On a weekend as star-studded as the 56th annual Mobil1 12 Hours of Sebring, it might seem logical to head for the concession stand when you see the cars and drivers of the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear roll out on to the track. After all, what the heck are these open wheel cars doing here anyway? And who are these guys driving?... there aren’t any names you recognize.

Which is precisely the point; the Star Mazda Championship is the college basketball, the triple-A baseball, the Junior A hockey of auto racing, the high-speed training ground for future stars of the sport. What stars, you ask? Too many to name them all, but the short list includes the most recent American Formula One driver Scott Speed, Indy Car stars Marco Andretti and Graham Rahal and prototype phenom Colin Braun as well as the newest addition to Michael Waltrip’s NASCAR Sprint Cup team, Michael McDowell, who won the 2005 Star Mazda Championship, went on to race prototypes and Indy Cars and then was Rookie of the Year and finished 2nd in the ARCA RE/MAX championship in his first year racing stock cars .

So if the sport interests you as much as the party, hang around when the Star Mazda cars hit the track and you’ll see some brilliant performances from drivers, both men and women, who are on the fast track to becoming one of those names you recognize.

The Series
And if you do spend the time, exactly what will you be seeing? Before we get into the drivers themselves, a little primer on the series. The Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear is now in its 18th year as one of the most prolific, successful and richest driver development series in all of auto racing. This year’s prize fund approaches $1.5 million and includes a full-season sponsorship from the MAZDASPEED Motorsports Development Ladder for the Star Mazda series champion to move up and race in the Champ Car Atlantic Championship Powered by Mazda, the stepping-stone to Champ Car. Star Mazda Championship races are held on major motorsports weekends, racing in front of the crowds drawn by American Le Mans, Champ Car and the Grand-Am Rolex series. All races are broadcast in a 1-hour show on the SPEED Channel and re-broadcast overseas on networks like SkySports in the UK. All races are 45 minutes long and standing starts, a brand-new feature sure to add to the excitement, will make its debut at Sebring.

The Cars
Drivers compete in identical high-tech open-wheel cars that feature a carbon fiber chassis, fully-adjustable ‘pushrod’ suspension and a sequential 6-speed gearbox. Power is provided by Mazda’s legendary ‘Renesis’ rotary engine that produces 240 horsepower, top speeds of over 150 mph and 0 to 60 mph acceleration of 2.8 seconds… yet is so reliable that it can last an entire racing season without a re-build. New for 2008 are Goodyear radial racing tires designed specifically for the Star Mazda Championship race cars.

The Men Behind the Wheel
And just who are those ‘young hotshoes’ you’re seeing out on track at Sebring? As of this writing, car numbers and sponsors are still being finalized, so to find out exactly who is in what car you’ll have to take a look at the entry list on the adjacent page. But let’s start with JDC Motorsports, the team that won the Star Mazda Championship with Dane Cameron in 2007. Their lineup includes returning driver Nick Haye of Hollywood, California, who scored two podium finishes, four top-5s and finished 4th in the 2007 championship, making him a top contender in his second year. His new teammate for 2008 is the 2007 Skip Barber Series champion, Joel Miller, who dominated with 5 wins and 10 podiums in 14 races and moves up to the Star Mazda Championship with a full-season sponsorship from the MAZDASPEED Motorsports Development Ladder.

The other two drivers on the JDC team represent one of the most unique aspects of the Star Mazda Championship, the Expert and Master Series, a race-within-a-race for more mature drivers in whom the competitive fire still burns brightly. The Expert Series is for drivers ages 30 to 44, and the Master Series is for drivers 45 and over. Representing JDC in the Expert Series will be long-time open-wheel racer Gerry Kraut, a co-owner of JDC Motorsports, who scored four class wins in 2007 on his way to a 3rd-place finish in the Master Series Championship. His new Master Series teammate is Chuck Hulse, who has raced both sprint and stock cars in addition to running five Star Mazda Championship races in 2007.

Andersen Racing is one of the largest and most diverse teams competing in the Star Mazda Championship and are the official development team for Rahal Letterman Racing. They just bought their own test facility/racetrack, Andersen RacePark, in Palmetto, Florida and have formed a motorsports marketing partnership with Allied Building Products, an $1.8 billion building material distribution company with over 3,500 employees and more than 200 branches in 30 states.

Andersen Racing drivers include 19 year-old Yannick Hofman from Quebec, Canada. Hoffman won the Skip Barber Race Series Championship in 2005, finished 7th in the 2007 Formula BMW series championship and also ran two Star Mazda Championship events with Andersen racing, impressing with a 5th-place finish in his first-ever race on the difficult street circuit in his home province of Trois-rivieres, Quebec.

The second member of the Andersen Racing squad for 2008 (though there may well be two more by the time the team gets to Sebring), is 16 year-old Tom Gladdis, a British driver who was born on the Isle of Wight and lives on the island of Gibraltar. He is a rookie to racing with just one season under his belt, during which he finished 6th in the extremely competitive Formula BMW UK series. The third driver is a young lady, more about whom in a moment.

The Mundill team, will run five drivers full-time in 2008, including returning race winner Alex Ardoin, a Louisiana native who scored his first, well-deserved victory in the final race of the 2007 season at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. He finished 6th in the championship with a record of one win, two podiums and four top-10 finishes. His flamboyant driving style thrills the fans and makes him a top contender for the 2008 championship. Also driving for Mundill will be Scott Rettich, a college business management major who is also a national karting champion and Formula Mazda champion who scored six top-10 finishes in the 2007 Star Mazda Championship.

New to the Mundill team are a pair of fast young Brazilians, Caio Lara and Carlos Henrique (Rick) Rosin, making their U.S. racing debut in the Star Mazda Championship. Lara is a karting champion who switched to open-wheel racing in 2007 and scored ten podium finishes in a row in the Brazilian Formula Ford series. Rosin started karting at age 9, winning multiple championships before he graduated to racing in the Brazilian Formula Renault championship in 2005- 2006. The team will also field two Expert Series drivers including Mundill co-owner Dave Mundy and Keith Young, a Chevrolet dealer from Dallas Texas with a long history of SCCA club racing and several seasons or regional Formula Mazda racing.

World Speed Motorsports won the 2006 Star Mazda Championship with Adrian Carrio and return for 2008 with a trio that includes Eric Freiberg, a college student and karting champion who made the switch to open-wheel racing in 2005, ran the SCCA Formula Mazda series in 2006 and finished 11th in the 2007 Star Mazda Championship with five top-10 finishes. Joining him on the World Speed squad will be 17 year-old Taylor Hacquard, a karting standout who did a full season of testing with the World Speed team in 2007 before making his Star Mazda Championship debut in 2008. Rounding out the team will be Expert Series racer Chris Cumming, who won the 2007 Star Mazda West Coast Championship.

The Women Behind the Wheel
While female racing drivers are not the jaw-dropping novelty they were in past years, there are still relatively few in open-wheel racing and the Star Mazda Championship is please to have at least two running in 2008. Driving for Andersen Racing is Juliana Gonzalez Bermudez, a 16 year-old student/racing car driver who was born in Columbia and lives in Mexico City. She started racing karts in 2002, and won several Mexican national championships before switching to open-wheel cars in 2005. She ran two very successful seasons in the FF2000 series in 2006-2007 and will be a prime contender for the Star Mazda Championship 'Rookie of the Year' honors in 2008. Also a notable competitor, though not actually behind the wheel, is Michelle Kish, Team Administrator for Andersen Racing and Team Manager of the Andersen Racing Star Mazda Championship effort.

The other female driver currently confirmed for the 2008 Star Mazda Championship season is Kristy Kester, a 19 year-old sophomore Biomedical Science major at Texas A&M. Her resume includes six years of karting and the Formula Enterprise series, where she compiled a record of 3 poles, 2 wins, 3 fastest laps, and numerous top-3 finishes. She will have her brother, J.C. Kester, as a teammate when Kester Racing makes its debut at Sebring.

The Family Teams
Kester Racing is one of several family-owned teams competing in the Star Mazda Championship and has the unique distinction of a brother/sister driver lineup. Joining Kristy Kester on the grid at Sebring will be her brother, J.C. Kester, who has seven years of kart racing under his belt, including two IKF regional championships and two IKF national road racing championships. He was class valedictorian at Grandfalls-royalty High School and is currently majoring in manufacturing and mechanical engineering at Texas A&M University.

Also a family team is Goshen Racing, which will field a car in 2008 for Billy Goshen, the 2007 Formula TR Pro Series 2.0-Liter champion, a title previously held by such racing notables (and Star Mazda graduates) as Marco Andretti, Michael McDowell and Colin Braun. Goshen also won the 2007 West Coast Star Mazda Winter Series with one win, one pole and five podium finishes. His background includes three national karting championships and he is widely considered to be one of the top up-and-coming open-wheel drivers.

And perhaps the most unique team of all in competing in the Star Mazda Championship is the Father/Son racing duo of Master Series driver Dan Tomlin Jr. -- who scored two class wins and seven podium finishes last season -- and Dan Tomlin III, who scored three class wins and four podium finishes on his way to winning the 2007 Expert Series championship. This intensely competitive duo are immediately recognizable on track in their distinctive yellow and orange Team Tomlin cars, #58 for the father because that’s how old he was when he started racing, and #56 for the son. When the helmets come off, they are business partners in one of the largest real estate development firms in Texas.

The Last Word
“The Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear offers an opportunity to race in one of the most successful and affordable manufacturer-supported driver development series,’ says Star Mazda Championship founder and President Gary Rodrigues. “The Star Mazda Championship is also a gateway series to many other forms of racing because once you learn to drive an open-wheel car competitively, it becomes much easier to adapt to – and excel in – other kinds of cars. Graduates of the Star Mazda Championship have gone on to salaried rides in F1, Champ Car, Indy 500, prototypes, sports cars and stock cars. The racing world is full of Star Mazda graduates and we’re proud of them. But we also look forward every year to a new class of young hotshoes who will be the racing stars of tomorrow.”

For more information on the Star Mazda Championship and its drivers, as well as the Mazda Motorsports ladder system, please visit www.starmazda.com and www.mazdausa.com.