- The Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear is now in its 21st year as the triple-A baseball of auto racing -- a high-speed training ground for future stars of the sport and a part of the new Mazda Road to Indy that includes USF2000, Star Mazda, Indy Lights and IndyCar.
- The Mazda Road to Indy – complimented by the MAZDASPEED Motorsports Driver Development Ladder -- is the only open-wheel driver development program that reaches all the way from karting to IndyCar … and provides scholarship funding for the champions in each series to move up and compete in the next level. The 2011 Star Mazda Champion will receive funding to compete in the 2012 Indy Lights series… and the 2011 USF2000 champion will move up to race in Star Mazda in 2012.
- In addition to being a key stop on the Road to Indy, with graduates such as IndyCar stars Marco Andretti, Graham Rahal and Raphael Matos, the Star Mazda Championship is also a well-established 'gateway' series for drivers to advance to various forms of racing. Star Mazda alumni include NASCAR racers Michael McDowell, Colin Braun, Scott Speed, Brad Coleman and Moses Smith. Also on the list are prototype and sports car racers Joey Hand, Guy Cosmo, Adam Christodoulou, John Edwards and Dane Cameron (all of whom were Star Mazda champions).
- Drivers from around the globe, both male and female and ranging in age from 16 to 56, competed in the 2010 Star Mazda Championship – including racers from the U.S., Canada, Mexico, France, Norway, Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia. Most were young racers moving up from karting, Skip Barber, USF2000 and European series like GP3, Formula Renault and Palmer Audi, but drivers in the Expert Series for racers 30 and older also included company CEOs, a top U.S. SuperBike racer and a world-class polo player and a retired competition acrobatic pilot.
- CEOs, doctors, bankers and entrepreneurs racing at 160 mph, battling wheel-to-wheel with top young drivers from around the world are a feature of Star Mazda Championship races. Expert Series drivers (age 30 and older) race the same cars in the same races as the young rising stars, and are competing for the same points and prizes, but also have their own race-within-a-race and championship-within-a-championship. Four drivers participate in the podium ceremonies at each race; the top-3 overall finishers and the top-finishing Expert Series driver.
- Drivers in the Star Mazda Championship are racing for one of the richest prize packages, valued at more than $1.5 million, in any open-wheel development series. Prize money is paid down to 15th place in the championship, with the Series champion receiving $100,000 in cash and scholarship funding to compete in the 2012 Indy Lights series.
- In 2011, the Star Mazda Championship schedule includes six IndyCar weekends, two American Le Mans events, an event where Star Mazda and Indy Lights are co-featured and the high-profile USAC 'Night Before the 500' event at O'Reilly Raceway Park. Tracks include road courses, street circuits and both long and short ovals.
- Like Formula One, the Star Mazda Championship utilizes standing starts (on road and street circuits; rolling starts are used on ovals). A series of 18 x 18-inch mobile LED panels, all wirelessly connected to the starting computer, are placed at intervals alongside the starting grid. Horizontal rows of super-bright red LED’s will begin to glow, moving up the screen like a thermometer. When the final row of lights comes on and the screen is full red, the starting computer will randomly select a delay of between .5 and 3.0 seconds, after which all the red LEDs will go out simultaneously and the entire screen will turn green, signaling the start of the race.
- The Star Mazda Championship race cars look like ¾-scale IndyCars, but are high-tech, high-speed race cars race cars featuring sophisticated aerodynamics and suspension as well as a legendary Mazda ‘Renesis’ 250 horsepower rotary engine that also powers the RX-8 sports car. With a race weight of 1,335 pounds, including fuel and driver, a Star Mazda race car has a top speed of 160 mph and accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in just 2.8 seconds. All the cars feature a carbon fiber chassis, sophisticated aerodynamics, fully-adjustable ‘pushrod’ suspension, sequential 6-speed gearbox and Goodyear radial racing tires.
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Fast Facts – Round 1 of the 21st season of the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg
- THE HOME-TOWN HERO/ HOME-TOWN TEAM – Nick Andries, a mechanical engineering major at St. Petersburg College will be driving the #81 car for Team Pelfrey, based in Clearwater. Team Pelfrey was an IndyCar team from 1998-2001 noted for giving young drivers their 'big break'; Dale Pelfrey has revived the team and is fielding a 2-car effort in the Star Mazda Championship.
- ST. PETE SURGEON WITH A 'NEED FOR SPEED' – DDS Walt Bowlin, CEO of Tampa Bay Jaw Surgery, races in the Star Mazda Expert Series, a race-within-a-race for drivers 30 and older. A veteran Star Mazda competitor, he will be driving the #23 AIM Autosport / Tampa Bay Jaw Surgery Mazda.
- TOP SUPERBIKE RACER TRADES TWO WHEELS FOR FOUR – Larry Pegram, one of the top AMA Superbike racers in the U.S. will trade his 2-wheeled racer for a Star Mazda Indy-style open-wheel drive at St. Pete. He ran three Star Mazda races in 2010 and will drive the #72 AIM Autosport / Tampa Bay Jaw Surgery / Foremost Insurance Mazda in 2011, racing in the Expert Series.
- STAR MAZDA GRADUATES IN INDY LIGHTS AND INDYCAR – Now in its 21st season, the Star Mazda Championship is the most successful open-wheel driver development program in North America. Star Mazda graduates in the IndyCar field this weekend include Graham Rahal, Marco Andretti, and 2005 Star Mazda Champion Raphael Matos. Alumni competing in Indy Lights include 2010 Star Mazda champion Conor Daly, Anders Krohn, Jorge Goncalvez, David Ostella, Joel Miller and Peter 'The Irish Steamroller' Dempsey.
- FAST FEMALE DRIVING FOR CHAMPIONSHIP-WINNING TEAM – The lone female competitor in the Star Mazda field at St. Pete is Colombian driver Tatiana Calderon. She drives for Juncos Racing, the team that won the 2010 championship with Conor Daly and is in her second year of competition driving the #10 Juncos Racing / JAC Motors Mazda.
- AN ADVENTURE JUNKIE WITH BRAINS – You'd think driving an Indy-style race car at 160 mph through the streets of St. Pete would be adventure enough for anyone… but not Nick Mancuso, driver of the #27 JDC Motorsports / Indeck / Lake Forest Sportscars / F.A.S.T. Race Products Mazda. His hobbies include skydiving and capturing reptiles in the wild. He was also he was inducted into the Cum Laude Society in 2004, and in 2005 was made a member of the National Honor Society and selected from a pool of 1.4 million students as a National Merit Scholar.
- $2.5 MILLION IN 'RACING SCHOLARSHIPS' – The Star Mazda Championship, along with USF2000 and Indy Lights (all three series racing at St. Pete) is part of the Mazda Road to Indy. This unique driver development program offers 'racing scholarships' worth $2.5 million per year to champions in each series to help them move up to race at the next level… all the way to IndyCar and the Indy 500.
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