It took 17 years for the Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup Presented by Michelin to have a repeat champion. But it only took another year for the super-competitive one-make series to have its second repeat winner.
With victories at Daytona, Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and the Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta finale, Gresham Wagner earned his second MX-5 Cup championship in 2024, three years after claiming his first.
“It’s nice to join a small club like that,” said Wagner shortly after the season wrapped up. “More than comparing myself to what other people have done, it was more of a personal achievement to be able to know that I could do it twice. It certainly wasn’t a fluke the first time I did it, but it always feels nice to be able to come back and, especially three years later, show that I can still do it. And to know that I’m still at the top my game, competing with all the new people who’ve come into the series since my first one, makes it special.”
It was one of those new people, second-season driver Jeremy Fletcher, who Wagner had to beat. But there was also a familiar rival in Jared Thomas, the other two-time champ – and so far, the only back-to-back title winner.
In the end, Wagner beat Thomas by only 60 points, with Fletcher 10 markers back in third place.
While Thomas was landing his consecutive championships in 2022 and ’23, 2021 title-winner Wagner struggled with only two wins across two seasons, finishing third, then fifth in the standings. But his performance this year is a story of growth, along with a little bit of a change in attitude.
“I don’t think my speed was ever anything that I questioned,” he said. “Maybe some of the decisions I made on track, some of the factors of luck that came into play, certainly didn’t help. But, yeah, I came in with a bit of a new approach. It still wasn’t a perfect year. I had a couple of incidents through the year and a little bit of misfortune, but so does everyone else. So, I just maximized what I could control and tried to minimize the stuff that I couldn’t.”
That new approach, which Wagner says includes an extra dose of patience, was necessary. In the six seasons that he’s contested the series – and even in the two seasons between his championships – the Mazda MX-5 Cup and the profile of its competitors have evolved.
“A lot of young, talented drivers have come in, more than ever,” Wagner said. “The teams that that have come in, and the teams that have stayed here, have only upped their game over the years. And I think the field is tighter than ever, which leads to a lot more variables, a lot more stuff happening in the races, and a lot more opportunities where your patience or lack thereof can either help you or hurt you.”
That increased level of competitiveness also means no pulling out a gap and running away like he sometimes did in his first championship season, and in years prior, too. Winning an MX-5 Cup race or championship now means fighting in a pack of six, seven, or even 10 cars, pretty much every single lap of every single race.
“There’s just no leeway for anything anymore,” Wagner explained. “You can’t get away with any mistakes, and you also can’t take advantage of certain situations as much as you used to. You’re always racing people. It’s so compact, right? Everybody’s capable of doing the same lap times and achieving the same results. It completely changes how the races develop and how you have to win these.”
But adapt, and win, Wagner did. And he now stands as one of only two people to do it twice. Already in rarefied company, can he make it three? Watch this space in 2025…
• All Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup Presented by Michelin races are streamed live on RACER.com and archived on The RACER Channel on YouTube. Up next, enjoy live action from the 2024 Mazda MX-5 Cup Shootout, Nov. 11-12, when 12 aspiring racers will vie for a scholarship valued at $150,000 from Mazda to compete in the 2025 Mazda MX-5 Cup season. Plus, find all the latest series news at mx-5cup.com.
