{"id":582,"date":"2017-06-16T16:27:02","date_gmt":"2017-06-16T16:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=582"},"modified":"2017-10-24T16:28:39","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T16:28:39","slug":"robert-stout-takes-battery-tender-global-mx-5-cup-thriller-at-brickyard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2017\/06\/16\/robert-stout-takes-battery-tender-global-mx-5-cup-thriller-at-brickyard\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Stout Takes Battery Tender Global MX-5 Cup Thriller At Brickyard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Indianapolis, Ind. (16 June 2017)<\/strong> \u2013 After 45 minutes of flat out Battery Tender Global MX-5 Cup presented by BFGoodrich Tires racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the difference between getting the chance to kiss the bricks and missing out came down to just 0.0632-seconds.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Series rookie Robert Stout (No. 28 Lucas Oil Products\/Lucas Oil Racing TV\/SC Fuels McCumbee McAleer Racing) scored the razor thin win ahead of his teammate Patrick Gallagher (No. 29 Howard Pumping McCumbee McAleer Racing).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Nathanial \u201cSparky\u201d Sparks (No. 8 Sick Sideways Racing) came home third to score another Global MX-5 Cup podium result, advancing 15 positions from 18th to earn him the Battery Tender Hard Charger Award.\u00a0 The margin between third and fourth was so close, just 0.0021 seconds, that Sparky was incredulous that he had in fact taken the position until being invited to the podium post race.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>After starting from second on the grid, Stout took the lead from his McCumbee McAleer Racing teammate Gallagher on the second lap, heading the field for 25 of the 26 laps during the 45-minute race. The entire 45-minute race ran under green flag conditions from start to finish, and featured some 274 completed passes as the full field diced cleanly in the series first-ever run at the fabled Brickyard.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had worked together through qualifying and all of the practice sessions so it\u2019s great to have that with my teammates,\u201d said Stout. \u201cThe whole McAleer McCumbee Racing team acts like that \u2013 all genuine people and really good guys. I knew if we could get together then there was not a doubt in my mind we could walk away. We\u2019ve had an awesome car all week.\u00a0 In the top-10 anybody can win one of these races. But what an awesome car. Thank you to everybody at Mazda, Battery Tender, and BFGoodrich Tires \u2013 it was a really good race. I grew up 10 minutes from here so to win at Indianapolis Motor Speedway is freakin\u2019 awesome. I\u2019m loving it and it is awesome for everybody at Lucas Oil and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/lucasoilracing.tv\/\">lucasoilracing.tv<\/a>\u00a0they\u2019ve been behind me for so long.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Gallagher, who won the opening two races of the season at Barber Motorsports Park, was immediately in Stout\u2019s draft for the duration of the race. Gallagher looked to make a move in the closing moments of the race, but Stout maintained his edge at the checkered flag.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf it wasn\u2019t my teammate I think I could have got him,\u201d said Gallagher. \u201cI\u2019m racing against (Mark) Drennan right now (for the Mazda Road to 24 $200,000 Championship.) We won the first two races of the year and have a cushion. Stout had a bad first race at Barber and he\u2019s my teammate so I figured I would push him for the whole race and I would give it a shot on the last lap and if it wasn\u2019t there then I\u2019d just collect my points and keep this thing going.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile there was not only a battle for the final podium spot, but also a battle among rookies, all of whom have an eye on the $50,000 award on offer for the top-finishing rookie. Series rookies Bryan Ortiz and Matt Cresci were among the six-car fight for third.\u00a0Ortiz was scored sixth ahead of Cresci at the line.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was great fun,\u201d said Ortiz. \u201cI wish we could have worked a little bit better to stay with the guys up front but it was very close. I tried to play the cards right to be at the front on the last lap. But it didn\u2019t work out at the end. We had some contact. We\u2019ll prepare and get ready for\u00a0tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Patrick Wilmot, who held the rookie championship points lead heading into the Indianapolis event, suffered a mechanical failure with under five minutes remaining after running among the top-10.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Battery Tender Global MX-5 Cup presented by BFGoodrich Tires will stage Round 4 of the 2017 season\u00a0on Saturday at 5:10 PM ET, with live streaming set to once again be hosted at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/mazda\">www.facebook.com\/mazda<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Indianapolis, Ind. (16 June 2017) \u2013 After 45 minutes of flat out Battery Tender Global MX-5 Cup presented by BFGoodrich Tires racing at the Indianapolis Motor<span class=\"excerpt-hellip\"> [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":583,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-582","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\/582","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=582"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":584,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions\/584"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}