Jason Saini on World Challenge season and changes

In 2009, the Tri-Point Motorsports Mazda team came close to taking their second championship title in what was to be the final year of the Mazda6 in the SCCA World Challenge Touring Car series.

2008 Rookie of the Year Jason Saini put on a strong challenge to lead the championship early on, just pipped at the last round to the title by RealTime Racing’s Pierre Kleinubing.

TouringCarTimes spoke to Jason about last season, the changes to World Challenge in 2010, and what he’s currently up to – as he currently competes in the One Lap of America ‘Cannonball Run’ style event.

TcT: Last year was obviously a good year for you in World Challenge, just missing out on the title – how did you find last year?

“Last year was a really special year for us, we didn’t really know if we were going to have the budget – though the economy started to recover it was still a little difficult…so we started off doing a race by race programme.”

“We had some success in the first couple of races…and then we just kept having good results. We had a lot of luck go our way, particular for myself as my team mates Eric Foss & Charles Espenlaub in the Tri-Point Mazda6’s were always on a par – we were always returning the same times, and always had the same pace – we had a great working relationship between us, but on the day sometimes I ended up with the racing luck as it were, and pulled out a bit of a championship lead.”

“It’s so rare that you end up in a race team where you’re not always bumping heads, but we had a wonderful relationship…it was a fun year, a successful year and we made a lot out of a little – we’re very proud of finishing second in the championship, leading the most laps, tieing for the most wins – it was a really special acheivement.”

TcT: The SCCA changed the technical regulations during the off season, switch to the new Touring Car 2 format – what effect did that have on yours and Mazda’s plans for the season?

“It was a little tough on us as Tri-Point & Mazda had just collaborated to put together the brand new 2010 Mazda3 to the previous rule package – but the (new) direction was a little bit simpler then the previous
cars…the suspension was all in the stock locations – nothing could be changed there, the car had a little less power, the engine was a lot more stock. It (the Mazda3) was built to what was supposed to be the new regulations, and then entries were not looking good and so they (SCCA) felt they needed to do more and went even stricter”.

“Now the World Challenge Touring Cars are similar to a Grand-Am Street Tuner spec…It’s got stock brake and transmissions – it’s very more restrictive than the regulations the Mazda3 was built to so we were left very much without a car to play with in the series.”

“Mazda still supported the series – and they put Patrick Dempsey in the Mazda3 for Long Beach because they created a new class called GTS, where the previous generation touring cars could run – but for Mazda it just didn’t feel like there was a value to being in that intermediate class so they decided to pull out and not have a full factory effort with Tri-Point in the World Challenge in 2010.”

The Tri-Point Motorsports Mazda3 World Challenge car (Tri-Point Motorsports)

TcT: What do you think of the new World Challenge regulations? Do you think they’re a step forward?

“I think so, in the end it’s a little bit of a step backwards to go to three classes but I think it was necessary to save the series. The cars were quite advanced, and not unlike the ebb and flow of British touring cars over the years as the cars get more advanced something needs to be done.”

“With the new regulations the fields aren’t very big either, but it’s a step in the right direction, they’ll grow.”

“As a driver, you always want the cars to be quicker, you always want wings and sequential gearboxes but if the budgets don’t support it – and right now in motorsports they don’t – you have to do something.”

“The middle class should (eventually) go away, and it should go back to a GT series and a touring car series, but to keep the car counts up this year and to give a place for some people with some intermediate cars a place to run. There’s also a couple of club racing cars that have been called as legal for the GTS cars, it was was necessary to keep the car counts up and in the end I think it’s going to save the series.”

TcT: In the GTS class though, there doesn’t seem to be a very equal spread of performance – at Long Beach, Tyler McQuarrie turned up in a Lotus and was a couple of seconds a lap faster than the RealTime Acura’s

“It’s gonna happen, basically what they’ve done is created a rather wide range of cars – it was hard enough and a full time job for the SCCA officials to equalise just the BMW’s, Acura’s, Mazda’s and whatever else was running in the World Challenge series previously, but now you’ve entered in Porsche’s, Viper’s – the Lotus – something’s going to slip through the cracks and I’d be surprised if that Lotus is allowed to run in the same configuration in the next race.”

“Every now and again with the transition stage of the series, every once in a while you’ll have a car that comes out and outperforms everything else and then gets an adjustment.”

The Continental Tire Sports Car Challange Team MER Mazdaspeed3 (Grand-Am)

TcT: You’re now racing in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge series this year, how is that going?

“It’s good – I have to skip a couple of races. It’s a bit of a development year for the Mazdaspeed3 – there have only been four races so far, Daytona, Homestead, Barber Motorsports Park & VIR – and at this point we’re qualifying in the top five and finishing in the top ten – it’s a very very extraordinarily competitive series.”

“You have some of the best drivers in world; Andy Lally, Nic Jonsson – Ryan Eversley – there’s a whole range of people in that series that are at the very top of their game. And the teams – Compass 360, Freedom Autosport, Kinetic – some of the best sportscar teams in the states are focusing their efforts on that series – for a new car to come out and in it’s first four races to be as competitive as it is…everyone at Mazda’s very proud of that – and my own personal team.”

“I’m part of Team MER which runs the MX-5 Cup series here in the states, we’ve also built our own Mazdaspeed3 and we’re going to be campaigning that as well so I’ve gotten to see it from both sides and help construct one of the cars. We debuted it at VIR and had a great race going until the door latch broke so I had to do the last hour of the race holding the door shut, so that was quite an adventure in the uphill S’s at VIR at 120mph! It’s been good, it’s a great programme and it’s a really wonderful car.”

TcT: So it’s a car you’ve built yourselves, not bought from Speedsource?

“There’s a certain number of parts that Speedsource provide that are required by the series”

“There’s a laundry list of parts available through Mazda that you can get, but you can build your own chassis and then bolt all those parts to it – so that’s what we (Team MER) have chosen to do – that’s because that’s what we do, so for us it didn’t seem to make sense to buy a car and then campaign it…we built a car in-house and we’re very proud of the car.”

The Mazdaspeed5 currently competing in the One Lap of America (Zoom Zoom Nation)

TcT: You’re currently competing in the One Lap of America, what is that?

One Lap is spawned out of the movie Cannonball Run, it’s an event where we criss-cross the states and stop at each road course and each track we come across which is about 3,700 miles over seven days, over seven different tracks and about fourteen different events.”

“You can only use the same set of tyres and you have to traverse all the tracks in the same vehicle you use on the track.”

“It’s a very unique event and just about every car you can imagine from your GT2 Porsche’s, which is leading overall right now to us in our Mazdaspeed5 People Carrier, as it were – but we’ve got a Mazdaspeed3 drivetrain in it and it’s doing better than I think anyone expected.”

“We found a crashed 2008 Mazdaspeed3, and one of the car dealers in the Chicago area took a 2010 Mazda5 which Mazda USA supported us with, we swapped in everything from the 2008 ‘speed3 and modified it from then. It’s probably in the neighbourhood of 360 horse power”

Jason Saini has also been competing in the Redline Time Attack Series, which he told us more about

“Since we can’t race the Mazda3 in the World Challenge, we’ve been doing some Redline time attack events with it, it’s more of a Japanese off-shoot kind of like drifting, but it’s basically unlimited prep whatever you want to do to the car; turbos, aero, under-bodies, splitters, wings – I mean the cars are just really incredible cars.”

“Teams like Sierra Sierra (who) used to compete in the Atlantic championship have built a Mitsubishi Evo that’s one of the most advanced race cars that runs in the time attack, and Tri-Point’s in the process of doing some pretty interesting upgrades on the Mazda3 touring car that we’re going to debut in a month at Auto Club Speedway in California – not too many details yet, but when they become available it’s going to be an eye-opener – for a front wheel drive touring car it’s going to be one of the quickest ever.”

Jason & the Tri-Point Mazda3 at the Buttonwillow Redline Time Attack event (Tri-Point Motorsports)

TcT: You recently joked that Mazda might turn the Tri-Point Mazda3 into a WTCC entry – how much would you actually like to compete in the WTCC or another overseas championship?

“That would be a dream come true for me. I’ve been a touring car fan as long as I can remember – we’ve got lots of ideas floating around, obviously it’s a big step for Mazda, I don’t know if they’re ready to make that step but I’d relish the opportunity to race overseas.”

“I know the competition is tough here, but I know it gets even tougher as you move overseas, and the British Touring Car and World Touring Car Championships are the two toughest championships out there for touring car racing – I certainly would relish that opportunity. I don’t know in the short term if that’s going to happen, but it’s certainly a goal of mine down the road.”

“I’m kind of remembering back to some old British Touring Car days, this Mazdaspeed5 that we’re doing in the One Lap – there’s definitely ears turning as well about potentially fitting a Mazda5 for the current spec of the touring car series here – and it just kind of reminds me of the Volvo, and having a wagon out on the track might be kind of a fun way to drive in the series again.”

TcT: Who are your main international touring car heroes or drivers?

“I might polarise people’s opinion of me on this, but I do have a lot of respect for Jason Plato.”

“I know he gets into some confrontations here and there, but he’s always at the front, always pushing as hard as he can – and while he does nudge someone every now and again, I’ve also seen some of the ballsiest and most incredible passes in touring cars.”

“Andy Priaulx as well, to me, he’s never going to have an off day and when he does, he’s still near the front – so those are two of my favourites.”

One of Saini’s touring car heroes, Jason Plato, probably not one of his best passes. (PSP Images)

Since this interview, Jason Saini has now completed the One Lap of America event with team mate Richard Fisher, finishing first in class(SUV’s), and fifteenth overall.