{"id":8737,"date":"2026-01-23T10:45:36","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T15:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=8737"},"modified":"2026-01-28T10:47:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T15:47:06","slug":"noah-harmon-earns-first-mazda-mx-5-cup-victory-in-spectacular-daytona-fashion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/23\/noah-harmon-earns-first-mazda-mx-5-cup-victory-in-spectacular-daytona-fashion\/","title":{"rendered":"Noah Harmon Earns First Mazda MX-5 Cup Victory in Spectacular Daytona Fashion"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Jan. 22, 2026)<\/strong> \u2013 Since 2021, Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin has never disappointed when it comes to outstanding racing at Daytona International Raceway. The start of the 2026 season continued this trend with another photo finish, where Noah Harmon (No. 12 Hendricks Motorsports) won his first-ever Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup race by 0.039-second over Justin Adakonis (No. 23 McCumbee McAleer Racing).<\/p>\n

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A record 45 cars took the green flag for Thursday\u2019s Round One race at Daytona, so it\u2019s not surprising that the lead pack consisted of roughly 16 cars running nose-to-tail for 45 minutes. That translated into a gaggle of eight cars crossing the finish line in a pack, with the first six cars covered by less than 0.15-second as they raced across the finish line.<\/p>\n

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Two favorites to win the race had problems early on that brought them to pit lane for repairs and cost them laps. Gresham Wagner (No. 5 JTR Motorsports Engineering) got hit and spun around entering the Le Mans Chicane. He eventually continued but was forced to make a trip to his pit box for checks.<\/p>\n

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Reigning champion and race polesitter Jeremy Fletcher (No. 22 McCumbee McAleer Racing) also endured some hard hits early on and even got two wheels in the air at one point. This ultimately brought him onto pit lane with damaged suspension.<\/p>\n

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It was Harmon\u2019s teammate Westin Workman (No. 21 Hendricks Motorsports) who led the field to the white flag. Traditionally that is not where one wants to be to win the race and Workman was more than happy to give up the spot to Adakonis. He continued to lead the field through the Le Mans Chicane with the Hendricks teammates on his bumper.<\/p>\n

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Harmon, in third, presumed it would be his job to push Workman to the win, but the pair ended up splitting Adakonis coming to the finish line. Once that happened, it became a free-for-all for the rest of the pack, deciding to go low with Harmon or high with Workman.<\/p>\n

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At the line it was Harmon, by 0.039-second over Adakonis.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI came out (of the Le Mans Chicane) in third,\u201d Harmon said. \u201cI knew I had a good shot. I could see a gap behind me and didn\u2019t think they\u2019d get a run. I had my teammate, Weston [Workman] ahead of me and I was committed to helping him. I came out of NASCAR Four. Justin [Adakonis] moved up and I cut left, and I got a push from Julian [DaCosta] and rode it all the way to the line.\u201d<\/p>\n

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After narrowly missing out on Rookie of the Year honors last season and starting the week at Daytona with mechanical issues and a poor qualifying result, Harmon couldn\u2019t have guessed he\u2019d be standing on the top step of the podium Thursday evening.<\/p>\n

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The win is the first of his MX-5 Cup career and the first for Hendricks Motorsports.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI’m so happy right now,\u201d Harmon said. \u201cThis night race, I’ve gone from watching it to doing it the last three years but haven’t even come close to winning. This is the one I would have wanted to win over any other race on the schedule. So, it means so much to me. All my family’s here and all my friends are here. It is so cool and I can’t thank everybody at Cube3 and Hendricks for making it even possible to be here today.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Starting fourth, Adakonis was surprised to lose Fletcher, his drafting teammate.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI didn’t know he [Fletcher] had an issue,\u201d Adakonis said. \u201cI was looking for him the whole time, but I really didn’t know until I saw him on the last lap and we were lapping him.\u201d<\/p>\n

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He may have narrowly missed out on the win, but Adakonis was still happy to start his sophomore season with a podium.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI didn’t see Noah [Harmon] on the bottom,\u201d Adakonis said. \u201cI thought I’d got Weston [Workman] covered off and then I saw Noah and thought \u2018Shoot, man. I missed that one,\u2019 but it was super fun.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe had issue with the water temps the whole race, so I had to keep going out to the front and leading to keep them cool,\u201d he added. \u201cIt kept spiking up and down and I was just trying to manage it. So long as long as I was up front, I was good. It was a fun race and thanks to all the MMR guys, they gave me a really good car, and Marcus [Gregory] for spotting and Dan [Lawrence] for working on the car.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Gossett started the race in seventh but moved up and down the lead pack each lap and couldn\u2019t be sure he\u2019d be in the right spot at the finish.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI would move back to 10th and then I’d go back to first,\u201d Gossett said. \u201cThen, I’d go back to 10th and then back to first. It was madness! I’d be sad. I’d be happy. It was a roller coaster! I don’t even know how we ended up in third at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Now starting his sophomore season, the third-place result is Gossett\u2019s first podium finish.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI had the bottom line, and then, in the end, I chose the high line,\u201d Gossett said. \u201cJared [Thomas] behind me chose the bottom line. I think I made the right decision. I definitely flew around everybody on the outside! So yeah, a good start to the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Thomas would go on to finish fourth, and Julian DaCosta (No. 95 BSI Racing) completed the top five.<\/p>\n

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Harmon\u2019s run from 17th on the grid to first at the finish would normally be enough to claim the Penske Shocking Performance Award, but not with Cam Ebben (No. 55 Advanced Autosports) in the race! The rookie had a mechanical issue in qualifying and opted to change to new tires for the race, which automatically puts him last (45th) on the grid. The third-generation racer fought his way through the field and picked up 22 positions to finish 23rd.<\/p>\n

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This season Gossett is racing with his twin sister Ellie (No. 77 BSI Racing), who took home the highest finishing female driver award in her debut MX-5 Cup race by finishing 32nd.<\/p>\n

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Longtime MX-5 Cup driver Peter Atwater (No. 26 JTR Motorsports Engineering) finished 19th and earned the Takumi Award for the highest finishing driver over the age of 40.<\/p>\n

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Round two of Mazda MX-5 Cup is set for 10am ET, Friday, January 23, and will be streamed live on the IMSA and RACER YouTube channels.<\/p>\n

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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Jan. 22, 2026) \u2013 Since 2021, Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin has never disappointed when it comes to outstanding racing at [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8738,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,9,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-feature","category-mazda-mx-5-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8737","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=8737"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8739,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8737\/revisions\/8739"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}