NEWS: POWELL RACING ARE THE 2026 ZENITH RACING SERIES ZR4 CHAMPIONS

WE'VE DONE IT!

THE 2026 ZENITH RACING SERIES ZR4 CHAMPIONSHIP GOES TO #769 POWELL RACING

The entire team here is ecstatic to have been able to accomplish this feat, coming into a new class with a car that everyone thought would be un-competitive and underpowered, and now having a championship under our belt. It feels good! Let's go over everything that happened between now and the beginning and see how Powell Racing got here, and who the people are that accomplished this incredible achievement.

ROAD AMERICA: DEBUT

It all began back in early July, where the ZR4 championship was first announced. Preston thought at the time that it would be cool to try and bring our ChampCar built NA Miata, making only 155HP. It was an instant success in the paddock, with the broadcast and the live chat raving about it the whole weekend. Friday practice saw us blow a brand new motor and we quickly got to work sourcing a local VVT motor off of Facebook Marketplace funnily enough.

The team worked hard into the evening Friday to have the car ready for the race, and when the hardship lap came first thing in the morning, the car ran incredibly well, even better than before. The first race was close, with us finishing P2 at the line. The second race was our ticket, after Paragon Performance had a tire failure in their C8 Corvette, we were able to get a good margin ahead of them and extend our final fuel stint to take our first win of the season.

WATKINS GLEN

Watkins saw the debut of the NC Miata, which came out of an old AER/LuckyDog endurance car. We received the car at the shop only 13 days before the race, which made the turnaround incredibly tight. The car came with a multitude of problems, including a cracked subframe, various missing regulatory components, and no aerodynamic components. Despite all of this, we had the car ready in time, and took it to New York.

The race was our first wet race of the year, and coming from Austin, TX where it doesn't often rain when we race it was a big change. We fought growing pains on the new car, had ANOTHER motor failure surprisingly, and through all of that the strength and resilience of our team showed through. Our soon-to-be championship rivals made their debut at this race as well, Lagoonatics Racing gave us a strong run for our money on Saturday and took 2nd ahead of us, but on Sunday they had an incident which allowed us to secure another P2 finish heading into Miami.

HOMESTEAD-MIAMI

Now we were ready. We had time to prep the new car, give it new aero, new suspension, a much more reliable motor, and a new transmission that felt considerably better than before. This was our race to win, and after taking our first pole position in qualifying it looked to be a close race, until the race day came.

On race day, we were running well early on but had a singular wire on the engine harness grounding out, causing power cuts during the long straightaways at Homestead. We taped the wire up, but the ground lost took away our lead in the race. To make matters worse, coming into the 2nd stint of the race our transmission gave way and left us with only 5th gear.

An act of God saved us though, when lightning delays allowed us to score full points for P2 in both races, having still completed over half of the race distance. The team drove the car in its beaten and broken condition, trying to ensure we had enough laps banked when the last red flag waved, and that we did. P2 finish at the 12 hour.

DAYTONA-INTERNATIONAL-SPEEDWAY

Onto the finale, with a 34-point championship lead. We needed to finish ahead of Lagoonatic now for at least 1 of the 2 races. (points are taken at 6hrs & 12 hrs) We had a much better car, new sway bar, new suspension, and most of all a brand new ZF 8HP Automatic transmission. A Miata with paddle shifters. We tested the car over 20 hours in the weeks leading up to the finale, and the car seemed ready, until we arrived in Daytona. Initially, rain tampered our early practice, but worse yet, our transmission exploded only 9 laps into the session. A weak bell-housing snapped all the way around the transmission. Our experiment had failed, and left us in a dangerous spot before Qualifying that evening.

The team worked hard to get another transmission in, and after sourcing another 8HP transmission we made the swap in time for the final practice session. It seems as though luck was not on our side though, as that second transmission exploded in nearly the same way as the first, despite our fixes. This left us in a dangerous position: If we didn't start the race the following day, Lagoonatic could potentially jump us in the championship, but if we could manage to even finish ahead at one of the 2 scoring points, we would win the championship.

I'll tell you one thing: We here at Powell Racing are not people to go quitting, regardless of what is in our way.

We sourced an entire spare car, this time a stick shift that evening from a random Facebook Marketplace listing (our savior yet again) around 3 hours away. With the garages closing that evening, we had to do everything to prep to swap it first thing in the morning. The team worked until close-up that evening, and when the car arrived the next morning, the new manual transmission swap began. We cut the hole in the transmission tunnel again, mounted the new one, and got it ready just in time to make the race start.

Then began the 12 hours of Daytona.

We were competitive early on, faster than our rivals Lagoonatic and matching returning competitors Rockwell Autosport. We, for the first time this season, had a car that was going door-to-door with its fellow cars, and we were incredibly excited for it. Somehow though, once again our new transmission dropped gears 5 & 6, leaving us limping around the track hoping to beat Lagoonatic on strategy or reliability (hah) alone.

Then they had brake issues. With only a few hours remaining, their car was pushed into the pits and we began to close the gap on track. With that, it was it. We just needed them off the podium for us to win it, and the other ZR4 cars were able to pass them, leaving us in championship contention once again.

The clock struck 12, and Powell Racing had done it.

ZR4 Champions.

2 cars. 4 transmissions (somehow). 3 motors (somehow). And a motivated crew of guys who want to see a Miata win.

What did we learn?

Next time we are only using built motors and transmissions, that's for sure.

In all seriousness, we are incredibly proud that despite all of the adversity that faced us this season we still managed to take the championship. We want to thank everyone that helped, wrenched, participated, drove, and supported Powell Racing this year, because without them it would have been way less cool.

Specifically we want to call out all of our amazing crew that did all the hard work this season, we couldn't have done it without them:

• Jake
• Blake
• Tim
• Bill
• Rachel
• Preston
• Christian
• Cesar
• Kevin
• Connor
• Lilly

And of course our drivers, who stuck with us through this tricky year and drove their hearts out:

• Daniel
• Chase
• Andrew
• Eli
• Bill
• Jensen
• Nick

A championship is never just one person, and no single person here didn't put everything they had into it. We cannot wait to do it next year, and expand our operation beyond just ZR4.

Thank you everyone.

-Powell Racing.