“You want a pastime,” mentioned Nathanial Sparks’ mom to him and his father.
Thus, a profession, racing championships, and ultimately a enterprise, have been launched.
“We have been homeschooled all the way in which up till highschool, which meant I used to be enjoying each sport each month of the yr in every single place,” explains Sparks, now the proprietor of Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup Offered by Michelin prep store Spark Efficiency. “I used to be at all times in a sports activities surroundings the place you’re on a crew and you need to work together with your teammates to attempt to win the sport.
“So then when Mother needed Dad and I to have extra of a pastime to do collectively, she mentioned, ‘Properly, [Sparks’ father] Jerry was at all times thinking about vehicles. He at all times constructed his vehicles all through the years, tinkering and all that sort of stuff again within the day when he was a child. So, let’s do automotive stuff.’
“It began off with a few autocrosses, after which that’s sort of whenever you begin getting concerned in motorsports, and being aggressive in motorsports offers you a number of avenues to go down.”
The avenue that father and son Sparks selected led to Spec Miata and ultimately the Teen Mazda Problem. A win on the NASA Championships in 2011, and the scholarship cash that got here with it, steered them to MX-5 Cup. Again then, for the first-generation race automotive primarily based on the NC MX-5, the vehicles weren’t constructed by a single firm, however reasonably by the groups utilizing the spec elements, so it was an ideal challenge for the father-son duo to deal with.
The primary 2012 race weekend at Sebring Worldwide Raceway might not have gone to plan, with Sparks making an attempt to straighten body rails in between two palm bushes after crashing the automotive in testing. He received it mounted, and whereas it wasn’t probably the most engaging automotive on the grid with its mis-matched physique panels, he nonetheless drove it to top-10 finishes that weekend.
It’s been a protracted journey from that starting to the place Sparks (under) is now. The trail was laid out earlier than him by being in the appropriate place on the proper time.
“One of many races we went to, a fellow competitor crashed, so his automotive wanted to be re-tubbed, and it was a extremely shut, fast turnaround to the subsequent occasion,” Sparks recounts. “I used to be standing subsequent to the crew proprietor, John Dean II of Sick Sideways Racing in Florida, and we’re wanting on the automotive, and I mentioned, ‘Hey, I can come down and show you how to construct the subsequent automotive and get your man again on the market.’ He mentioned OK, so two or three days later, I’m speaking to Mother and Dad telling them I’m going to go right down to Florida to assist this crew construct a automotive.”
Sick Sideways was rising in Sebring, and Sparks stayed with the crew for a number of years. He gained the primary championship with the brand new ND-based World MX-5 Cup automotive in 2016. He additionally gained the multi-national World MX-5 Cup Invitational. He adopted that up with one other Invitational win in 2018. That’s when issues started to go in a unique route for Sparks and his spouse Courtney, who received her diploma in finance and was working in banking in Sebring.
“Once I gained the [Invitational] in 2016, they offer you an honest amount of cash to race the subsequent yr,” says Sparks. “However since I principally took care of all the pieces myself, I may race for as low cost as anybody may presumably do it. So, I took the cash and acquired a property and had a constructing constructed on it in Alabama. I knew I needed to do that for myself someday, and I needed to maneuver residence to Alabama.
“So then when ’18 occurred and we gained a little bit bit more cash, it’s like, ‘All proper, I’ve received a little bit little bit of a cushion.’ So ’19 got here round, and I used to be like, ‘Honey, I’m shifting again to Alabama,’ as a result of I needed to decide to do it then or later; I didn’t need to go away mid-season.”
It was a type of let’s-just-do-it-and-figure-out-the-rest-later offers that ended up understanding, as a result of his first buyer was Gresham Wagner, who would go on to take the 2021 MX-5 Cup championship.
“Then I used to be lucky to say I gained the championship within the automotive and out of the automotive, which was fairly cool, as a result of ultimately, I didn’t essentially need to be a race driver, however I needed to be in racing,” Sparks explains. “I actually preferred the vehicles, the logistics of all the pieces, and dealing on the vehicles. I believe that’s one thing that I’m most likely higher at than the driving half. I used to be first rate on the driving half, however I knew that I wasn’t ok to do something greater than, if I may provide you with the cash, simply maintain driving. However the crew half was actually the place I used to be excited.”
And certainly, he’s proved extraordinarily good at it. Spark Efficiency ran three vehicles within the 2024 Mazda MX-5 Cup (above) for Alex Bachoura (No. 33), Grant West (50) and sequence rookie Sally Mott (15), whereas additionally increasing the operation to incorporate working in different sequence. He hopes it’s only the start.
“When you have been to ask me to dream large and let you know, ‘What’s the one factor that you just needed to come back away from this?’ I’d assume it could be so cool that 30 years from now, folks may nonetheless know the Spark Efficiency title in racing,” Sparks says. “We’ve received all these large guys now whose names are simply a part of motorsports. I’d like to have the ability to try this someday, have my title be part of motorsports. Positive, it’d be nice to win Daytona or run a automotive at Le Mans, however even when I don’t achieve that, I nonetheless assume that that will be the cool factor — if I may simply nonetheless be round and make it into one thing.”
Observe Mazda MX-5 Cup to study extra concerning the upcoming 2024 Shootout together with the 2025 schedule, till then take a look at the 2024 season championship at Highway Atlanta and extra on The RACER Channel.
