup race came during wet conditions on the St. Petersburg circuit that runs partially on an airport runway–complete with its super-slick painted lines.
“You get a lot of resistance [with the brake pedal] and nothing’s happening,” Sebastien says of braking across the painted lines. “It was tricky to get a feel for how much you could challenge the car on braking.”
However, Sebastien’s biggest surprise was the style of racing.
“It’s a very competitive field,” Sebastien says. “The gaps were small, and we didn’t help ourselves through qualifying. Starting in the middle of the pack, it was very close racing, which is not something we’re used to in a prototype or any kind of series, because there’s a lot of bumping, drafting. It’s a bit of a chess game, trying to position yourself and understand how you can make passes without taking anybody out.”
Photo by Darin McNeal.
Despite his wealth of experience and success, Sebastien made one notable blunder in his debut. Race officials penalized him during his first race after he “made a small mistake in braking” that resulted in contact with another driver. He had an 11th-place finish in the bag, but the penalty set him back to 27th. Under dry conditions in the second race, Sebastien charged from a 17th starting spot to a ninth-place finish without incident.
Overall, Sebastien called the MX-5 Cup weekend a fun experience, one where his MX-5 Cup car raised more than $40,000 for a great cause, Kart 4 Kids, which benefitted the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital. While Sebastien says racing an MX-5 Cup car didn’t necessarily help him much with where he is in his career, he sees how it could be a great steppingstone for making future racers–ones who hope to follow in the footsteps of NASCAR rookie phenom Connor Zilisch.
“You have to be extremely on point,” Sebastien says of racing a Mazda MX-5 Cup car. “You have to be precise, not only in your driving technique but also in repeatability. When you start to interact with a lot of cars in such close quarters, the room to get it right is very, very tiny. It’s a series that teaches you how to optimize your driving and be really on point and precise.”
Photo by Darin McNeal.
Adding "woodpusher" to my vocabulary, by the way.
MX-5 Cup seems like the most chaotic fun you can have in a race car.
It is an interesting series that has seen a number of full-pro hot shoes get behind the wheel only to finish down the order.
I wonder if they spent more time in the series than one or two races if we’d see them move toward the front of the pack, and how quickly they’d adapt?
In reply to Coniglio Rampante :
Yeah, you know it’s a stacked field when someone with his CV doesn’t run up front.
Colin Wood said:Adding "woodpusher" to my vocabulary, by the way.
MX-5 Cup seems like the most chaotic fun you can have in a race car.
I admit, I had to look up that one.
This sounds like how 125cc Gran Prix motorcycle racing. Ride around nose to tail all while planning your last lap move for the win.
Coniglio Rampante said:It is an interesting series that has seen a number of full-pro hot shoes get behind the wheel only to finish down the order.
I wonder if they spent more time in the series than one or two races if we’d see them move toward the front of the pack, and how quickly they’d adapt?
I think you hit the nail on the head. It takes time to acclimate to a different type of car and different style of racing. I remember when Tony Stewart started racing NASCAR. He didn't look so hot in his first tries. Tony seemed to figure it out, though.
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