LOS ANGELES—In what turned out to be the toughest test of Mick Blue’s motorsports career, the three-time AVN Male Performer the Year raced to a fourth-place finish Sunday at the National Auto Sport Association (NASA) Championships in Austin, Texas.
Driving for Team Abergel Motorsports, the Austrian stud overcame contact with another car on the first corner of the opening lap at the iconic Circuit of the Americas road course and still gained a position later in the race in his super-charged 1993 Mazda Miata.
“I am extremely happy we made fourth place,” Blue told AVN. “I’m bummed out, too, a little bit because we had third place within reach, but from the power and the ability of the car it would’ve been a fifth-place car compared to all the other competitors.”
Sponsored by Bad Dragon and The Sandwich Spot, Blue fought through steamy, unpredictable conditions at the 3.427 mile track with season bragging rights at stake in the Performance Touring division (PTE) of NASA. Blue started fifth on the PTE grid as eight cars qualified for the championship.
His minor first lap collision—which he called a “50-50” incident—did rattle his right front suspension.
“And that was kind of like changing the alignment of the car and it was definitely not running perfect after that anymore,” Blue admitted. “Then it became a fight for 45 minutes to secure fourth place.”
But Blue, whose Team Abergel/MB Racing car was leading the points in NASA’s Southern California PTE class after eight races this season coming into Austin, didn’t let the early adversity prevent him from getting a result Sunday.
“Once you’re racing you just keep going,” said Blue, whose No. 20 Miata placed second in the last two races before Nationals. “I really had a good start and was already making up some positions.”
Blue noted the NASA Championship race mixes cars from both the PTE and PTD divisions, so while he started fifth in his PTE division he actually was positioned 10th on the grid.
“When you look at the start in order to get to the top two runners I had to pass three or four cars because it was a mix between PTD and PTE for the Championship race,” Blue explained. “I had a really good start and came out and was closing in on the front leaders from PTE. But it just got too crowded in the first corner and another car came from the outside and didn’t see me in the corner. We had pretty hefty contact but there was not too much damage to the car, thank god.”
Blue continued, “I kind of evaluated the damage first… The first moment I was thinking let’s hope the damage is not too bad. The tires are not blowing; the handling was still OK—not perfect. So I kept going. The guy who was running in fourth place was battling with the other car for third place and then made a mistake."
That allowed Blue to pass him for fourth, but that car later overtook Blue before a spinout eliminated him from contention.
“That’s part of racing, especially if the race is 45 minutes long. You just try to stay consistent and stay focused and try to make the least mistakes as possible and kind of see what the other people do,” Blue said. “You have to try to somehow conserve the tires a little bit. That can be beneficial.”
Blue finished the qualifying race on Saturday in fourth, but after a NASA mistake in classification between the PTD and PTE cars, he was bumped down to fifth in PTE for Sunday's contest.
“What I did learn is that the race is over when the race is over," Blue reasoned. "If the race is 45 minutes or 30 minutes, you never know what can happen in front of you or behind you, so you have to stay focused throughout the whole race and minimize your own mistakes and hope the others make mistakes.
"Because even if the car is less competitive on paper than the other cars, you’re still able to place really well, which we showed as a team and with our car this weekend. At the end of the day—on paper compared to the other cars—our car would not have been a fourth-place running car. We realized once we got there that the other cars did have a power advantage.”
Blue said Team Abergel monitored the weather reports all weekend to make sure they were running the right tires for the changing track conditions.
“On Friday the second qualifying session was a full-on rain tire session,” Blue explained. “Ten minutes before qualifying we knew it was going to be wet. In that qualifying session we knew we could not go as fast with rain tires. So the first qualifying session was setting the grid for Saturday’s qualifying race.”
Blue said team owner Sam Abergel was pleased with the weekend.
“He was very happy that we came in fourth because to be honest on Thursday when we were testing, and Friday, it didn’t look like we would run in third or fourth place. There was a point where we realized that it seems that our car is not going to be fast enough," the veteran of more than 3000 sex scenes said. "In Saturday’s qualifying race I was able to push us forward to fourth place and that totally increased our expectations after. At the end it shows that if you have the fastest car for a lap it doesn’t mean you’re going to be the fastest in the race, especially if the race is 35-40 minutes. Racecraft is more important.”
Blue said this week the team would assess the damage to the car, repair it and prepare for the next race weekend Oct. 12-14 at Buttonwillow Raceway Park in Kern County, Calif.
“We’re going to race there to secure our top 3 position in the regional championship,” he said.
The level of competition at Nationals meant that one wrong turn could be big trouble.
“Every single driver who was there in our group was excellent in their driving ability,” Blue said. “You make one mistake and you can lose two or three spots in the standings and that alone satisfies us even more that we came in fourth. Because it was our first time competing at the Nationals and it’s our first season running the car. Coming home fourth was definitely a great result for myself as a driver and also for our team."
Blue continued, “My main goal for this weekend was to bring home a trophy. Fourth place is the first place you don’t get a trophy but at the end of the day if you look at the result and the achievement as a team and as a driver, fourth place is a fantastic result.”
The performer also thanked his sponsors.
“I want say thank you one more time to Bad Dragon for being my main sponsor going into this season, especially going into this event because without them it would not be possible to be part of it," Blue said. "Also thank you to The Sandwich Spot for jumping in as a secondary sponsor for this event…Also, Alex and Parker—my crew—they really worked hard the whole weekend to keep the car together.
"And a huge thanks to Sam, the team owner and a friend of mine, who basically made the weekend. He had his wife and his daughter there who helped with food and drink supply for us. It was a great weekend where everybody helps together and tries to achieve the maximum possible. Also a huge thanks to NASA for putting this great event together in cooperation with Toyo Tires and Mazda Motorsports.”
To view an in-car camera feed for Blue's championship race, click here.
To view Blue's qualifying race Saturday, click here.
