Tag Archives: Racing

Media Mentions

Rollan hangs on for Battery Tender Global Mazda MX-5 Cup win in Portland

Courtesy of Sports Car Illustrated: Rollan’s path to victory began with an incredible start that saw his No.87 Sick Sideways Mazda go from seventh to second on the first lap. He settled in behind teammate Sparks (No.8 Sick Sideways) and the pair tried their best to pull away from the field, but Saturday’s race winner Luke Oxner (No.77 White Racing) and Reger (No.01 Slipstream Performance) were on the attack.

Also making big moves forward was Ortiz (No.4 Copeland Motorsports) after starting from 22nd on the grid. Within 10 minutes of the green flag, he’d broken into the top 10 and then methodically clawed his way to fourth with 15 minutes to go. Ahead of him, Rollan and Sparks were trading the lead while also holding off moves from Oxner. Watching this battle ahead, Ortiz saw an opportunity and took it, passing Oxner in Turn One.

On the white flag lap, Rollan and Sparks made contact in the final turn, with both drivers demonstrating excellent car control to stay on track and out in front. The close-quarters action nearly enabled Ortiz to pick up another spot, but at the finish line it was Rollan with the win followed by Sparks and Ortiz.

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Rollan wins Global MX-5 Cup Race 2 at PIR

Courtesy of Racer: Mazda Road to 24 Scholarship winner Selin Rollan earned his second Battery Tender Global Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by BFGoodrich victory at Portland International Raceway on Sunday. It was a hard-fought win over his Sick Sideways teammate Nathanial Sparks, with Bryan Ortiz rounding out the podium. Championship point leader Nikko Reger finished fourth, less than one second behind the winner following 45 minutes of all-green flag racing.

Rollan’s path to victory began with an incredible start that saw his No. 87 Sick Sideways Mazda go from seventh to second on the first lap. He settled in behind teammate Sparks (No. 8 Sick Sideways) and the pair tried their best to pull away from the field, but Saturday’s race winner Luke Oxner (No. 77 White Racing) and Reger (No. 01 Slipstream Performance) were on the attack.

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Portland debut for Mazda MX-5 Cup

Courtesy of Sports Car Illustrated: There are four races left in the 2018 Global Mazda MX-5 Cup season, which will see the drivers in the ultra-competitive field doing battle for a total of $290,000 in support from Mazda. The overall champion will receive a hefty $200,000 prize from Mazda to put towards the next level of their Mazda Road to 24 career, while the top Rookie will earn themselves a $75,000 check. A third category to watch for in 2018 is the Challenger Class presented by Monticello Motor Club, which will award the winner with a Mazda Experience worth $15,000.

Currently topping the leaderboard with 157 points is Nikko Reger (No.01 Slipstream Performance), who stormed to the top of the charts with a strong start to the season after sweeping the Barber race weekend. But after a disappointing Mid-Ohio outing that saw his points advantage trimmed, he’s hoping to rebound at Portland.

“Mid-Ohio was a rough weekend, but we are focusing on what went right,” said Reger. “A lot has gone into Slipstream Performance in getting this far in the championship, and I am grateful to run for as long as we have and to have done so well. Mid-Ohio was a hiccup in our successes, but we will continue to work on the car and myself to keep our momentum going.”

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Media Mentions

Oxner wins Global Mazda MX-5 Cup Race 1 in Portland

Courtesy of Mazda Motorsports: Survival was the name of the game for Round Nine of the Battery Tender Global Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by BFGoodrich at Portland International Raceway on Saturday. Luke Oxner (No. 77 White Racing), driving for the two-car White Racing team, wisely navigated through two incidents in Turn One to take his first Mazda MX-5 Cup win ahead of leading rookie racer Selin Rollan, who finished second as Robert Stout crossed the finish line in third.

Starting from second, Oxner was initially concerned that he had a poor start that would rob him of his shot at a podium finish. As it turns out, it may have put him in exactly the right spot to avoid a multi-car collision in Turn One.

“Well right off the green flag, it was just so frustrating because I lost four spots right at the start,” Oxner said. “Then there was just some kind of chaos going on, people getting antsy and I managed to dodge them all.”

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Portland debut for Mazda MX-5 Cup

Courtesy of Sports Car Illustrated: The Battery Tender Global Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by BFGoodrich championship will make its first-ever appearance at Portland International Raceway this weekend as part of the Verizon IndyCar Series event weekend.

There are four races left in the 2018 Global Mazda MX-5 Cup season, which will see the drivers in the ultra-competitive field doing battle for a total of $290,000 in support from Mazda. The overall champion will receive a hefty $200,000 prize from Mazda to put towards the next level of their Mazda Road to 24 career, while the top Rookie will earn themselves a $75,000 check. A third category to watch for in 2018 is the Challenger Class presented by Monticello Motor Club, which will award the winner with a Mazda Experience worth $15,000.

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Media Mentions

Ortiz wins Global Mazda MX-5 Cup Sunday on last-lap pass

Courtesy of Racer: Bryan Ortiz didn’t let an early exit in Saturday’s Battery Tender Global Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by BFGoodrich race get him down, instead he made it his mission to get the win on Sunday, which he did with a last-lap pass. For the second time in as many races, the Global Mazda MX-5 Cup race came down to a last lap pass for victory, with polesitter Nathanial Sparks finishing second and Joey Bickers completing the podium in third.

Ortiz, in the No. 4 Copeland Motorsports entry, said he had the ‘yo no me quito’ spirit of Puerto Rico, which means ‘I don’t give up.’ Indeed, he never wavered in the 45-minute race with zero full-course cautions. Though he and Sparks attempted to work together to pull away from the rest of the field, the top 15 cars stayed glued together for the first 30 minutes of the race.

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Media Mentions

Glickenhaus’s 003S Is an Absurd Road-Legal Racecar

Courtesy of Road and Track: Glickenhaus might not roll off the tongue like Pagani. It might not sound as exotic as Koenigsegg. But Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus, or SCG for short, Jim Glickenhaus’s plucky, New York-based race team and supercar company, is easily in the same league as these boutique hypercar makers.

“You go to Koenigsegg for wild engineering, Pagani for works of art,” Glickenhaus tells me. “You come to us for race cars you can drive on the road.”

SCG has been running its 003 race car at the 24 Hours of the Nurburgring since 2015. Last year, we rode in the 003CS—for “Competizione Stradale”—Glickenhaus’s first road-legal car. Glickenhaus designed it to be a car that you could drive to the track, swap in a homologated race engine, race it, swap back, and drive home. It’s more of a race car you can drive on the road, not a road car you can drive on the track.

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Media Mentions

Championship battle rages as MX-5 Cup heads to Mid-Ohio

Courtesy of Racer: With three race weekends down and three to go, it’s getting down to the wire as the Battery Tender Global Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by BFGoodrich Tires championship battles heat up all across the field.

With three different titles on the line and a grand total of $290,000 in support up for grabs, the Global Mazda MX-5 Cup has plenty of racing left before the champions emerge at the end of the season. The overall champion will receive a hefty $200,000 prize from Mazda to put towards the next level of their Mazda Road to 24 career, while the top placing Rookie will earn themselves a $75,000 check, up from last year’s $50,000 earning. Finally, the new-to-2018 Challenger Class presented by Monticello Motor Club will also award the winner with a Mazda Experience worth $15,000.

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Media Mentions

Pirelli Challenge heading to Portland Raceway

Courtesy of Sportscar 365: Pirelli World Challenge is making its return to Portland International Raceway this weekend, marking the series’ first trip to the venue since 2005

Dino Crescentini won the GT event that year in a Corvette C6, leading a podium of Leighton Reese and Wolf Henzler. Randy Pobst was the winner in the Touring Car race in a Mazda 6, while Eric Curran and Matt Richmond joined him on the podium.

Epic Motorsports driver James Clay, Pfaff Motorsports’ Henzler, and Blackdog Speed Shop’s Tony Gaples and Andy Pilgrim are the only drivers in this weekend’s field that took part in the most recent races in Portland in 2005. Peter Cunningham, whose RealTime Racing operation fields two Honda Civic Type-R TCR machines in the TCR class, also drove in the last PWC event at the track.

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Media Mentions

MX-5 Cup: Why Racing on a Budget Matters

Courtesy of The Drive: The world is full of frustrated racers, myself included. Racing is an expensive sport, and until tires, fuel, and handmade chassis cost as much as a basketball or a golf club, motorsports will be for the wealthy and a lucky few.

The barriers to getting into racing are significant as most aspiring racing drivers have to self-fund their careers with the hopes of making it big someday. Unfortunately for most, that day never comes, which means that lots of folks are left with empty pockets, empty promises, and broken dreams. However, some less than talented drivers with bags full of cash are often given opportunities that many talented but under-funded drivers never get because, at the end of the day, engineers, mechanics, and other personnel cost money—which means that teams have to come up with cash one way or another.

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Media Mentions

Aurora Straus Profiled On “Black Flag”

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Courtesy of Jalopnik: At 13 years old, Aurora Straus enrolled in racing school. Things weren’t going well early on, so an instructor offered extra help. He soon declared to her that it wasn’t Straus’ fault she was developing a little slower than others—“because she was a girl,” he said, she’d never be as aggressive as she needed to be.

Straus was crushed. Being from New York, she was used to a more accepting mindset—not one that told her she couldn’t do something because of her gender or the way she looked. For her, she said, the stereotyping was a big shock.

It’s safe to say that in the years since, she’s proved her detractors wrong, while they motivated her to be faster and better.

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Media Mentions, Onsite Events

PCA Competitors at Monticello Motor Club

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Courtesy of Speedway Digest: Porsche Club of America (PCA) CLub Racing competitors enjoyed fast, competitive racing in perfect racing conditions Saturday and Sunday at the Porsche of Conshohocken Presents the 2017 Riesentoter Stuttgart Challenge at Monticello Motor Club.

More than 100 drivers took part in the annual event at the exclusive 18-turn, 3.6-mile asphalt road course about 90 miles north of New York City. The automotive country club’s staff gave competitors, family, and friends the ultimate member experience with delicious meals and first-class, friendly service.

Adam Sinclair of Speedway Digest writes about the Riesentöter Stuttgart Challenge at Monticello Motor Club after sharing some time on the track with Porsche of Conshohocken race chair Chris Karras.

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Media Mentions

Please Excuse the 2017 BMW M2 For Smoking

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Courtesy of Men’s Health: BMW would love for everyone to believe they’re building “The Ultimate Driving Machines.” Whether that’s true, of course, is a matter of opinion. Some agree that the German company is producing peak performance beasts. I’ve been taken by a few models—namely the new 7 Series, the M6 Gran Coupe and the 328d xDrive Sports Wagon—but largely been uninterested in the rest of BMW’s offerings. Recently, with tempered expectations, I accepted a 2017 M2 for a week-long review.

The BMW M2 is the most affordable M-badged Bimmer makes. It’s also the smallest. Approaching the M2 parked in my driveway, my interest was already piqued. The exterior design is spot-on with near-perfect proportions, especially when finished in Long Beach Blue Metallic. I admit an unhealthy attraction to small, wide-fendered cars, but everyone I showed it to loved the look, too. Except for the young lady who cuts my hair, who was not moved by the baby M-car’s pumped up flanks.

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