Tuesday at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, the Skip Barber Racing School held a media-day rollout of a new program featuring Mazda MX-5 Cup cars. These are the same cars used in the SCCA Pro Racing Sirius Satellite Radio Mazda MX-5 Cup series and the school welcomes everyone from the serious amateur to professionals who are looking to advance their skills and gain a competitive edge.

“Sedan racing is growing very quickly in North America and we expect to see that trend to continue well into the future,” said George Ayres, Skip Barber chief operating officer. “Much like our famous open-wheel school, we expect auto enthusiasts to gravitate to the program even if they are fully licensed or have already graduated from a Skip Barber open-wheel school.”

For the media rollout, the school condensed three days into one, but Skip Barber senior instructor Randy Buck explained that all the essentials were being demonstrated. That being the case, it should be well worth the price of admission. Following instructions on the basics in a classroom setting, there were autocross sessions — the first smooth and the second trying to make the car spinout — lead-follow laps on track and more track time at speed. The school cars come with a passenger seat so an instructor can ride along.

Art Michalik, vice president and general manager of Barber’s Western Region, said eight cars were built for the rollout in 10 days. Other than being tuned down a bit for school, they are basically the MX-5 Cup racing car.

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“The car in race setup is on a knife edge,” Michalik said. “We make these a little more forgiving.”

Classes begin this weekend at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. For more information, visit www.skipbarber.com.

SAN FRANCISCAN WINS RUSSELL RACE: Patrick O’Neill of San Francisco won the second of a pair of Russell Pro Series races last weekend at Infineon Raceway. Richard Fullerton of Aspen, Colo., won the first race on a weekend that saw both wet and dry conditions. Bill Weaver of Fresno drove his Standard Formula Mazda to victory in both Saturday’s wet race and Sunday’s sunny event.

RAINEY, JOHNSON TO BE HONORED: Former three-time world motorcycle champion Wayne Rainey, who lives in Monterey, will be inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame tonight in Talladega, Ala.

In addition, NASCAR president Mike Helton will present Jimmie Johnson with the Driver of the Year trophy. Johnson, the 2006 NASCAR Nextel Cup champion and winner of the Daytona 500, dominated the voting by an elite panel of writers and broadcasters, garnering 11 of the 17 votes that were cast.

STEWART GETS INTO THE RING

Two-time champion Tony Stewart likened NASCAR to professional wrestling and accused it of using bogus caution flags to shape races in biting comments made on his weekly radio show. “I guess NASCAR thinks ‘Hey, wrestling worked, and it was for the most part staged, so I guess it’s going to work in racing, too,’” he said. “I don’t know that they’ve run a fair race all year.”

THIS WEEK’S PIT STOPS

NEXTEL CUP

WHAT: Aaron’s 499

WHERE: Talladega, Ala.

WHEN: Sunday, 11 a.m.

BUSCH

WHAT: Aaron’s 312

WHERE: Talladega, Ala.

WHEN: Saturday, noon

NHRA

WHAT: Summit Racing Equip. So. Nat’ls

WHERE: Commerce, Ga

WHEN: Sunday, 8 a.m.

IRL

WHAT: Kansas Lottery 300

WHERE: Kansas City

WHEN: Sunday, 1:30 p.m.

CHAMP CAR

WHAT: G.I. Joe’s Grand Prix

WHERE: Portland, Ore.

WHEN: June 10

FORMULA ONE

WHAT: Spanish Grand Prix

WHERE: Barcelona

WHEN: May 13