{"id":510,"date":"2017-09-22T14:38:43","date_gmt":"2017-09-22T14:38:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=510"},"modified":"2017-10-24T15:25:06","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T15:25:06","slug":"patrick-gallagher-scores-seventh-global-mazda-mx-5-cup-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2017\/09\/22\/patrick-gallagher-scores-seventh-global-mazda-mx-5-cup-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Patrick Gallagher Scores Seventh Global Mazda MX-5 Cup Victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monterey, Calif.\u00a0 (22 September 2017)<\/strong> \u2013 After falling back in the pack at the start of the race, 2017 Battery Tender Global Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by BFGoodrich Tires champion\u00a0Patrick Gallagher (No. 29 McCumbee McAleer Racing) edged his friend and former roommate Robby Foley (No. 54 Hooverspeed) for the victory by all of .510-seconds on Friday\u00a0at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The race is part of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar event weekend as Global Mazda MX-5 Cup stages the final race of the 2017 season at the spiritual home of Mazda Motorsports.<\/p>\n

Even at just half of a second, the winning margin is large compared to most of the Mazda MX-5 Cup finishes so far this year. The win marked Gallagher\u2019s seventh victory of the 2017 season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just didn\u2019t get the start that I wanted – it was my fault – we were loose on the first lap and I went backwards instead of forwards on that first lap, just not being patient,\u201d said Gallagher, who will officially collect his trophy and $200,000 Mazda scholarship this weekend. \u201cI think we were back up to fourth or fifth after a few laps and then it gets harder and harder to get by guys getting closer to the front. Robby (Foley) and I were pretty equal. I got by him and then it was a knock down drag out fight for the lead. It was great, he\u2019s one of my best friends and was my roommate, and we still do a lot of stuff together. So it was tough, we\u2019d be getting into each other and then giving each other the thumbs up. It was hard but a lot of fun.”<\/p>\n

Gallagher\u2019s teammate Robert Stout (No. 28 McCumbee McAleer Racing) edged even closer to his $50,000 target as he scored third place to grow his gap over Bryan Ortiz (No. 4 Copeland Motorsports) in the rookie of the year battle. The winner in the rookie standings will emerge with a $50,000 Mazda scholarship prize as Ortiz and Stout entered the race just seven points apart.<\/p>\n

A back and forth battle saw Ortiz well placed in the closing stages of the race only to suffer a technical issue on the last lap of the race.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t care if we were in 15th or if we were in fifth, I just wanted to keep Ortiz with me,” said Stout. “We are very close in speed to each other so I was hoping we would have a close battle. I was able to hold off fourth for a long time and then I saw him go out. My goal was to just stay within one position of him. I was doing the math and as long as I stayed either in front or behind, I would be close enough to hopefully seal the deal\u00a0tomorrow. All year long, Ortiz has been great, he is one of the best drivers in the series. I have a lot of fun racing against him. He is aggressive and I love to race against someone who is like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making his debut in the Global Mazda MX-5 Cup post race ceremonies was Joey DaSilva (No. 07 Ives Motorsports), who scored the Battery Tender \u201cHard Charger\u201d Award after improving more positions than any other racer during the 45-minute race.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel great. I am still a little shaken up right now\u2014 I couldn’t believe it!\u201d said DaSilva of his Battery Tender Hard Charger win. \u201cI found out as soon as I was in the pits and I thought \u2018no way!\u2019 The race was really intense. These guys are amazing here and I don’t know how they can get around the track so fast. Hopefully I can learn something from them all as I continue my journey with the series.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the race weekend is the final on the regular season calendar for the Global Mazda MX-5 Cup, it is also the precursor for the big Mazda MX-5 Cup Global Challenge event at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca on October 13-15. The $110,00 two-race shootout will see the winner emerge with\u00a0 $75,000 in prize money, with the runner-up taking home $25,000 and third place set for $10,000.<\/p>\n

Early race leader Foley had that big prize in mind as he joined the fray this weekend looking to prepare for the Mazda Challenge weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was really upset to see the yellow because I had built up a pretty good lead,\u201d said Foley, who led the opening 12 laps of the race. \u201cPatrick (Gallagher) was better than me through Turn 4, he had a little more stable car. I kind of had a couple of opportunities to get the lead back but he covered it pretty well. We were going back and forth. It was overall a good run. We came here last minute and it is really just testing for the Challenge event here in a couple of weeks. So we will take what we learned and use it\u00a0tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The final race of the 2017 Battery Tender Global MX-5 Cup season will go green at 9:15 AM Pacific time on Saturday. Follow along at\u00a0http:\/\/mx-5cup.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monterey, Calif.\u00a0 (22 September 2017) \u2013 After falling back in the pack at the start of the race, 2017 Battery Tender Global Mazda MX-5 Cup presented [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":511,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-mazda-mx-5-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":555,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510\/revisions\/555"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}