{"id":7028,"date":"2024-05-11T23:58:17","date_gmt":"2024-05-12T03:58:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=7028"},"modified":"2024-05-11T23:58:17","modified_gmt":"2024-05-12T03:58:17","slug":"thomas-wins-whelen-mazda-mx-5-cup-race-in-monterey-after-one-lap-dash-to-finish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/11\/thomas-wins-whelen-mazda-mx-5-cup-race-in-monterey-after-one-lap-dash-to-finish\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Wins Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup Race in Monterey After One Lap Dash to Finish"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONTEREY, Calif. (May 11, 2024)<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Round Five of the Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin featured a spectacular one-lap dash to the finish line at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on Saturday. Reigning series champion Jared Thomas (No. 96 JTR Motorsports Engineering) held off two of his teammates to take his first victory of the year by 0.079-second.<\/p>\n

The top three spots on the Round Five grid were locked out by JTR Motorsports Engineering cars, with Aaron Jeansonne (No. 24 JTR Motorsports Engineering) starting from pole. Jeansonne, Thomas and Nathan Nicholson (No. 56 JTR Motorsports Engineering) worked together for the first 30 minutes of the 45-minute race, but for the final 15 minutes, it was every man for himself.<\/p>\n

Just as Thomas began to take looks at Jeansonne, a full-course yellow was issued to remove Alex Bachoura (No. 33 Spark Performance) from the Turn Three gravel. The safety crew\u2019s response was quick enough that the race was able to resume and the white flag was displayed along with the green.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy spotter said they were dragging the car out pretty quick,\u201d Thomas said. \u00a0\u201cI’m like, \u2018this could be a green white checkered,\u2019 which is always super exciting. I wish we would have more of it because it\u2019s a great show. I thought \u2018just give me one more shot at it.\u2019 Sure enough, Aaron [Jeansonne] made a bobble in five, I got a run up the inside in six and cleared him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeansonne, who scored his first-ever Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup win at Laguna Seca last year, wasn\u2019t about to give up the spot that easy, especially at his home track. He tried to out-brake Thomas going into the final turn, but overshot it, and ran wide into the gravel. This enabled Nicholson to sneak by into second and nearly challenge Thomas for the win.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn’t know how big of a run he [Nicholson] was going to get there,\u201d Thomas said. \u00a0\u201cThankfully, it wasn’t enough, but he was close. He got to my bumper. So, it was a wild, wild MX-5 Cup race. That’s exactly how everybody likes to see it. I\u2019m excited to go out there for tomorrow’s race.\u201d<\/p>\n

The win is a big boost for Thomas\u2019 2024 season as he tries to become a three-time MX-5 Cup Champion and collect another $250,000 champion\u2019s check from Mazda.<\/p>\n

Nicholson couldn\u2019t be too upset about finishing second as it marked his debut appearance on the Mazda MX-5 Cup podium.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is awesome,\u201d Nicholson said. \u201cThe team could not have put us in better cars. We [JTR Motorsports Engineering team] were the ones to beat out there. The situation was a little tough with the green, white, checkered and a one lap shootout. Aaron [Jeansonne] went for the win and made a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nicholson was the runner-up in last year\u2019s Mazda MX-5 Cup Shootout and is eyeing the 2024 Rookie of the Year title and the $80,000 that comes with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big thing was the points for me, so I was actually content with third,\u201d Nicholson said. \u201cIf something happened, I was going to capitalize on it, and I did. I wasn’t going to try to force anything. I’m here for the long ride and that’s what I’m really focusing on.\u201d<\/p>\n

A driver who was thrilled to see the late yellow come out, and even more thrilled to see a one-lap dash to the finish was Tyler Gonzalez (No. 57 Saito Motorsports Group). The Sebring race winner had overheated his engine in practice and was concerned about any lingering damage it might have. The late yellow helped him catch the leaders and the single race lap to the finish helped him take the final step on the podium.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean it was definitely not the result we wanted, but I think that yellow at the end really saved us there,\u201d Gonzalez said. \u201cWe didn’t have the pace today. But overall, I think it was a pretty good result considering the circumstances. We almost blew our motor up in practice. It’s definitely down, but we’re doing everything we can to save the motor and you know, we’re still up here. That’s all that matters. At the end of the day, we’re happy and we\u2019ll just try and work on it tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nate Cicero (No. 83 McCumbee McAleer Racing), the other MX-5 Cup race winner at Sebring, finished fourth.<\/p>\n

After a year away from the series, Bryce Cornet (No. 99 Spark Performance) made a triumphant return to the series, finishing fifth.<\/p>\n

Jeansonne was able to recover from his Turn 11 mistake to finish sixth.<\/p>\n

The second Mazda MX-5 Cup race of the weekend at Laguna Seca takes place Sunday, May 12 at 11:35am ET. The race will be livestreamed on RACER.com and IMSA.tv.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MONTEREY, Calif. (May 11, 2024)\u00a0\u2013 Round Five of the Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin featured a spectacular one-lap dash to the finish line at [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7029,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7028","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\/7028","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=7028"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7030,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7028\/revisions\/7030"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}