Two-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Earl Bamber will run in the Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin invitational race at Martinsville Speedway, which takes place next week on Thursday, 23 October.
Bamber will drive the #31 Whelen Engineering-sponsored car, set to be fielded by Kimberlee Hendricks and her Hendricks Motorsports team. (READ MORE: Hendricks Motorsports, the DSC connection to the 2025 MX-5 Cup)
He’s coming off an IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTP campaign with Cadillac Whelen (Action Express Racing), which included back-to-back wins to close out the season, at the TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis, and the Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta. Bamber was also part of a historic 1-2 finish for Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA in the WEC 6 Hours of São Paulo.
Bamber is the first Le Mans overall winner to race in MX-5 Cup: The Kiwi has also won championships in the FIA World Endurance Championship (2017 LMP1) and the IMSA WeatherTech series (2019 GTLM).
It’ll be Bamber’s first oval race, as he’ll compete for a $25,000 prize and a famous Ridgeway grandfather clock in Thursday’s 100-lap non-championship race. It comes just weeks after Nick Tandy, Bamber’s 2015 Le Mans-winning co-driver, made a successful cameo appearance in the Mini Challenge UK finale at Brands Hatch.
“I’m really excited to do the MX-5 cup race at Martinsville,” Bamber said. “I’ve always wanted to drive on an oval, so I can’t say thank you enough to Whelen and to Sonny Whelen for making this happen.
“I’m not sure how it’s going to go. I think there’s some really talented drivers that are in that series, so I’m just there for the experience, to learn, to have a lot of fun and, like I said, tick one of the boxes on something I’ve always wanted to do.”
The MX-5 Cup race at Martinsville will start at 6 PM ET (local time) on Thursday, airing on the IMSA and RACER YouTube channels.
Feature image © Nick Dungan / Drew Gibson Photography
