spec.this.miata

I drove the Miata down to Laguna Seca raceway yesterday, following pop and Arti in the wagon.  The Golden Gate Chapter of the BMWCCA was holding a Driver Education event there, which I thought was a good choice for the Miata’s first outing since they hold the safest and sanest events I’ve attended.

After packing the tools and stuff in the wagon the night before, we headed south  for the track at 6am.  The drive down was OK — the car is not terribly uncomfortable even with the SM suspension (700 lb-in springs in the front, 350 in the rear).  The worst part was the exhaust that has a really loud resonance at around 3500 RPM, which is about 70 MPH in 5th gear.

We arrived shortly before 8am, registered, and stood around for the driver’s meeting.

Its first time out, the car was suprisingly good.  There were no funny handling traits, and the lack of ABS was a non-issue.  There were, however, some loud clunks and rattles coming from the rear of the car when we went over rough pavement.  I soon found out that the exhaust system had slipped out of its hangers, and was banging all around.  Upon fixing that, we found that the bolts holding the lower rear suspension brace were only finger-tight, so I took the opportunity to go over all the bolts in the rear suspension to be sure they were torqued down.  I also adjusted the rear brakes, since the e-brake handle seemed to need to come up higher than normal.

After safety wiring the exhaust in three places, the car was magnificent the rest of the day.

The car’s handling is simply fantastic … very controllable and balanced, no suprises, no hiccups.  It responds very nicely to throttle inputs, and just grips grips grips around turns.  It simply ran away from almost everything else out there in the handling sections of the track (turns 3/4 and 8/9/10). The lack of power was frustrating at times, but I know it will encourage me to squeeze every ounce from the car’s handling.

My lap times were pretty consistently around 2:00, which is 7 seconds slower than what I did in the M3, but I know that as I learn the car that difference will drop.  As a reference, a typical Spec Miata time in races at Laguna Seca is between 1:45 and 1:50.   Granted, those cars likely aren’t running motors with 135,000 miles on them, but I know I’m leaving a ton on the table in the handling and braking department.

I ended the day with a huge smile on my face, not only from the sweet experience of driving the Miata on track, but glad that I decided to do this project with Derek!

This entry was posted Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007 at 11:07 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.