Playboy MX-5 Cup - Privateer Copeland Scores First Victory At Lime Rock

LAKEVILLE, May 31, 2011: First battling attrition, then each other, Dean Copeland and Jason Saini fought to a side-by-side SCCA Pro Racing Playboy Mazda MX-5 Cup Memorial Day Classic finish on Monday at Lime Rock Park. Copeland, of Bowie, Md., nipped Saini, from Cresson, Texas, for a 0.096-second victory. Jeff Mosing, from Austin, Texas, finished third.

Falling just short multiple times in the past two seasons, Copeland became the first single-car team to win an MX-5 Cup race in the six year history of the series after edging Saini in a drag race to the stripe by 0.096-second.

Copeland’s No. 7 Copeland Motorsports/Sync Speed Inc MX-5 led Saini at the white flag, but slid wide and let Saini’s No. 28 Autobarn Mazda of Countryside/New Balance/Phiten/SunTrust/CJ Wilson’s Children’s Charities Mazda MX-5 past. Copeland didn’t let up, pulling into Saini’s draft down the front straight, then alongside and just ahead as the two crossed the finish line.

Copeland covered the 42-lap, 63-mile race in 45:16.988, averaging 83.474 mph. It was the first professional win for Copeland, a former SCCA Club Racer whose only crew member on most race weekends is his father, Kevin.

“I said to my dad coming down pit road, it’s been a long time coming,” Copeland said. “We’ve had great cars before and have been close and it’s been heartbreaking. I told him before we came this weekend that it’s meant to be. We got beat [Saturday] pretty bad, and I don’t know what happened, but the true colors came out today. I drove the wheels off of it, Dad kept me calm on the radio, and look where we’re at.

“Going up to the chicane, I just slipped and dropped two in the dirt and he pulled out by two or three cars. I said, ‘it’s done, it’s over.’ We came out of that last turn down the hill and as soon as he turned the car in, the rear stepped out. It was the first time he’d done that all race and I just held it to the floor. We came across the line and it was insanely close. I didn’t even know I won until my dad came across the radio.”

It was payback for Copeland, who ended up on the short end of the closest finish in MX-5 Cup history last season at VIRginia International Raceway, falling by 0.024 seconds to eventual series champion Brad Rampelberg.

“I’ve had another one of these last year and I was on the losing end to Brad Rampelberg,” Copeland said. “He told me then, ‘your time is coming,’ but I was starting to lose faith. We had been up and down this year, but finally. That’s all I can say.”

Copeland was fined 10 points by series officials after the race for dropping two-wheels off of the chicane on the final lap.

Saini, the 2007 MX-5 Cup champion, matched the best finish of the season for CJ Wilson Racing in their first season as a race team.

“I just wanted a nice, boring day, but it wasn’t meant to be,” Saini, who finished fifth in Saturday’s race one, said. “Both days, I was in a battle for the whole race. We just hung in there. The car was good, but it was going away there a little bit at the end and I was nervous because I gave up my position in the last corner [Saturday]. I was a little bit conservative coming down the hill, and he wasn’t, and that was all the difference. It was a great race with him, and a good result for us with the second place.

“Coming into the last lap, he had a decent margin on me. I made up some time in turns one and two, and coming up the back straight he just lost it and dropped two off. I thought I had it there and really wanted to bring home the win for CJ Wilson Racing, but I was just a little too conservative.”

Mosing earned his second-consecutive third-place finish of the holiday weekend, and his third podium in as many races this season. Mosing’s No. 10 Race Now For Autism/Frank’s International MX-5 missed Round Two at Road Atlanta.

“ALARA Racing just gave me an awesome car,” Mosing said. “I took myself out of contention for a while early, and Marc Miller [in communication with Mosing on the radio] talked me back up there. Before I knew it, I was shuffling my way back up through the pack. Maybe it was a good thing I wasn’t up there with all of the attrition going on.”

Scott Shelton, driving the No. 3 MAZDASPEED/Mothers/iRacing/Pure Power/BFG Mazda MX-5, finished fourth. Shelton ran third for the latter half of the race, but lost his top gear and slowed, finishing behind Mosing and off the podium.

Chad McCumbee, a veteran of stock car racing and all three of the top NASCAR series, finished fifth in his first weekend of MX-5 Cup competition driving the No. 29 ModSpace/Mazda MX-5.

AMG teammates Mike Cooper and Justin Hall both fell victim to damage during the race. Hall started second in the No. 4 Atlanta Motorsports Group Mazda MX-5, but was forced to pit when his rear tire went down after hitting debris on the track. Polesitter Cooper, who led by more than 12 seconds at the midway point of the race, fell victim to a similar issue in his No. 6 Atlanta Motorsports Group MX-5. Cooper finished 8th, Hall was classified 13th.

After Cooper was forced to the pits, Ara Malkhassian briefly took the lead in his No. 11 ALARA Racing MX-5. Malkhassian, moving past lapped traffic on the short 1.5-mile course, was in the unfortunate position of following a battle at the rear of the field when there was contact between those two drivers, forcing Malkhassian into a spin and out of the race. Malkhassian finished 12th.

The second-place finish propels Saini into the Drivers’ Championship lead over Cooper by nine points, 212-203. Shelton (184 points) moves to third, followed by a tie between Copeland and Hall with 175 points.

The SCCA Pro Racing Playboy Mazda MX-5 Cup returns to action on for Round Five of the season at Road America, part of the SCCA Club Racing June Sprints weekend, June 17-18.