Podium Sweep For MMR

After finishing third in Saturday’s Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin race, Gresham Wagner (No. 5 McCumbee McAleer Racing) got the job done on Sunday by winning Round Eight. Wagner led a McCumbee McAleer Racing podium sweep that included Jeremy Fletcher (No. 22 McCumbee McAleer Racing) in second and Nate Cicero (No. 83 McCumbee McAleer Racing) in third.

Like Saturday’s race, Wagner started from pole position for the 45-minute, all green flag race. Unlike Saturday’s race, he took a decisive 0.537s victory over Fletcher, his MMR teammate. In doing so, he became the first repeat Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup race winner of the year.

Wagner and two-time Mazda MX-5 Cup Champion Jared Thomas (No. 96 JTR Motorsports Engineering) led a pack of four cars that slowly pulled away from the rest of the field, with Aaron Jeansonne (No. 24 JTR Motorsports Engineering) and Fletcher in third and fourth, respectively. The quartet played the long game, running in that order for 22 laps.

With two laps to go, Fletcher took a look at Jeansonne for third in the Hairpin. Jeansonne’s attempt to defend his spot unfortunately resulted in him hitting his teammate, Thomas, who slid into the gravel trap and became stuck.

The incident gave Wagner more than enough breathing room on the final lap to get his second win of the 2024 Mazda MX-5 Cup season.

“I had a different mindset coming into the last five minutes, of what I could do different from yesterday,” Wagner said. “But that was kind of a moot point because of the incident that happened. I was prepared to have to race them a bit different and pull out some tricks from yesterday and then it kind of just fell in my lap coming to the white flag. That’s not necessarily what you like to see at the end, but I led every lap, I was fast, and I thought I earned that win. I’m happy to get a double podium on the weekend and become the first repeat race winner. Sometimes you have good waves and sometimes you have bad, so it’s good to be riding a wave of good momentum heading into the second half of the season.”

Following the contact between the JTR teammates, Fletcher was able to sneak past Jeansonne and into second. With just a lap and a half left in the race, Fletcher was unable to catch Wagner and challenge him for the win.