Motor Sports
By James Lamdin
TRACK DAZE
THERE ARE WAYS TO MAKE AUTO
RACING AND WATCH COLLECTING
MORE AFFORDABLE.
“THE ANSWER IS ALWAYS MIATA.”
So goes the common turn of phrase in the car enthusiast community.
I can’t begin to recount how many times I had heard this phrase when
discussing the inevitable performance/value proposition in the modern sports
car market. Cheaper to buy and own than a German or Italian counterpart,
with all the smiles per miles. Yet despite decades of automotive enthusiasm,
and a stable of more than twenty-five cars owned (only a few at a time
mind you), a number of high performance driving events experienced, and
yes – even an open mind – I had never so much as sat in one.
Definitely a glaring omission on my admittedly meager automotive
CV, it was one I was eager to rectify. So when I got the call from Mazda
Motorsports about an opportunity to try out the Global MX-5 Cup Car, I
naturally jumped at the chance.
GLOBAL MX-5
The 2018 Mazda Miata MX-5 is still very much the lightweight, affordable
sports car Mazda has been producing since the model’s introduction in
1989, but with the natural development and engineering that comes in thirty
some-odd years of manufacture. And like its previous generations, Mazda
sponsors a single-model club racing series, known as the Battery Tender
Global Mazda MX-5 Cup. The concept behind the Global MX-5 Cup series is
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simple. It allows drivers to compete with each other in cars prepped to the
same specifications, meaning that driving skill, not budget, is paramount.
It should be noted that the Mazda MX-5 Cup car is a dedicated racecar for
a dedicated series, meaning that they are fully caged, fully track-optimized
vehicles that aren’t allowed on public roads. They are specially prepared for
the Cup Series to be competitive against other MX5s, but are often used by
owners outside the single-model series.
And that’s what I was invited to drive – my first time ever in a Mia...er...
MX-5. I got to drive a racecar.
Now, this wasn’t my first outing on a race track, though it was my first outing
at the beautiful Monticello Motor Club (see sidebar), but there is definitely
something moderately intimidating about strapping on a helmet and HANS
device and contorting oneself through the roll cage and into the driver’s
seat of a purpose-built race car that gets me every time. Intimidating and
absolutely invigorating, that is. Short of being an astronaut, this is definitely
what I want to do when I grow up.
Despite my enthusiasm, past experience and conventional wisdom sug-
gest that the first time you drive an unfamiliar vehicle you should probably
drive it cautiously and gradually increase your speed only as you grow more
comfortable. Even with sub-200 horsepower, racing slicks are racing slicks,
and since the laws of physics have been known not to apply on racetracks,
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