{"id":8759,"date":"2026-03-01T06:59:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T11:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=8759"},"modified":"2026-03-24T07:36:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T11:36:23","slug":"justin-adakonis-holds-off-jared-thomas-on-streets-of-st-pete-for-maiden-mazda-mx-5-cup-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/01\/justin-adakonis-holds-off-jared-thomas-on-streets-of-st-pete-for-maiden-mazda-mx-5-cup-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Adakonis Takes Maiden Mazda MX-5 Cup Win"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (March 1, 2026)<\/strong>\u00a0–\u00a0Justin Adakonis (No.23 McCumbee McAleer Racing) earned his first-ever Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin win on the streets of St. Petersburg and held off two-time series champion Jared Thomas (No. 96 JTR Motorsports Engineering) to do so.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Round Four race started with a long\u00a0caution to remove the heavily damaged cars of Matt Novak (No. 11 Advanced Autosports) and Jeremy Fletcher (No. 22 McCumbee McAleer Racing) but then commenced a long green-flag fight for the lead between Adakonis and Thomas.<\/p>\n

Adakonis led the way on the lap seven restart, but Thomas took over the spot with a daring side-by-side\u00a0moment from Turn Four through Turn\u00a0Nine. The following lap, Adakonis used the very same move to retake the lead from Thomas.<\/p>\n

The duo settled into a rhythm and began to pull away from Ethan Lampe (No. 31 Advanced Autosports), who was in his own fight with Saturday\u2019s race winner, Bobby Gossett (No. 44 BSI Racing). The\u00a0fight for the final podium spot enabled Adakonis and Thomas to pull away by more than three and a half seconds before another full-course caution came out.<\/p>\n

It was during this caution that Adakonis became concerned that he might have used up his car holding off Thomas and was now vulnerable to an attack from Thomas on the restart.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u00a0didn’t have much left in the car,\u201d Adakonis said. \u201cI kind of burned through my tires trying to pull away.\u00a0I just\u00a0had to\u00a0use everything I had left.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When the green flag waved with four and a half minutes left on the race clock, Adakonis took a defensive posture into Turn One. It worked, but behind them, Ethan Jacobs\u2019 (No. 99 JDH Racing) car came to a stop with damage in Turn Two. A disabled car meant a full-course caution was imminent.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Both drivers\u2019 teams were telling them\u00a0it was now or never, knowing a race-ending full-course caution would come out before the cars reached start\/finish.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Car Chief)\u00a0Stuart\u00a0[McAleer]\u00a0was yelling in my ear,\u201d Adakonis said. \u201cHe was like\u00a0\u2018got a car off, car off. Go, go, go!\u2019\u00a0Yeah.\u00a0I\u00a0figured his\u00a0[Jared\u2019s]\u00a0team would tell him too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew the yellow\u00a0was\u00a0gonna\u00a0come,\u201d Thomas said.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cI could kind of tell by yesterday,\u00a0with\u00a0the way they let us race all the way back to the incident\u2014I knew I had a few corners, so\u00a0I\u00a0tried the most of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thomas lunged inside of Adakonis entering the final turn, but slid wide, and Adakonis breezed past. He had momentum on his side and cruised to victory as the yellow flags came out and the race ended behind the safety car.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is amazing,\u201d Adakonis said.\u00a0\u201cIt was\u00a0really emotional. I kind of started to tear up on\u00a0that in lap. Everything\u00a0just hits\u00a0you. I got my parents in the stands and\u00a0saw them cheering.\u00a0I\u2019ve\u00a0got my girlfriend here on pit lane\u00a0too. I\u00a0can’t even describe\u00a0It\u2019s been\u00a0so much hard work and time and effort. I\u2019m\u00a0so proud\u00a0of\u00a0all these guys. MMR, they give me a great car all year. They believed in me and\u00a0I\u00a0finally got it done.\u201d<\/p>\n

With plenty of experience at St. Pete, Thomas knew there was no such thing as waiting for the right moment to lead the race. When yellows are likely, he wants to be out front, setting the pace.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this\u00a0place you can control\u00a0the race\u00a0from the lead,\u201d Thomas said.\u00a0\u201cI wanted to get there if I could\u00a0and\u00a0obviously starting sixth\u00a0was not ideal. I wanted to make my way\u00a0to\u00a0the front and kind of control if I could.<\/p>\n

\u201cJustin was quick, especially on the short runs, and he was very aggressive to come back at me.\u00a0So,\u00a0I made the choice:\u00a0I said,\u00a0\u2018let’s make this a two-car race.\u2019\u00a0I\u00a0bid my time, stayed in line, give him a push when\u00a0I\u00a0could, and\u00a0we\u00a0got away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lampe crossed the finish line in third, but in post-race technical inspection his car was found to have violated the rules for maximum camber, and he was moved to the back of the field. As a result, Gossett, who, early in the race, had a nasty brush with the wall on the exit of Turn\u00a014, was promoted to third.<\/p>\n

A special guest driver, Earl Bamber (No. 21 Hendricks Motorsports) just missed the podium and finished fourth. His fellow guest driver Sebastien Bourdais (No. 38 McCumbee McAleer Racing) finished ninth.<\/p>\n

For the second race in-a-row, Frankie Barroso (No. 48 Spark Performance) finished fifth.<\/p>\n

Gresham Wagner (No. 5 JTR Motorsports Engineering) earned the Penske Shocking Performance Award by advancing an astonishing 28 positions in the race.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Charlotte Traynor (No. 43 PDR Racing) secured the top finishing female award, crossing the finish line in 26th.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Takumi Award, for drivers over the age of 40, went to Christian Hodneland (No. 32 BSI Racing).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Both MX-5 Cup races from St. Pete are available to rewatch anytime on the RACER and IMSA YouTube channels.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rounds Five and Six at Mid-Ohi0 Sports Car Course take place June 5 \u2013 7. Prior to that, the series will hold a test on the Indianapolis\u00a0Motor Speedway road\u00a0course, April 14 \u2013 16, in preparation for a doubleheader at the legendary circuit\u00a0in September.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (March 1, 2026)\u00a0–\u00a0Justin Adakonis (No.23 McCumbee McAleer Racing) earned his first-ever Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin win on the streets of [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8760,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature","category-mazda-mx-5-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8759","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=8759"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8765,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8759\/revisions\/8765"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}