The Idemitsu Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by BFGoodrich Tires season finale started with a single practice session at Road Atlanta on Wednesday. Robert Noaker (No. 13 Robert Noaker Racing) was quickest, followed closely by season championship contender Aaron Jeansonne (No. 24 JTR Motorsports Engineering).
Noaker, whose best finish of the year thus far has been third at Road America, isn’t in the championship hunt, so he’s looking for a race win in these final two rounds.
“We started the year pretty rough,” Noaker said. “We didn’t have the car quite where we needed it. We just kept running into bad luck and things out of our control kept happening. The second half of the year is when we got it hooked up. At that point, we were in situations to win, but something would happen. Coming into this weekend it’s all about putting everything out there and remind everyone what we’re capable of. I feel bad for our guys. They work so hard on the car and the results aren’t there to show it.”
Noaker’s best lap was a 1m36.306s. That was just 0.026s ahead of Jeansonne, who is mathematically capable of taking the championship this week, but only if he can overcome a 290-point deficit to his teammate Jared Thomas (No. 96 JTR Performance Engineering).
The first of two Mazda MX-5 Cup races at Road Atlanta takes place Thursday at 5:45pm ET. The second is scheduled for 10:30am ET on Friday. Both races will be streamed live on RACER.com.