Inside Mazda MX-5 Cup: Workman getting the job done

At the end of the 2023 Mazda Scholarship Shootout, as Westin Workman waited for the announcement of a winner, the pressure was almost unbearable. So much so, he says, that he wouldn’t have wished that on anyone. When he heard his name as the overall scholarship winner, with its $110,000 prize to race in the 2024 Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup, the relief was nearly overwhelming.

“I almost cried. I felt tears coming out of my eyes, but they never actually came out,” recalls Workman, who’d turned 19 only a couple of months before the Shootout. “It was super emotional for me – not only me, but for my dad, for my family and for everybody involved from the get-go.”

His success at the 2023 Scholarship Shootout was the culmination of several years on the edge of having a viable racing career.

“In 2022 I competed in the Mazda Scholarship Shootout, and I didn’t win it that year,” he explains. “We were kind of just stuck, you know. Like, what were we going to do now? I was still going to compete in karts, but were we still going to try to make our way in sports cars? I guess we were just kind of stuck, and then Mazda reached out.

“The support that Mazda gives the grassroots racers is second to none. So, we got a little bit of support to run Spec MX-5 again for 2023. I ended up doing very well. I had a few wins and finished second in the championship. It was really just a breakout year for me in sports cars, and I was able to start to prove what I could do. Then I got invited back for the Scholarship Shootout.”

Scholarship funds in hand, Workman (above) came up with the rest of the budget needed and secured a seat with BSi Racing, led by Shea Holbrooke, alongside another Scholarship winner in Connor Zilisch and veteran MX-5 Cup competitor Selin Rollan, among others.

“We were always connected with Shea, and she was a big advocate of mine. She was very supportive,” says Workman. “We had reached out to many teams on the grid, but given our existing relationship with Shea it was just a no-brainer to run with her.”

He admits that when learning of BSi’s plan to run nine cars, it gave him some pause.