Shift Up Now Athletes Heather Hadley and Sally Mott, along with Development Athlete Ashlyn Speed, endured the chaos of an eventful season opener in rounds one and two of the Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup Championship presented by Michelin at the Daytona Road Course on January 22-24, 2025.
The Daytona weekend marked the start of Hadley’s third season of MX-5 Cup competition, driving the No. 54 “Reverse Oreo” livery for Hendricks Motorsports.
Competing in her second MX-5 Cup season, Mott drove the pink No. 15 Iron Dames-inspired livery for Jared Thomas Racing (JTR).
Speed, the 2024 Mazda Women’s Initiative Scholarship winner, made her MX-5 Cup debut in the No. 31 car for Hendricks Motorsport.
The three Shift Up Now Athletes - plus three other female racers - were part of a record- breaking 36-car field on the 3.81-mile, 14-turn road course.
The race weekend began on Wednesday with two afternoon practices in unusually-chilly conditions. The first started out under damp conditions that gradually dried throughout the session. Later that day, practice two was dry, and teams worked to find a tow in preparation for qualifying the next day.
On Thursday, qualifying took place just before noon. Prior to the session, race control anticipated drivers not wanting to lead the pack and jockeying to be in a tow from multiple cars, so a warning was issued that intentionally-slow paces would not be tolerated. Despite the warning, most of the field opted to run slowly and not warm up their tires. As a result, the entire field was bunched up and running on cold tires at the drop of the green flag. Several cars made contact, creating more havoc within the field.
Hadley got separated from the pack but found her way back into a position for a strong tow, which catapulted her up the charts. Unfortunately, she - along with many of the other drivers - had her time deleted post-qualifying.
Mott was caught up in the midst of the qualifying chaos, making and ceding passes, but working hard to stay in the tow. She emerged from the session with the best qualifying of the Shift Up Now Athletes, putting herself just outside the top 20 for race one, and only narrowly missing the top ten for race two with her second-fastest lap.
Speed elected to stay clear of the drama, and spent most of the session running solo. This allowed her to gain more seat time and experience, in preparation for that evening’s race.
Race one began at 5:30pm ET on Thursday. The 45-minute competition, traditionally run at sunset, was darkened by heavy cloud cover, and accompanied by rain and rapidly-falling track temperatures. Race control declared a wet race as the field lined up on the grid, forcing everyone to start on wet weather rain tires. Then the field was given two pace laps to assess track conditions before lining up side-by-side for the start.
Despite having the full 2024 season under her belt, Mott was racing in the rain for the first time in an MX-5 Cup car. She rose to the occasion, battling back and forth around the 20th-place spot for the entire race. However, as laps ticked by, her rain tires began to overheat, creating tricky handling conditions for her to contend with.
Hadley, starting from the back of the field after her qualifying times were deleted, showed her experience in the dreary conditions. She made her way forward throughout the competition, advancing 11 positions to finish in 18th place and securing her spot as the top-finishing female.
Speed endured some of the toughest-possible conditions for her first-ever MX-5 Cup race, and continued her learning curve. She accepted the challenge, keeping her nose clean and completing every lap.
Race two began at 10:15am ET on Friday under sunny skies with 35 cars lined up to take the green flag. In one of the most memorable MX-5 Cup starts to date, two cars at the very front of the field made contact almost immediately, with the ensuing ripple effect causing significant damage to more than half the field.
When the incident occurred, Mott checked up to avoid making contact with the car ahead, but was hit into a spin by the car behind, sending her into the outside wall.
Hadley darted through the carnage and was also pushed into a spin from the car behind. After doing a full 360 on track, she continued forward but made contact with another spinning car ahead, causing irreparable front-suspension damage.
Speed made a cautious start, which slowed her enough to avoid the massive incident. She began to pick her way through the stopped, spun and damaged cars all over the track.
The full-course caution was changed to a red flag, allowing the safety teams time to remove the cars that were unable to continue. Any team that was able to repair their car was given the chance to do so, given that so many others were out of contention.
The JTR team elected to make repairs, allowing Mott to join the tail of the field as the pack left pit lane behind the safety car with just 20 minutes remaining in the race. Despite not having competition-level speed, she was still able to gain valuable points by crossing the finish line.
After the race restarted, Speed continued her drive to another clean race, finishing just outside of the top 15 and earning recognition as the top-finishing female in her second-ever start in the series.
Next up, the Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup Championship presented by Michelin heads to the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, for rounds three and four on February 28 - March 2, 2025.
