The Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear is the second level of the remarkable new Mazda Road to Indy, the most comprehensive driver development program in auto racing today… with the most valuable, career-enhancing prizes ever offered to young drivers:
Note: Drivers are not required to enter the Mazda Road to Indy at the beginning; you are encouraged to compete in whichever series best suits your current level of experience. This is a multi-year program
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The Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear
- In 2011, The Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear will enter its 21st year as one of the premier open-wheel driver development series in North America, with all events held on major motorsports weekends with IndyCar, American Le Mans and USAC.
- Click here to see the 2011 schedule, which includes four road courses, four street circuits and three ovals.
- Click here for a video overview of series champion Conor Daly's 2010 Star Mazda Championship season.
- Star Mazda graduates include IZOD IndyCar drivers Marco Andretti, Graham Rahal and 2005 Star Mazda champion Raphael Matos; drivers have also gone on to race in F1, NASCAR, prototypes and sports cars.
- Drivers 16 and older are welcome, and there is also an Expert Series championship-within-a-championship for drivers 30 and older. An FIA license is required to compete; click here for application forms.
- Star Mazda is a 'spec' series with a rules structure that focuses on driver training and talent rather than big budgets. To help accelerate driver development, unlimited testing is allowed, but new rules to be implemented in 2011 will discourage excessive travel for testing. Click here to view series regulations.
- Star Mazda has a number of highly-professional teams offering a wide variety of programs designed to fit virtually any budget. Click here for a list of teams and contact information.
- To research how individual teams finished in the 2010 championship, click here and go to Page 2 to view the 'Team Championship' rankings.
- A variety of marketing materials are provided by the Star Mazda Championship and the MAZDA Road to Indy, click here.
- Click here to view Star Mazda videos.
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2011 Schedule
- Click Here to view the complete 2011 Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear Schedule
- There will be authorized Star Mazda Championship series pre-season test at a track to be announced; also at the Milwaukee Mile (prior to the beginning of the 3-oval stretch) and at Infineon Raceway.
- Teams and drivers will, as always, be allowed an unlimited number of test days, but new rules for 2011 will help reduce costs by discouraging excess travel; testing at tracks listed on the Championship schedule will restricted to only those days specifically authorized by the Series.
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Star Mazda Championship Television
Note: information in this section pertains to the 2010 season. The 2011 television package will be announced soon.
- Four races on the 2010 schedule were broadcast live on HDnet. Launched in 2001, the HDNet networks are available on AT&T, Charter Communications, Comcast, DIRECTV, DISH Network, Insight, Mediacom, Verizon and more than 40 NCTC cable affiliate companies.
- Additionally, several races were syndicated to a variety of networks with a viewership of more than 155 million. For an overview of the broadcast distribution (including South America, Europe, Australia, Japan and Asia) click here.
- Star Mazda races from the 'Night Before the 500' at O'Reilly Raceway Park and Iowa Speedway were streamed via live video on IndyCar.com, StarMazda.com and USF2000.com. To view a short ORP video, click here. To view the entire Iowa Speedway race, click here.
- All cars can (for an additional per-race or full-season fee) be equipped with on-board cameras. The recorded footage is supplied to the driver and teams for use as both training and marketing tool. Click here for sample on-board video clips.
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Star Mazda Championship Race Cars
- The Star Mazda Championship Pro Formula Mazda is a high-tech open-wheel car with a carbon fiber chassis, fully-adjustable suspension and 6-speed sequential gearbox. All cars were upgraded at the start of the 2009 season with improved aerodynamics, suspension, brakes and engine. For detailed specifications, click here.
- Performance is 0 to 60 mph in 2.8 seconds and a top speed of 160 mph - comparable to a Formula 3 car. To take a tour of the Star Race Cars facility in California, click here.
- The engine is Mazda's legendary 'Renesis' rotary, race-tuned to produce 260 horsepower. The reliability of the engine contributes to the relatively low cost of competing in the Star Mazda Championship.
- The 'single-spec' engineering of Star Mazda Championship race cars showcases driving talent instead of big budgets, yet allows enough adjustments for the drivers to learn how to set up a race car and work with a team engineer.
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Star Mazda Championship Races
- Star Mazda Championship races are 45 minutes long, with no scheduled pit stops.
- Standing starts, via a series of red-to-green LED light boxes placed along the pit wall, are used on road courses and street circuits. Rolling starts are used on ovals.
- To enhance the driver's education, races are held on a variety of track types, including natural-terrain road courses, street circuits and ovals. To see in-car videos of the tracks the series raced on in 2010, click here.
- Live timing of races is available on the series web site, and can be accessed on smartphones.
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Star Mazda Championship Prizes
- The value of the season-end prize fund for 2011 will be approximately $1.5million, including a Mazda-sponsored drive for the Star Mazda series champion in the Firestone Indy Lights series.
- In addition, the series champion is awarded a $100,000 cash prize. The 'Rookie of the Year' award includes a $10,000 cash prize.
- Prize money is paid down through 15th place in the championship. Checks for all prizes are presented at the series' season-ending banquet.
- Additional prizes are provided by series sponsors, with sets of new racing tires, brakes, and other racing hardware awarded through a drawing during the driver meeting before each race.
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The Star Mazda Expert Series
- The Star Mazda Championship also provides a category for more mature racers in whom the competitive fire still burn brightly – the Expert Series for drivers 30 and older.
- The Expert Series run as a race-within-a-race and, over the course of the season, a championship-within-a-championship. All drivers are on track at the same time competing in equal equipment. Expert drivers score series championship points and prize money in addition to a separate points structure and prize money.
- The top finishing Expert in each race, wherever they finish in the overall field, share the podium, TV interviews, photo opportunities and champagne spraying as the top-3 finishers.
- In recognition of the fact that many Expert drivers are company CEOs with schedules that occasionally conflict with race weekends, eight of the eleven races count toward the championship. This allows Expert drivers to miss three races without penalty, or to drop their worst three finishes if they run all eleven races.
- In 2010, Team GDT won the Expert Series with driver (and team owner) J.W. Roberts. This was also the last year of the 'Master' Series for drivers 45 and older (Expert and Master have been consolidated into the single Expert Series class). Team GDT driver Carlos Conde won the Master Series.
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Star Mazda Championship Web Site
- The Star Mazda Championship maintains a professional web site www.StarMazda.com that is updated on a daily basis and registered more than 1.5 million 'hits' in 2010.
- The site includes series and team press releases, in-car videos from each event, audio and video interviews with the top-finishing driver in each session of a race weekend, downloadable high-res driver and race car photos, etc.
- The Series has a professional photographer at every race taking photos of every on-track session. Photos, including special requests, are available at no charge to drivers and teams for their own public relations, marketing and advertising programs.
- Live timing from race events is available through the web site, and can be displayed on iPhone, Blackberry, etc.
- All updates to rules regulations, technical bulleting, event schedules, track setup sheets, etc. are posted to the web site.
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Star Mazda Championship Public Relations Program
- The Star Mazda Championship has a Communications Director who writes press releases sent to media as well as internal team memos which are sent directly to all teams and drivers, eliminating communications bottlenecks.
- The Communications Department for the Star Mazda Championship issues regular press releases concerning series news, new teams, new drivers, new marketing and TV programs, etc.
- On each race weekend, or official Series test, the PR department issues a press release prior to the event, at the end of each day of testing and practice, after qualifying and after the race.
- All releases are posted on the Series web site, sent to teams and drivers and distributed to sent to an extensive national and international list of web, print, radio and TV media.
- Drivers and teams can request press releases be sent to a list of sponsors, supporters, fans, family, etc.
- Releases sent by the series can be customized by drivers and teams to focus on their own results and forwarded to sponsors and fans.
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Star Mazda Championship Marketing Tools and Opportunities
- The Star Mazda Championship provides for use by drivers and teams a marketing kit, available in both downloadable/ printable PDF format and as a powerpoint presentation for use on computer. To view a copy of this kit, click here
Elements of Sponsor Return on Investment include:
- Business-to-business meetings/entertainment and/or employee reward/team building events at the large, covered hospitality area provided by the Star Mazda series and located centrally in the Series paddock. Large-screen televisions with live TV feed are provided. Catering is available.
- On-site product sampling and advertising opportunities in the race program, track signage, event broadcast, etc.
- Utilization of Series-provided still and video images in company promotional, advertising and marketing programs.
- Utilization of race car and driver for company meetings, store openings, special promotions, etc.
- Brand-building through coverage of company involvement with team/driver by non-traditional media, overseas media, etc.
- Opportunity to elevate profile within series and generate additional media coverage via sponsorship of individual race events, per-race awards (Fastest Lap of the Race, etc.) and series-end awards (Rookie of the Year, etc.).
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