RACE: Mazdaspeed Cup Laguna race summary

Dobson tops 70-car Mazdaspeed Cup field at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

MONTEREY, Calif. (June 11, 2002) -- Ken Dobson, of Carmel Valley, Calif., bested Barry Hartzel, of Monterey, Calif., and Marc Kirberg, of Madera, Calif., to win Sunday's Mazdaspeed Cup event at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. Running on an off-weekend from the SPEED World Challenge series, Dobson led every lap of the 15-lap event that featured an incredible 70-car field of Mazda Miatas.

"Living only four miles from the track, we [the crew] put the tools in the trunk, drove the car to the track, took the stuff out of the trunk and then I went out on the track," said Dobson. "I was fastest in every session except the morning warm-up, which I decided to skip,"

From his record-setting pole position time of 1:49.301 (73.712 mph), Dobson (No. 33 Larry Oka Racing/Ground Control) was never able to pull out a lead on the second and third place cars of Hartzel and Kirberg. The three ran nose-to-tail for practically the entire event with the margin of victory only 0.193-second.

"I had tough competition from Barry [Hartzel] and Marc [Kirberg]. The three of us were involved in some friendly bumping out there."

Fresh off of his first career victory in the SPEED World Challenge Touring Car series at Mosport International Raceway, Dobson was impressed with the event, sponsored by Mazdaspeed, which closed out the Bridgestone Grand Prix of Monterey CART Weekend.

"The event was run very professionally and was a super enjoyable weekend. All my thanks to the SCCA and Mazdaspeed people for putting on such a great event."

Jim Daniels, of Germantown, Tenn., and Pratt Cole, of Salt Lake City, Utah completed the top five for the event.

"We're extremely proud of our SCCA drivers and officials, which provided a great amount of added excitement to the CART weekend at Mazda Raceway," said Steve Johnson, SCCA and SCCA Pro Racing President and CEO. "We congratulate Ken and the other 69 drivers for a job well done on such a high profile weekend."

This was the first-ever SCCA Pro Racing-sanctioned event for a Spec Miata event. Spec Miata is an extremely popular SCCA Club Racing class nationwide. All cars are first-generation body style Mazda Miata's with minor performance modifications.

-scca pro racing-