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June 5, 2025, Manila, Philippines -- The 2025 season of the Makabayan Endurance Race Challenge showcased not only the driving prowess of Team MSCC Mazda Miata Spec but also the engineering ingenuity that comes with building the best-performing vehicle for the racetrack.

The #55 Team MSCC Mazda Miata Spec continued its winning ways by dominating the 2025 Kagitingan Cup—the first leg of the three-round endurance challenge. This race car was intrinsically designed, mechanically modified, and driven under the supervision of Angie Mead King.

The team came out on top in both the 2-Hour and 4-Hour Race Challenge categories, breaking records in both laps completed and fastest laps. The race car, which continued to sport a stock 2.0-liter Skyactiv-G engine, completed 63 laps in the 2-Hour Race with the fastest lap time of 1 minute 49.8 seconds. Meanwhile, in the 4-Hour Race, it managed 120 laps with a fastest time of 1 minute 53.7 seconds.

Building and modifying a race car from scratch is no easy feat. However, because the MX-5 is a formidable racing platform—it is, after all, the world’s most raced car—it already had a solid foundation surrounding performance, reliability, and durability. That meant Angie focused on making it lighter and faster—something she worked tirelessly on over a three-year period.

“My inspiration for modifying the car for this year’s Endurance is just to be better. It’s to beat our records last year and make sure that every year, we are progressing to be a faster car, a faster team, a more efficient team,” Angie shares.

This year, the MSCC Miata Spec features an ultra-lightweight carbon fiber body kit, along with Brembo front brakes, Cusco coilovers and suspension parts, a HGT 6-speed sequential gearbox, a new rear-end differential, and performance tires. According to Angie, the body kit was one of the biggest improvements made on the car, while the new sequential gearbox contributed in boosting the speed up to 4.5 seconds over the previous lap time.

Behind the success, Angie recalls setbacks encountered during the prep stage, and even right up to race day. But true to Mazda’s “Never Stop Challenging Spirit” Angie and the rest of Team MSCC Miata Spec endured to create a race-winning car.

Angie recalls being both nervous and excited, even astounded, in her words, at having been able to achieve a lap time of 1 minute 47.969 seconds during qualifying, given that the team only had days to do a shakedown before the actual race.

“So far, the first two- and four-hour races were good benchmarks for us to stress test the car, and it seemed to do really well. A week after, Tyson (Sy) drove it on Clark, and he loves how the car’s set-up also,” Angie shares.

One of the things that spectators and fans don’t realize is that it takes a village to deliver an awe-inspiring performance on the track.

The MSCC Miata Endurance #55 is the product of a collaboration between King, Mazda Philippines, the MSCC Mazda Team Principals Windy Imperial and Steven Tan, Race Engineer Edgen Dy-Liacco, and the host of car shops and drivers Tyson Sy, Juha Turalba, and Milo Rivera, who contributed time and resources that went into the vehicle’s development. This includes Takahiro Kobayakawa, Mazda Japan’s Head of Motorsport, who shared his own input on what would be beneficial to the car.

“I definitely could not have done it alone. Without the team to support my ideas and obviously, crosscheck, the car would not be at this level of performance. Definitely, it is a team effort and that’s why I love endurance racing,” says Angie.

The MSCC Miata Spec is gearing up for the second leg of the 2025 Endurance Race. Having learned from the first race, Angie is confident that the car will perform even better the second time around, saying, “We have a few more modifications coming, just to fine tune the car before we start working on getting more speed.”

The following legs of the 2025 Makabayan Endurance Challenge will happen on June 14-15, 2025, and November 29-30, 2025, both at the Clark International Speedway.

Bermaz Auto Philippines, Inc. (Mazda Philippines) is the exclusive distributor of Mazda vehicles and parts in the Philippines. 

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