MX-5 Cup - Round 6
05 November 2015 / Words by Stuart McFadyen, photos by Stuart McFadyen and Steve Green
The 2015 MX-5 Cup has been run and won!
It was a scorcher of a day out at Sydney Motor Sport Park on Sunday. There was talk of showers and thunderstorms throughout the day and after a couple of sessions out on track, we would have given anything to have them, just to take the temperature down a notch. SMSP spending millions to redevelop the facilities, then finding the bottom of their pockets when it came time to put some carports up, didn’t help. But some some sunburn and some sweat patches wasn’t going to distract us from the fact that there was a title show down to be had!
The November meet is always difficult to get numbers to and with the Winton 300 the following weekend it was reduced field, but provisional first, second and third in the championship were there to see the season through, Scott walker leading, Stuart McFadyen second and Steve Green lurking ominously in third. There were only 5 starters in the cup, so out of necessity we were rolled into the Historic and Invited Sports Cars race, an interesting and diverse field from Mini’s to Galaxies. There were some concerns going into the races that the MX-5’s and the Historic’s might be a bit of a mis-match, but it actually made for some great racing! The MX-5’s all qualified at the front and scampered away early having their hard fought battles, then with the short track and the speed differential we would start lapping the back markers half way through each race. A whole new element would come into the battle as you negotiated the lapped traffic whilst still keeping up your hammer and tongs scrap. It was like condensing a 1 hour race into 12 minutes (and with the heat a 12 minute race felt like an hour!).
Scott Walker got pole after a greasy qualifying, but David Stone made the most of the rolling start in race one and put an immediate move on Scott going up the hill after the start line. As anyone who’s passed Scott knows, that was unlikely to be the end of the argument. Scott and David diced it out for the rest of the race with Scott along side at several occasions into one hairpin then the next. But David put his 35 years experience to good use and had an answer for each attempt, eventually winning by just 0.1 seconds in the scamper across the line.
Race 2 sadly had David and Ian Caldwell missing, David feeling unwell and Ian with a gearbox that sympathised. So it was left to the three title contenders to battle it out. Scott lead us away, with Stuart McFadyen on his tail and Steve Green staying in touch behind a moonlighting John Anastas. Scott held the lead until about 5 laps in when he missed a gear coming up the hill from the second hairpin letting Stuart through. Then the tables were turned with Scott all over the back of Stuart as the predictably unpredictable lapped traffic came into play. Some tight but clean racing later Stuart took the flag in front of Scott and Steve.
The trophy race had more of the same, Stuart getting a narrow early lead that Scott challenged hard, but in the end it was Stuart first, Scott second and Steve third.
What we’d all come to find out was who was going to take home the Cup? Out came the laptop and off peeled the race suits dripping with exertion. Scott came into the weekend with a nice lead in the points and after a good solid performance had enough to be crowned 2015 MX-5 Cup Champion with 115 points. Steve with a class win and nice boost from the dropped round grabbed second place with 107 points and Stuart came in third with 99 points. Congratulations Scotty!
A massive thank you to everyone who participated the the 2015 MX-5 Cup, there was some fantastic hard, but most importantly fair racing this year, everyone keeping the the spirit in which the MX-5 Cup was founded. A big thanks also to our sponsors Audio Technica and Deckspeed Racing and the Cup committee who put in the time to make sure these events happen.
See you in 2016!
