Comunity thoughts on costs of maintaining and tracking the following cars:

An Exedy clutch for a 1994 Miata is 116, and for the Mustang is 117. Effectively the same...

Joey

I know of one local Miata that has been rebuilt 6 times from serious crash damage that has competed and completed at least 4 24-hour endurance races.

On stock, worn out suspension.

With crap-can spec tires and with Spec-Miata take offs.

Only needed brake pads after each race and a bottle of oil after the first.

Mustangs (and their 5.0L V8 powered brethren) in the same races have not faired nearly as well. Most had some sort of catastrophic failure (oil pump drive) in the engines or ran out of brakes and were still slower than the Miata.

For track days, you have to change your focus and realize that you aren't racing. Period. So if you're using up brake pads and tires, then perhaps you should slow down a bit? Yeah, crazy thought I know. IMO, the 944 and the Miata are the better choices out of the box as they can teach you about driving at a safe level and they don't have any horrible handling quirks that could lead you to learn poor driving practices (ahem: Mustang).

The Focus/Contour would be interesting alternatives for dual-purpose cars and they certainly can be quick on the track. With the extra seats you could have fun showing people what it is like to drive on a track, etc.

Now if you're looking at building a time trial or road race car that you can take to track days, HPDE's, and also race in various sanctioned events, etc. then that is a bit different and you'd probably want to see what classes/sanctioning bodies are running in your area and if there are any cars/classes that look interesting to you and fit your budget. Then you can set about buying/building a car to suit.

With the Miata and the 944 there are spec classes available that provide lots of close racing and relatively cheap entrance costs (Also E30's and RX-7's have spec classes). The Mustang fits into several SCCA and NASA classes and many of those tend to be on the more expensive side to have a competitive car or for cheaper you'd have a non-competitive car (small brakes, no V8, limited suspension mods, etc could all be issues to face with some classes).

To make a Miata accelerate like a Mustang you'll probably need a couple thousand dollars. To make a Mustang handle like a Miata, you'll probably need to rewrite the laws of physics.

If you aren't going to drive to/from the track:

FWD:

RWD/AWD: Just sayin.

mmosbey wrote: If you aren't going to drive to/from the track: FWD: RWD/AWD: Just sayin.

I dunno. My friend towed his Miata 750 miles to deals gap every year. He would load it backwards on a dolly.

Joey

Depends on the part of the country you are in too. Here in South Dakota Miata's are rare and they never make it to the junkyard...

E30's are rare as well but they occasionally make it to the junk yard which would be handy for a track car.

From my experience with my ZX2SR, the Focus would be a good choice. Like the SR the SVT already has a lot of the good stuff.