Inside MX-5 Cup: Justin Adakonis' rookie run

In his first full season of racing cars in 2024, Justin Adakonis made an immediate impression. On the back of five straight victories in the latter half of the season, he ended up with the SCCA Hoosier Super Tour points championships in Spec MX-5. Adakonis sealed the deal with a third-place finish in the first SCCA National Championship race for the class.

Now taking part in the 2025 Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup, he is continuing to impress. Six races into the season so far, Adakonis sits in the thick of the Rookie of the Year fight and sixth in the overall standings.

“The ton of track time that they gave us at the [2024 Mazda MX-5 Cup] Shootout gave me a lot of time to get accustomed to the car, and it kind of set me up for this year,” Adakonis explains. “The connections I made at the shootout, guys like Tom Long and Stevan McAleer, they're super knowledgeable. Learning from them for those two days of the scholarship shootout was really cool and helped me a lot.”

Adakonis is campaigning the No. 23 MX-5 fielded by McCumbee McAleer Racing, but his connection to Stevan and Stuart McAleer goes back before his Mazda days. His passion for the sport was ignited at his eighth birthday party, held at an indoor kart track. Now hooked, he began running in the track's leagues, where the McAleers ran a team. That led to him racing karts on a national level, and eventually an invitation to the Spec MX-5 scholarship shootout for karters. He missed out on the scholarship, but his exposure to the car and the paddock took him down the path to compete in the NC-generation-Miata based Spec MX-5 in 2024.

The shift to the ND2 MX-5 Cup car from Spec MX-5 isn't as big a leap as the move from karts to cars, but it's still a bit of transition to a sequential gearbox and slick Michelins. He credits a plethora of mentors in helping make those jumps seamlessly.

“The support that I get with the McCumbee McAleer Racing guys, Stuart McAleer and his brother Stevan… they're really good coaches and mentors to me," he says. "And then as well, one of my big mentors has been Sam Paley, who's raced in the MMR Mustang GT4 car. He was my coach last year and helped me with the transition over to MX-5 Cup. All those guys combined, they've given me a lot of their wisdom and their knowledge on these cars, and it really makes it easy for me to jump into. Also, to have Jeremy Fletcher as a teammate; we have been really good friends for many years. We grew up karting together, and having him coach me as well and just help me out on track and learn this stuff, it's been super helpful."

Nothing, though, can completely prepare a racer for a new challenge, a new car, a new series. There are always going to be surprises. For Justin, one of those was the need to be switched on 100 percent of the time in MX-5 Cup.

“I knew going in it was a super-competitive series; it's kind of like the main selling point," he says. "But just how hard you have to push the car … you're driving 110 percent every single lap for 45 minutes straight. Getting used to that mental aspect of it was really hard to overcome at first, that's kind of been shocking to me. You literally have to be pushing the car to the maximum every single lap. And if you're driving 90 percent and you take a breath, you're just going to fall back."

Currently in a fight with Noah Harmon for Rookie of the Year – and they'd be much closer except for Adakonis's bad luck getting caught up in the Big One at Daytona – has Justin's focus, with the declaration that that title is his benchmark for a successful season. Beyond that, his sights are set on a career at the highest levels of endurance racing.

His eyes may have been opened to motorsports at a birthday party, but the success he has seen so far have him focused on more.

All Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup Presented by Michelin races are streamed live on RACER.com and archived on The RACER Channel on YouTube. The 2025 double-header action continues with rounds 7 & 8 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, OH., on Saturday, June 7, and Sunday, June 8. Plus, find all the latest series news at mx-5cup.com