{"id":8794,"date":"2026-07-12T13:10:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T17:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=8794"},"modified":"2026-08-16T13:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T17:12:11","slug":"gossett-gets-lucky-with-second-win-of-whelen-mazda-mx-5-cup-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/12\/gossett-gets-lucky-with-second-win-of-whelen-mazda-mx-5-cup-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Gossett Gets Lucky with Second Win of Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOWMANVILLE, Ontario (July 11, 2026)<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Bobby Gossett (No. 44 BSI Racing) might have thought lady luck was not on his side at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park on Saturday when his provisional pole time was disallowed, but she made herself known in the race. A well-timed yellow, accident avoidance and a post-race technical infraction resulted in him taking his second Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin win of the season.
\n
\nGossett turned the fastest lap in qualifying, but because he exceeded the maximum lap time during the session, his fastest two laps were erased. This bumped him to eighth on the grid. An amazing start saw Gossett already up to third on the first lap, and into second on the following lap.<\/p>\n

On lap four Gossett took the lead from Ethan Lampe (No. 31 Hendricks Motorsports), who he would trade places with several times before the pair were pounced upon by reigning series champion Jeremy Fletcher (No. 22 McCumbee McAleer Racing). The trio looked like it would pull away from the field, but their infighting allowed the likes of championship point leader Justin Adakonis (No. 23 McCumbee McAleer Racing) and two-time series champion Jared Thomas (No. 96 JTR Motorsports Engineering) to catch up.\u00a0As a result, Gossett fell back to fourth.<\/p>\n

When the first full-course caution came out, it was Lampe in the lead behind the safety car, followed by Thomas, Adakonis, Gossett and Fletcher.<\/p>\n

When the race restarted, Gossett struggled to move forward in the lead pack, but things got dicey as time went on. With two minutes to go, Thomas and Fletcher made contact in Turn 10, blocking the track and forcing everyone behind them to take evasive action, Gossett included.<\/p>\n

Fletcher continued with a wounded car and lost his wheel in Moss Corner. The wheel came to a stop in the center of the track, bringing out a full-course yellow and the white flag.<\/p>\n

Remarkably, Gossett had made the pass for the win just before the full-course yellow came out. Lampe crossed the finish line first, but was disqualified in post-race technical inspection for ride height. This gave Gossett his second win of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0thinking about who’s behind me,\u201d Lampe said of the restart.\u00a0\u201cHonestly, I race everyone the same\u00a0and\u00a0give the same amount of respect. I don’t think about who’s behind me or what they’ve accomplished. I just think about what I can do to drive the best I can and put the pieces together today to bring home my first win, and I’m just at a loss for\u00a0words. It’s such a special feeling.\u00a0Today is\u00a0a dream come true. This is the best day of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe kind of just got lucky there to be completely honest,\u201d Gossett said. \u201cThe yellow was lucky. The wreck\u00a0(Thomas and Fletcher)\u00a0was lucky. It was all lucky, but you know we’ll take it, especially after\u00a0qualifying this morning, getting\u00a0my\u00a0time taken away.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the restart, everyone was getting more aggressive. Everyone wanted the positions\u00a0more.\u00a0As it was coming to an end you\u00a0could kind of just feel it coming. And it did happen.\u00a0I know everyone on my team was like,\u00a0\u2018come on, go quicker, go quicker,\u2019\u00a0but in my mind, I’m just like,\u00a0\u2018it’s okay,\u00a0stay\u00a0in the points and\u00a0don\u2019t wreck out.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Canadian rookie Marcello Paniccia (No. 38 McCumbee McAleer Racing) earned his first MX-5 Cup podium in front of the home crowd. Though he is a rookie, Paniccia did compete at CTMP last year where he gave the series a try and earned impressive results. His runner-up finish proved it was no fluke.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, from where we started, it was a hell of a race,\u201d\u00a0Paniccia, who started 12th said. \u201cI’m shaking way too much for this to not be\u00a0real. I\u00a0knew I could do it. It’s just a matter of time, and I’m really happy with myself, especially from like the mediocre qualifying\u00a0we had this morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last\u00a0two laps I had it\u00a0(a pass)\u00a0ready. I had a teammate up front with me too\u00a0(Adakonis), and I really wish we knew that yellow was coming out because that spot was there and reachable. But I was playing the long game\u00a0and waiting\u00a0for the straightaway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adakonis increased his championship points led with a third-place finish.<\/p>\n

Parker DeLong (No. 42 Parker DeLong Racing) and Noah Harmon (No. 12 Hendricks Motorsports) completed the top five.<\/p>\n

John Salerno (No. 34 JTR Motorsports Engineering) earned the Penske Hard Charger Award for picking up 12 positions in the race.<\/p>\n

Ellie Gossett (No. 77 BSI Racing) finished 15th and earned the Highest Finishing Female Award.<\/p>\n

Christian Hodneland (No. 32 BSI Racing) finished 21st, the highest-finishing driver over the age of 50, which earned him the Takumi Award.<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s Round Eight race is slated for 10:05am ET with live coverage on the IMSA and RACER YouTube channels. Matt Novak (No. 11 Advanced Autosports) who was the polesitter for Saturday\u2019s race is set to take up pole position once again on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

About: <\/strong><\/em>The Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin<\/em>\u00a0is the signature spec series for Mazda Motorsports. The series has been operated by Andersen Promotions since 2017\u00a0and is currently sanctioned by IMSA. Mazda-powered grassroots champions\u00a0can earn Mazda scholarships for this pro-level series.\u00a0The Whelen\u00a0Mazda MX-5 Cup awards more than $1 million in prizes and scholarships.<\/em><\/p>\n

Find out more at\u00a0<\/a><\/em>http:\/\/www.mx-5cup.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOWMANVILLE, Ontario (July 11, 2026)\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Bobby Gossett (No. 44 BSI Racing) might have thought lady luck was not on his side at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park on [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8795,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8794","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\/8794","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=8794"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8796,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8794\/revisions\/8796"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}