Track test and review: ND-chassis Mazda MX-5 Cup Car | Articles

Local Boys Made Good

All current MX-5 Cup cars come out of the garages of Flis Performance in Daytona Beach, Florida. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because the Flis family has been a fixture of the Central Florida racing scene for decades. The Flises have been local to our offices, so we’ve known them since they were autocrossing and racing Volkswagen Rabbits in SCCA Improved Touring competition back in the ’80s. 

Brothers Todd and Troy Flis parlayed that success in amateur racing into pro careers as car preparers, even making appearances at the Rolex 24 with street-based Mitsubishi Eclipses in their early days. They kept progressing through the GT ranks, eventually fielding Daytona Prototypes under their Spirit of Daytona team. Most recently, they partnered with Mazda as stewards of many of the brand’s historic race cars and as the official constructors of the MX-5 Cup cars.

Each MX-5 Cup car begins not as a bare tub but as a complete running, driving Miata. Upon arriving at Flis Performance, the cars are totally disassembled and then rebuilt to race specs. Photography Credit: Chris Tropea

Far from being Miatas with a few bolt-ons, the Cup cars are fully realized racing machines with minimal maintenance requirements. They’re designed to endure the rigors of multiple weekends of doorhandle-to-doorhandle–sometimes doorhandle-to-windshield or even mirror-to-bumper–racing. Each Cup car is delivered to Flis Performance as a complete, stock vehicle, but they’re quickly stripped to bare shells in preparation for their transformation. (Check out Flis Performance’s website for a few choice MX-5 takeoff parts, too.) 

The main chassis addition is a laser-cut, FIA-approved roll cage that ties into the floor and dash support at eight points and is functionally symmetrical, meaning it can be installed in right-hand-drive versions as well. The cage is roomy inside for taller or wider–or both–drivers, with easy ingress and egress, even with the head-restraint Max Papis Innovations seat in place.

Photography Credit: Chris Tropea

Suspension is via Multimatic’s Dynamic DSSV coil-overs with rebound and compression adjustment. A bespoke adjustable front anti-roll bar designed to Flis’ specs complements the stock rear bar, and Brembo front calipers squeeze Pagid pads onto Brembo rotors. In the rear, the stock brake setup is retained, but the Pagid pads augment the system.

Photography Credit: Chris Tropea

Under the hood, the 2.0-liter Skyactiv-G engine is stock, sealed against tampering and, according to Flis Performance, good for multiple seasons in many cases. A C&R radiator and Setrab oil cooler help with engine longevity and race day cooling; attesting to their effectiveness, we saw cooler temps on track than we did idling in the pits. 

The biggest change to the drivetrain is the Sadev six-speed sequential gearbox that connects the engine with the sealed limited-slip rear end. Mandated for the traveling MX-5 Cup pro series (the standard six-speed manual is available as a lower-cost option for custom MX-5 Cup car builds), the Sadev replaces one of the few weak points in the MX-5 drivetrain with a bulletproof, raceworthy option. 

Photography Credit: Chris Tropea

Additional race prep includes stripping out the engine control harness and ECU and replacing it with a sealed Bosch Motorsport setup. The body harness is pared down where applicable but mostly stays intact, save for the spots where it integrates with the ECU.

Truly Trackworthy

So what’s the result of all this reconstruction? Well, as we alluded to before, it’s a race car that feels absolutely hardwired into your nervous system. “It really feels more like a little GT car than a converted street car,” Todd Flis told us even before we loaded the shop’s demo car into the trailer. “You get a great sense of what the tires are doing and it feels super direct.”

That was all a bit of an understatement: The feedback of the MX-5 Cup comes in such high resolution that you feel like your fingertips are touching the contact patches themselves. 

Backing up, the entire experience feels well curated and thoughtfully designed. Miatas aren’t the biggest cars to begin with, so stuffing them with an FIA-spec roll cage, a race seat and safety gear tends to make even these open-top sports cars a bit claustrophobic. Designing a cage that allows for reasonable ingress and egress while still providing top-notch safety is tricky, but the Cup car nails it here. Even with the snug Max Papis Innovations seat (and matching Alcantara steering wheel, of course), the MX-5 Cup feels like it has more elbowroom than a stock Miata. Sliding in and out of the halo seat through the cage is simple, and even sightlines are largely unobstructed. 

Add in that you’re essentially looking at a stock Miata dash, and the feeling is all very familiar. Even the mandated exhaust is fairly quiet, and there’s almost none of that typical “race car” NVH coming through the chassis. It’s very Miata-like. 

Until you drop the Sadev sequential into first by yanking back on the stick, that is.

Our initial laps in the MX-5 Cup car showed why the racing is so close: It’s effortless to drive and eager to please. Those attributes would translate nicely to lapping days as well. Photography Credit: David S. Wallens

If we have a criticism of the car, it centers around the gearbox. Not that it’s bad, mind you, just that it’s not fully in character with the rest of the car. The responsive chassis of the Cup car loves a light touch–the wheel is best gripped with your fingertips, and the brakes are best applied with a single toe, maybe two if you’re pushing the braking markers. But that shifter works best when you pull it like you’re trying to start a weed whacker that sat all winter.

Todd Flis warned us on the way out the door: “It wants a heck of a tug.” And he was not wrong. 

Going too gently delays the shift longer than the momentary ignition cut that allows flat-foot shifting, so it doesn’t always snap the next gear into place with enough authority. The contrast between executing delicate, gentle work on the wheel and pedals and YANKING THE SHIFTER LIKE IT OWES YOU MONEY at each gear change takes some getting used to. Once you come to terms with it, though, you’re rewarded with a slick gearbox whose shifts are almost imperceptible on the data.

Likewise, downshifts take a firm slap and the right timing to properly execute. A gentle blip of the throttle helps the downshift slide into place, but like the other non-shifter controls, the throttle is light, and overblipping will just stall the engagement. Within a few laps, though, that gentle touch on the gas results in a silky, if firm, engagement of the lower gear.

The sequential box isn’t just significant for its ruggedness and fun, though. It also allows left-foot braking, really letting you take advantage of the responsive chassis. (Although perennial series front-runner Selin Rollan tells us he’s a dedicated right-foot braker, so it’s clearly not a necessity.) 

And “responsive” isn’t really even the right word here, because the chassis sharpness is the most notable feature of the MX-5 Cup. That light touch is rewarded with such high-resolution feedback that the car is practically intuitive. 

We sampled the Cup car on a pretty well-used set of BFGoodrich tires (for the 2024 season, the series moved to Michelin slicks), and even with less-than-ideal rubber, we could still micromanage the contact patch of each tire with any of the controls. We could back it into a corner like a dirt bike with some late, heavy braking, or toss-and-catch with the wheel, or just turn in like a normal person and use throttle to progressively build load. 

When the tires started to break away, the fronts tended to go first, but we’re talking about fractions of a degree here. The Cup car is far more neutral than it is an understeerer. About the only cornering condition not available is true power-on oversteer, as with only 181 horsepower on tap, the tires and chassis are more than capable of overwhelming the power. In fact, one of the keys to going fast in the Cup car seems to be using only 100% of that grip, as you simply don’t have the power to overcome mistakes and the loss of momentum should you go to 101%. All that friction just starts slowing you down.

Due to these characteristics, we completely understand why the talent level in the MX-5 Cup series is so high. Drivers that excel in this series need an incredible touch behind the wheel. You’re not going to get it done on pure aggression, racecraft or seat-of-the-pants skill in a car like this. 

This chassis is operating at such a high degree of resolution that only the drivers who can truly hear those fine notes way at the end of the range are going to come out on top. It’s a car you’ll be able to drive comfortably and safely anywhere from 98% to 102%, simply because of its benign and predictable nature. But you’re not going to be anywhere toward the front of the field unless you’re operating at 99.7% to 100.3%. 

What’s the Data Say?

The VBox data shows that the MX-5 Cup car is getting it done almost entirely with tenacious grip and razor-sharp reflexes. On our test course at the FIRM, it turned a 1:19.72, likely leaving at least a couple tenths on the table due to the fact that we were driving a longtime friend’s $100,000 race car. Still, that number puts it in the company of OEM sports cars with double–or more–the power.

We lined up the data with the trace from the 2020 Toyota GR Supra, which was a near dead heat on the clock with the MX-5 Cup car at 1:19.59. It couldn’t have been clearer how much the Mazda was relying on handling to close the gap. 

While the Supra would rocket out of corners, easily putting a 10 mph advantage on the MX-5 within 300 feet of a slow exit, the MX-5 Cup car would just continue at full throttle well after the Supra had hit the brakes. The Cup car went as much as 50 meters deeper into corners before jumping on the binders, at which point the speed trace dropped like a cat pushed it off a countertop.

Cornering, likewise, was dramatically different. The MX-5 Cup car barely slows for the FIRM’s left-hand Turn 4 kink, while the Supra needs considerable braking to negotiate that turn a full 10 mph slower. Overall, the MX-5 Cup car has the crisp speed trace of a true race car, while the Supra has some thrust but lacks the overall refinement that separates a highly capable street machine from a true competition tool.

Do You Want One?

Well, yeah. Although not blessed with gaudy power, the MX-5 Cup car has absolute surgical handling that makes you feel like a hero, even if you know you aren’t as good as the 19-year-old kid running in the top five in the pro series–currently known as IMSA’s Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin.

With a price tag right at $100,000, though, it’s not a cheap date, at least on the buy-in. But think a bit about what you get for the money. It’s basically a hand-built, bespoke race car that’s extremely well balanced, so it’s easy on consumables, with a pro series that produces among the best racing anywhere and features more than a million bucks in payout and scholarships. 

This combo means that used MX-5 Cup cars hold their value extremely well, and Todd Flis reports depreciation of maybe only 15-20% for used cars that can be easily updated to current series specs. Looked at through that lens, it may not be a low-priced race car, but it’s a solid investment of a race car, and that’s a lot more than you can say about a lot of other cars in that space.

In addition to benign manners and easy consumables, the MX-5 Cup also offers more than a million dollars in prize money and scholarships. Photography Credit: David S. Wallens

Plus, durability is high, and consumables wear at a moderate pace. Flis reports that between-race maintenance frequently amounts to little more than fresh fluids and nut-and-bolt checks, as even wear items like brake pads can last through a couple weekends. 

Be ready to repair some rub damage though, as the racing is so close as to defy the laws of physics about two objects occupying the same space. The most requested part from the trackside spares cache? Hands down, he says, it’s the Mazda emblem on the nose of the car. “The series requires them to be in place,” he says, “and it seems like these guys knock them off before they even leave the grid sometimes.”