{"id":8635,"date":"2025-10-10T14:46:26","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T18:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=8635"},"modified":"2025-10-28T14:47:33","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T18:47:33","slug":"new-faces-on-final-whelen-mazda-mx-5-cup-podium-of-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/10\/new-faces-on-final-whelen-mazda-mx-5-cup-podium-of-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"New Faces on Final Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup Podium of 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Parker Delong scores first win; Jeremy Fletcher crowned champion<\/em><\/p>\n

BRASELTON, Ga. (Oct. 10, 2025)<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 The 2025 Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin season ended\u00a0in its traditional way: a wild last lap that had everyone second-guessing who would win at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.<\/p>\n

The winner of that one lap sprint to the finish was Parker DeLong (No. 42 Parker DeLong Racing) who won the first Mazda MX-5 Cup of his career.<\/p>\n

There was no guesswork needed when it came to the championship. By taking the start and having several cars drop out of the race early, Jeremy Fletcher (No. 22 McCumbee McAleer Racing) secured the 2025 Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup Championship and the $250,000 prize that comes with it.<\/p>\n

Fletcher\u2019s only challenger for the title, Nathan Nicholson (No. 56 Advanced\u00a0Autosports), retired halfway through the race with mechanical trouble, further securing his championship.<\/p>\n

It seems that since the championship was settled, the Mazda MX-5 Cup field decided that drivers without a race win should tussle for victory.\u00a0Only five laps into the 45-minute race, the top six cars were all drivers without a MX-5 Cup win to their name. That pack included three notable rookies: Helio Meza (No. 27 BSI Racing), Noah Harmon (No. 7 BSI Racing) and Justin\u00a0Adakonis\u00a0(No. 23 McCumbee McAleer Racing).<\/p>\n

The leader of that pack when the first full-course caution came out, however, was Nicholson, who needed maximum points to steal Fletcher\u2019s championship.<\/p>\n

It came as a shock, when, during the yellow, Nicholson slowed to a stop on track. He jumped out of his car to check the battery and under the hood, but it was no use, his day was done.<\/p>\n

When the race restarted, it was Harmon at the front, dueling with fellow rookie\u00a0Marcello\u00a0Paniccia\u00a0(No. 19 Saito Motorsports Group). Soon DeLong was on the scene to crash the party.\u00a0DeLong scored his first series podium at Road Atlanta last year and was on form once again this year.<\/p>\n

He took the lead just before the second and final full-course caution came out.<\/p>\n

The track crew worked quickly to clean up the accident scene and there was enough time left on the clock for a single-lap dash to the checkered.<\/p>\n

Paniccia\u00a0was all over DeLong\u2019s bumper but waited until Turn 10 to make his move. Delong took a defensive position, so\u00a0Paniccia\u00a0tried\u00a0braking deeper on the outside. His car got unsettled and he dropped a wheel off track on corner exit.\u00a0Paniccia\u00a0needed to lift to keep his car straight and DeLong was home free to take his first-ever MX-5 Cup race win.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was amazing,\u201d DeLong said. \u201cWe’ve worked\u00a0really hard for\u00a0this. I was fast here last year, and we had good pace all weekend. Yesterday, we struggled a little bit and made some mistakes, but we got a good night\u2019s\u00a0rest and\u00a0came for the win today.\u201d<\/p>\n

The winner circle was an emotional one. PDR is small team run by Parker and his father Bill. They had a large group of family in attendance for the finale.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve worked so hard,\u201d DeLong said.\u00a0\u201cNo one\u00a0understands how much work we put in, and it’s just me and my family doing this.\u00a0This\u00a0really means a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harmon followed DeLong across the line by 0.119-second. While it was great to end the season on the podium, it wasn\u2019t enough to surpass Meza for Rookie of the Year honors. He did, however, secure the team championship for BSI Racing with his runner-up result.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was definitely a wild one,\u201d Harmon said. \u201cIt was\u00a0kind of a classic MX-5 Cup race to finish the season, so I was super happy with it and everyone at BSI\u00a0who\u00a0put in a lot of\u00a0work and I can\u2019t\u00a0thank\u00a0everybody enough. Thanks to Cube3 and\u00a0Streetside\u00a0Classics for even making it possible. I think there were a lot of moments that could have been better this season, but it\u2019s nice to go out on a high.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adakonis\u00a0has learned a lot from teammate Fletcher this year and it paid off Friday at Road Atlanta with his first MX-5 Cup podium.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy\u00a0teamate\u00a0Jeremy\u00a0Fletcher\u00a0was\u00a0really helpful\u00a0in\u00a0that race\u00a0helping me\u00a0navigate through traffic, he has been helping me all year with\u00a0that.\u00a0To have him there with me in the pack after starting 12th was great. Thanks to the MMR guys, they have been giving me good stuff all\u00a0year,\u00a0so it has been a long-time coming and it is great to get a podium. I’m glad we were able to get it done today. It is great to end the season like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finishing fourth, Meza was able to stay ahead of Harmon in the point standings and earn the Rookie of the Year title.<\/p>\n

Two-time MX-5 Cup Champion Jared Thomas (No. 96 JTR Motorsports Engineering) completed the top five.<\/p>\n

There is still one more race left for MX-5 Cup, but it\u2019s not a points race; the series returns to Martinsville Speedway, October 23, for a money race, where the winner receives $25,000.<\/p>\n

All races from the 2025 Mazda MX-5 Cup championship are available to watch on demand on the IMSA and RACER YouTube channels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Parker Delong scores first win; Jeremy Fletcher crowned champion BRASELTON, Ga. (Oct. 10, 2025)\u00a0\u2013 The 2025 Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin season ended\u00a0in its [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8636,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8635","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\/8635","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=8635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8637,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8635\/revisions\/8637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}