SAINI: Climbing The Ladder

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SAINI: Climbing The Ladder

How do you make a career road racing cars? The answer lies somewhere between 'luck, skill and practice,' but always lands squarely on money.

Jason Saini | http://www.jasonsaini.com | Posted January 18, 2010 Cresson, TX

Members of Mazda's 2010 driver shootout fit perfectly into the 'how do I get a start in pro racing?' category. (Jason Saini)

How do you make a career road racing cars? I vividly remember asking people that, and I have been asked that many times since I attained my own personal success. And the answer lies somewhere between 'luck, skill and practice,' but always lands squarely on money. The fact of the matter - and I have a unique perspective of this as part owner of a race team – is that it flat costs a lot of money to race a car. The car itself, the preparation, the testing, the transportation, the personnel, the travel expenses – and we haven't even entered the race yet, nor bought race tires and fuel. Then what happens if we hit something?

It's just an expensive sport, and to win you must step-up the preparation, testing, hire more talented crew, buy more sets of tires, etc. etc. So for a young driver trying to make a name for himself in motorsports, it can be very daunting. It often takes seasons upon seasons to gain the knowledge, confidence and experience to become a winner. So even if you become one of the lucky ones to get to the point of being paid, you'll need lots of help along the way to get there.

And that's where Mazda steps in with their unprecedented Mazdaspeed Motorsports Driver Development Ladder. You've heard me talk about this many times before in the column, as it's how I got my big break in SCCA World Challenge Touring Car competition. But I recently got a great opportunity to see behind the scenes at one of the cornerstone events in the ladder's progression, the Playboy Mazda MX-5 Cup Shootout. Any driver who wins an amateur national championship in a Mazda or Mazda powered racecar gets a shot at attending the shootout, and the winner receives a fully funded season in the Playboy MX-5 Cup with the team of their choosing.

As a past judge of the event, it was an interesting perspective to be there as a journalist and an observer. Unlike past years, there was a screening process where each driver was asked to submit a business proposal for a very specific target product. There were clear goals for this proposal, and each driver was rated by the panel of judges on their proposals with only the best ones being asked to attend the shootout. Who are these judges, you might ask? This year, Mazda had outdone themselves with an all-star group of Motorsports professionals and racing legends:

Andy Bornhop - Managing Editor, Road & Track magazine
Charles Espenlaub - Professional Mazda racer, SPEED World Challenge/GrandAm GT
Karl Koenigstein - BFGoodrich Tires
John Morton - Veteran road racer
John Naderi - Editor, Streetfire.net
Jan Refsdal - President, Swift Engineering
Lyn St. James - Founder, Women in the Winner's Circle Foundation & Driver Development Academy
Tim Sharp - Grassroots Motorsports Magazine, professional driver coach
Jeremy Shaw - Writer/broadcaster and founder, Team USA Scholarship
Mark Shuler - Partner, Tri-Point Motorsports

There were several more judges that helped out with the business side, narrowing the final selection of candidates to five. And who are those five drivers you might ask? Here's a little background on everyone involved:
Bruce Pendelton won the PTE class at the NASA National Championships. Very passionate about motorsports and racing, he wanted to prove the Mazda ladder was for everyone; not just younger kids coming up through the sport. He got a later start at racing, but proved his talent by winning a championship and a spot in the shootout competition.

Nick Evans is a young driver who until the shootout had never driven anything with fenders on a track – unless you count a Spec Racer Ford. Winner of SCCA's Formula Enterprises class at the Runoffs, Nick brought a reserved approach that belied his young age.

Steve Gorriaran had recently won the very relevant and competitive Spec Miata class at the SCCA Runoffs. Despite having a few years on most of the competitors, he easily brought the most energy to the program. In fact, he maybe even scared Lyn St. James a little bit! A fun guy who went on to drive the 25hrs of Thunderhill ALONE several weeks later.

Ryan Ellis is a young driver who had won the Teen Mazda Challenge on the west-coast, a unique program that allows young drivers to compete in a race-within-a-race at select club-races in Spec Miatas. With a strong motorsports family background, Ryan too had the passion and proved why he got invited to the shootout with his solid performance.

Andy Rushing, winner of the Spec Miata class at the NASA National Championships brought an athletic approach, as well as a very calculated engineering approach to the shootout. Proving just how difficult a job the judges would ultimately have, he was another passionate and talented challenger.

With the stage set, the drivers went through a battery of on and off-track exercises. First was a business presentation where they had to 'sell' their business proposal to the 'board of directors,' i.e. Judges. With a wide range of approaches, each stated their case and in the process described more about themselves and their background. Each phase of the competition was judged and weighted in a very specific manner, with driving being one of the least important factors. Mazdas makes the correct assumption that to even get to the shootout, each driver must be quite talented.

Saini and the Tri Point team brought one of the winning 2009 World Challenge Touring Car Mazda6's to the last Redline time Attack event in '09. (Jason Saini)

One of the other factors judged is engineering knowledge or the ability to feel a change made to the car's suspension. Not merely what the change was, but how that change made the car feel to them. Getting an idea of a driver's potential feedback is very important because as they climb the ladder, interaction with an engineer is inevitable and they need to be able to convey what the car is doing in such a way that the engineer is able to improve the car.

As the day went on, each driver displayed the talent and skills that got them to there, but in the end there had to be a winner. The judges had no easy task as there was a near tie on the final tally of scoring. The judges assign numeric values to each category based on their subjective evaluations. Those numbers are all tallied up and at the end of the day, mere tenths of a percent covered the top two. The victor was Nick Evans, the driver who had never set foot in a sports car before the shootout.

Look for Nick in the 2010 Playboy Mazda MX-5 Cup championship where he is sure to be a factor at the front of the field. Good luck to him next year and congrats to all the other shootout contestants for their stellar efforts. It's easy to see why it's such an important part of Mazda's motorsports strategy when you see the level of talent lined up to climb the ladder. Who is next? It could easily be you!

Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale: Jan 19th-24th

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jason Saini

jasonsaini.com

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