Massachusetts prep shop is expanding from club racing to the Idemitsu MX-5 Cup
Flatout Motorsports has been renting cars to customers since 2003, and has expanded into a full-service prep shop. Now, with a customer interested in the Idemitsu MX-5 Cup Presented by BFGoodrich® Tires, the team is looking to its next challenge.
“We have a customer, Matt Koskinen, who’s bought a MX-5 Cup car and wants to run a full season in 2018,” explains Nick Leverone, one of Flatout’s principals and a darn good shoe himself. “To facilitate us taking care of his car, we worked out a deal to get a couple of rental cars.”
Koskinen plans to do a few races in 2017 in preparation for a full-season run next year. Spec Miata racer Tyler Kicera, the SCCA U.S. Majors Tour champion for the last two years and the 2016 NASA Eastern States winner, is also planning on running MX-5 Cup in 2018, and will be joining the team as a driver and coach for this season, says Leverone.
The plan is to run the MX-5 Cup races at Indianapolis and Road America, and perhaps Toronto as well. But Flatout doesn’t intend to let the cars sit around, and aims to rent them out for SCCA races in Touring 3, where he says he expects the car to do well.
Leverone, whose partners in Flatout include Andy Bettencourt, Hugh McHaffie, Attilio A. Albani Jr., and Steve Ulfelder, has also been doing well in 2017 racing an NB Mazda Miata in SCCA’s STL class. He split wins with Danny Steyn (who races an NC Miata in STL) at Sebring, and the team took wins in both races at NOLA and COTA.
“My teammate Craig McHaffie – Hugh’s son – had his first Majors win at COTA on Sunday,” Leverone says. “We’ve been developing that car [a 2008 Mazda Miata]. We built that car for Grand-Am in 2008, and Hugh and I ran that for a couple of years, [although we] never did a full season. The car kind of sat around. We converted that car to STL and it has been getting quicker and quicker. Now I think it’s one of the more dominant cars in the class.”
If your’e interested in joining Flatout for some MX-5 Cup races, or renting a car for Touring 3 or Spec Miata, contact Leverone at nick@flatout-motorsports.com.