Category: Idemitsu Mazda MX-5 Cup

In just a few short seasons, Thomas Annunziata has moved up from karts, to taking in a handful of Spec Miata races, then on to Spec MX-5 Challenge, and now to fighting for Rookie of the Year honors in the Idemitsu Mazda MX-5 Cup Presented by BFGoodrich (above, car No. 10). And it’s just the beginning, he says.

“I came into this year trying to prove something, because I know who I am, I know what I’m capable of, and I’ve just got to keep pushing,” says Annunziata.

Annunziata was one of the finalists in Mazda Motorsports’ 2022 MX-5 Cup Shootout. He missed out on the big prize, but still came away with a $75,000 scholarship to compete in MX-5 Cup. He’s putting it to good use, sitting in the top 10 of the overall championship with four races left, as well as battling Shootout winner Nate Cicero for Rookie of the Year honors, which of course comes with a healthy $80,000 scholarship of its own.

Annunziata, now driving the No. 10 MX-5 for Hixon Motorsports, admits that he wasn’t quite ready for MX-5 Cup as the season started.

“Daytona was definitely a wake-up call,” he says.

But Daytona International Speedway is also unique, and playing the drafting game correctly is critical. When the series had its second weekend on the streets of St. Petersburg, things began to look up.

“We were battling for the win in both races, and unfortunately I got taken out the last few laps while in second place,” Annunziata says. “But that was when I knew I had the pace and that I can compete with these guys. Then we carried that momentum into Watkins Glen and took two podiums there.”

The two races at Watkins Glen International were tough on a lot of racers in MX-5 Cup, but for Annunziata they proved pivotal, pushing him into the championship fight and a good lead in the Rookie of the Year standings. The following double-header round at Road America was a bit of a setback for him, with a DNF in the first race, but he has two weekends to bounce back, first at VIR and then the finale during the Petit Le Mans weekend at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.

In the meantime, Annunziata (below) isn’t sitting still. While top-level prototypes in sports car racing are a goal, he’s traveling more than one path to a career as a professional racecar driver. With MX-5 Cup increasingly becoming a viable path to both IMSA and NASCAR, he’s also competing in Trans-Am TA2 and stock cars, and should that path lead to a career in NASCAR, he would be perfectly happy with that.

At any rate, the extra seat time is certainly building his motorsports knowledge base that began in karts. In Spec MX-5, a series based on the previous-generation MX-5 Cup car, the manual transmissions helped with the necessary multitasking skills. Annunziata says that the cars handle very similarly and, as in MX-5 Cup, carrying speed through the corners is key. He also learned some good off-track skills in communication with others on the race team.

And just as he received a good lesson in drafting at Daytona, his education has continued this season. There’s one thing in particular his 2023 campaign has taught him.

“Patience,” he emphasizes. “I always go into things wanting to prove something, wanting to be the best; but sometimes you need to go through those learning curves. I went through a lot of those in the beginning of this year. We were always fast, but whether it was a mistake on my part, or just simply things such as mechanical failures, it got frustrating.

“But as a racecar driver, you’ve got to stay focused and do the best you can with what you have. So, I think collecting consistent points, whether you have a good car or not, and just being able to consistently be in the conversation, is definitely something I learned this year – not only keep myself in the championship, but to be one of the best out there.”

It seems Annunziata is not only learning, but on his way to proving something as well.

* All Idemitsu Mazda MX-5 Cup Presented by BFGoodrich races are streamed live on RACER.com and archived on The RACER Channel on YouTube. Don’t miss rounds 11 & 12 from VIR, Aug. 26-27. And to view the full season schedule and learn more about the series, visit mx-5cup.com.

Anthony McIntosh’s daughter wanted to go climbing in Yosemite. It turned into an ordeal that put him in the hospital, nearly killed him, and had him reflect on his life choices – which eventually led to a full immersion in motorsports, including the Idemitsu Mazda MX-5 Cup Presented by BFGoodrich.

It began a few months after the Yosemite expedition in 2019 when he developed intermittent pain in his jaw. Soon, it became more intense, then more frequent, going from happening once a day to every 20 minutes.

Then his vision started to blur, and his hearing was affected. Eventually doctors determined something was wrong with the trigeminal nerve, the largest of the cranial nerves that affect sensory functions in the face and motor functions such as chewing. By the time they figured out from where this all emanated – a tick bite while he was in California – he was emaciated and felt like he couldn’t go on.

“It turned out to be one of the forms of Lyme disease, and it just started wreaking havoc, destroying parts of my brain,” explains McIntosh of the ordeal that also gave him time for reflection. “During the hospital stays I would always be thinking about all the things I never did. I just always worked and was very driven – work, work, work, coupled with training for something athletic like [triathlon]. I was full-on maximum. I never owned a nice car, I just thought that was frivolous. I never was on a race track.

“Anyway, I would daydream about going to McDonald’s and ordering a cheeseburger and that’s how I would get through the day, making these lists of things I’d do if I ever got better.”

He did get better – the doctors put him on the same regimen that they would use to treat an anthrax patient, which cleared it up with only a few mild residual effects.

So, wanting to start turning his wishlist into reality, McIntosh ordered a sports car. But it was in the middle of COVID, and the car never came.

He wanted to rent a car to get on track, but nobody would do that without a racing license or experience. Then he found the Lucas Oil School of Racing and went to Florida with friends. Turns out he was pretty good. He was encouraged to enter a race – but he just wanted to drive a fast car. However, he relented, entered and won. Through that he met drivers like MX-5 Cup alum Glenn McGee and other racers happy to provide advice and coaching.

“I had this unlimited supply of amazing people who were jumping in to help me out,” the 48-year-old Wisconsin native recounts. “As a coincidence, an engineer who works for me graduated with Jared Thomas, and he’s like, ‘Hey, my roommate in college races.’ He gave me his name and we met.

“I didn’t know who Jared was; I’d never heard of Mazda Motorsports; I’d never even gone to a race. So, they took me to a Spec Miata race at Road America and they’re like, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ It was the Runoffs and everyone’s ramming into each other. ‘I don’t know. I think so…’”

McIntosh continued to race in the Lucas Oil Series while getting an immersive education from McGee and Thomas. Eventually they decided he was ready for Mazda MX-5 Cup, and he entered his first race at the 2021 Road Atlanta season finale.

Now, in addition to being in his second season in the No. 69 JTR Motorsports Engineering MX-5, he’s won a championship with Thomas in the World Racing League, competes in Lamborghini Super Trofeo where he’s second in the Am points after four races, and has even done a couple of IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge races. From never driving a fast car to racing across multiple series, he’s clearly found something he likes about motorsports: the challenge.

“I usually could walk into almost any situation and be really, really good at something. But it gets hard when you run out of talent, and that’s where the challenge comes in,” McIntosh says. “That’s what I appreciate, the grind of, ‘OK, my talent is only going to take me so far.’ And when I came into racing, my talent was so low. It humbles you and it makes you look at yourself and say, ‘OK, I’m going up against people that are half my age that have done this their whole life; their talent level is so much higher than mine. This is something that I’m really going to have to hustle and practice and work harder, maybe harder than these other guys.’”

That grind to get better keeps pushing McIntosh, and although he’s found the grind harder in MX-5 Cup, the results are even more rewarding.

“I raced up to, like, fourth or third in MX-5 Cup at Watkins Glen, though I eventually crashed out. But I took two podiums in the Lamborghini. Later, friends asked, ‘Why are you so upset? You were on the podium twice.’ And I told them straight out: ‘I would take a fourth place in MX-5 over a hundred first-place trophies in any other series.’ And they just did not understand. But Glen and Jared were there, and they said that’s how it is. It’s that hard. It’s that gritty. It’s that intense. And I enjoy that to the maximum.”

* All Idemitsu Mazda MX-5 Cup Presented by BFGoodrich races are streamed live on RACER.com and archived on The RACER Channel on YouTube. Don’t miss rounds 11 & 12 from VIR, Aug. 26-27. And to view the full season schedule and learn more about the series, visit mx-5cup.com.

On a freshly repaved Road America circuit, rookie Jonathan Neudorf (No. 55 Hixon Motor Sports) claimed his first-ever Idemitsu Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by BFGoodrich Tires pole on Friday. He will start alongside fellow rookie Nate Cicero (No. 83 McCumbee McAleer Racing).

Hailing from Canada, Neudorf set the pole time on only his second lap around the 4.048-mile circuit. His lap of 2m33.047s was clear of runner-up Cicero by 0.115s.

“I had a good setup,” Neudorf said. “I was pushing my teammate Selin [Rollan] for the first few corners, but he ended up going off in the Carousel. There was a group of three cars in front of me that sucked me in, they gave me a good tow down the straights, I was fast in the corners and it all worked out.

“This is my third time at Road America. I was here two weeks ago, so I might understand the repave a little better.”

Saturday at Road America is a Mazda MX-5 Cup doubleheader, as both races will take place on the same day. Race 1 is scheduled for 10:15am ET and Race 2 will begin at 3:45pm ET. Both will be streamed live on RACER.com.

Cicero is provisionally slated to start from pole for the second race.

Six years after liftoff, Aaron Jeansonne’s (pronounced ZHAWN-sown) voyage into professional motorsports has been steadily gaining speed, and this season it’s on course to reach maximum velocity. With half of the 2023 Idemitsu Mazda MX-5 Cup Presented by BFGoodrich in the books, Jeansonne has scored two wins along with two other podiums and leads the overall title chase following the Watkins Glen double-header (above).

“It’s so hard to win these races, so to score a consecutive win in this series after my first one definitely felt special,” says Jeansonne.

“I feel that extending the points lead after the season’s halfway point really validates our championship efforts. It also speaks for the strength of my team, JTR Motorsports Engineering, that we’ve shown race-winning speed at each track so far on the schedule. I’m so excited to have the Turn 2 Driver’s Club along for the ride, too, as we carry the momentum into Road America. Our goal remains to arrive prepared, run up front and collect good finishes.”

At 24 years old, Jeansonne, a native of Sulphur, La., is finally seeing the benefits of the slow-burn trajectory his career path has taken. Like a multi-stage rocket, he’s taken many steps that have provided momentary highs toward his ultimate destination.

In 2017, he finished runner-up in the Lucas Oil Formula Car Championship, was awarded the prestigious Team USA Scholarship that sent him to compete in the UK, and finished as a Road to Indy Shootout finalist.

“The Team USA Scholarship was really a big break for me,” he recalls. “The contacts and mentorship I got during that period were crucial. Racing in England was really where I learned how tough this is. The racing was really hard over there – like MX-5 Cup, just without fenders.”

The Road to Indy Shootout, which was then supported by Mazda, was Jeansonne’s next stage in pursuing a path in open-wheel racing. As a finalist, he found himself in the proverbial position of being so close and yet so far. But the opportunity was not a loss, as it further exposed him to the Mazda ladder system.

“I developed an interest in the Mazda sports car ladder. I started following the MX-5 Cup and thought it was pretty cool and exciting,” Jeansonne says. “I got in the seat of a Mazda and liked it right away. I was fortunate to be nominated for the Road to 24 Scholarship Shootout, as it was known then in 2019, and came up just short to Jared Thomas.

“For the following year, I was able to compete in Spec MX-5 Challenge and Spec Miata, and that earned me another invitation back to the MX-5 Cup Scholarship Shootout when I won the $110,000 scholarship prize. I’ve been racing in MX-5 Cup ever since.”

In his first two MX-5 Cup seasons in 2021 and ’22, Jeansonne finished eighth, then 10th overall. The learning curve was steep, but he remained persistent and motivated.

“It takes so much to do well in this series,” says Jeansonne (below). “I was learning a lot and there were some mistakes that I made and chances I had where I didn’t execute, plus there are those inevitable bits of bad luck along the way.”

Now, the persistence is paying off.

“This year that’s all flipped around and that’s why the change looks so drastic,” he says.

Should his trajectory stay on its current course, winning the 2023 MX-5 Cup and the $250,000 that goes with it could put the Jeansonne rocket ship into a career-defining orbit.

THE FINAL STRETCH
When the Idemitsu Mazda MX-5 Cup Presented by BFGoodrich returns after taking the month of July off, the final stretch to the finish will see the field take on three celebrated road courses in the quest to crown a season champion who’ll earn $250,000 for their feat.

Road America’s classic four-mile challenge gets the MX-5 Cup grid back in gear for Rounds 9 & 10, Aug. 5-6, followed by the undulations and fast, sweeping bends of Virginia International Raceway for the next two races, Aug. 26-27.

September offers everyone a chance to catch their breath and prepare for the now traditional doubleheader finale at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, Oct. 11-13.

And given that, with only one exception, every season of the MX-5 Cup has gone down to the wire, there’s no reason to think the 2023 season will wrap up in any other way.

* All Idemitsu Mazda MX-5 Cup Presented by BFGoodrich races are streamed live on RACER.com and archived on The RACER Channel on YouTube. To view the full season schedule and learn more about the series, visit mx-5cup.com.