Grand Am finale at Miller Park

[Mindcore]

Mazda Racers Swarm Utah
Hundreds come out for Grand-Am finale weekend at Miller, including several big names

Since it opened in 2006, Miller Motorsports Park has become a darling of the road race connoisseur. The track, with its multitude of possible layouts, quickly earned the rep among drivers that designers had hoped it would, as one of the best facilities on the continent. It’s no wonder Miller has attracted world-class outfits like the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car, Superbike, and American Le Mans series. The circuit is simply awesome.

It was for the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Special Reserve season ender, the Sunchaser 1000, that scores of Mazda competitors descended on the Tooele, Utah, course on September 12-15. The lineup of racing provided several opportunities for the Mazda-inclined to get track time, whether that was in the Rolex series’ GT class, the KONI Challenge, the pair of BFGoodrich/Skip Barber National presented by Mazda races, or the two SCCA roadster run groups, the Sirius Satellite Radio MX-5 Cup and Spec Miata.

Interestingly, the entry lists for the various series read like a “Who’s Who” of road racers. The highest profiles were in the MX-5 Cup race, which featured television stars Frankie Muniz (“Malcolm in the Middle”), Ian Ziering (“Beverly Hills 90201” and “Dancing With the Stars”) and Patrick Dempsey (“Grey’s Anatomy”). Dempsey drove in the KONI Challenge and the Rolex Sports Car contests in addition to his 45-minute Mazda MX-5 Cup Series bid, the most ambitious schedule of any driver at the track that weekend.

In the Rolex Series contest, which normally features stars like ex-champs Scott Pruett, Bill Auberlen, Christian Fittipaldi and a slew of others, most of whom have Formula 1 or IndyCar experience, a majority of teams brought a third driver for the 1000-kilometer, 7.5-hour Sunchaser. Those included former CART champ Jimmy Vasser, former Indy 500 winner Buddy Rice, ex-F1 driver Tomas Enge, Champ Car stars Justin Wilson and Ryan Dalziel and IRL newb Ryan Hunter-Reay. Perhaps the biggest racing name of all, though, was the event’s grand marshal, Mario Andretti, who gave the command to start engines prior to the Sunchaser 1000 on Saturday morning.

In KONI Challenge, world-champion skiers Phil and Steve Mahre were part of a massive field of 68 cars that also included an entry piloted by Japanese drifting and Time Attack legend Tarzan Yamada.

Mazda race action peaked at a couple of different junctures during the Sunchaser weekend, starting with rounds 11 and 12 of the BFGoodrich/Skip Barber National presented by Mazda. In the first race, Steven McAleer won after leader Ricky Taylor went off course with three laps remaining. Taylor recovered to finish second while points leader Joel Miller was third. It was McAleer’s first Skip Barber National victory.

For the weekend’s second Skip Barber National contest, A.J. Riley won his second race of the year, taking the lead mid-race to beat Miller and McAleer. With the results, Miller took a comfortable 32-point lead over Riley in the chase for the Skip Barber National title as the series headed to the two-race closer at Virginia International Raceway.

A record 30 Mazdas took the green flag in the MX-5 Cup battle. While Jason Saini had already locked up the championship in the previous round, the fight for second in points was still close between Andrew Caddell and Ara Malkhassian.

Starting from his second pole position of the season, and after much dicing, Caddell won the race, his second of ’07, to secure second place in the championship. Bob Michaelian and Todd Buras completed the top three in the final MX-5 Cup race of the season.

Of the Hollywood contingent, Muniz, who was only in his second sports car race ever, opened a few eyes as he qualified sixth and was challenging for second place with two laps to go before he and Matt Cross went off course in turn one. For Ziering, this was his first ever pro race, and his TV schedule precluded him from time to test the car before the race; he enjoyed a trouble-free race to finish 24th. Lastly, Dempsey qualified 12th and finished tenth.

An MX-5 also managed a podium finish in the KONI Challenge Street Tuner (ST) class, the No. 58 BSI Racing MOMO/Joe Gibbs machine piloted by Justin Hall and Magnus Karlsson. The duo finished in third, their best performance of the season and first top-five since Laguna Seca in May. The pair narrowly escaped a fuel shortage, as the car ran out of fuel on the cool-down lap after pitting only once. The bronze finish vaulted Hall and Karlsson to eighth overall in points.

Jose Armegol, driving the No. 69 SpeedSource RX-8, scored his seventh top-ten finish to move into third in points with one race to go in the KONI series.

Finally, in Rolex Series GT drama, the SpeedSource team of Sylvain Tremblay, Nick Ham, and David Haskell qualified second and were prepared to challenge for the win in the season finale. In the heat of battle Ham, who co-led the standings early in the season, was involved in a scary accident on the first lap with Seth Ingram. Ingram had slipped off the racing surface briefly, but returned to the track only to nail the right front of Ham's No. 70 Mazdaspeed RX-8 in Turn 18. The Mazda flipped once before settling right side up. Ham was not seriously injured in the accident.

The SpeedSource RX-8 scored three race wins this year, the second highest total of any team, but bad luck plagued their efforts all season. They finished 24th in Utah.

SpeedSource salvaged some satisfaction with the team of Emil Assentato, Jeff Segal, and Nick Longhi scoring a respectable fourth in their FXDD Mazda RX-8. This was Assentato’s eighth top-ten result and secured him tenth in overall points, as well as winning the Bob Akin Cup for sportsman drivers.

Finally, Dempsey, driving anything and everything this weekend, raced as part of the three-driver SoBe Hypersports RX-8 team. This was the race debut for the car and team, and they qualified a solid eighth, finishing a decent tenth.