2017 needs to be the year I graduate from autocrossing to HPDE/track days. However, we've got some big medical bills coming soon, so I can't go nuts spending money. Is a stock 1.6 Miata still an appropriate track-day car in the Hellcat Era? I'm hoping to install a Hard Dog Hardcore bar, some Hawk pads, and get busy livin'.
Absolutely.
Fresh fluids, flush the brakes with appropriately rated fluid. Fresh pads. Make sure everything is in good working order and maintenance is up to date.
Go thrash it!
bluebarchetta wrote: Is a stock 1.6 Miata still an appropriate track-day car in the Hellcat Era?
Oh hell yes, it is!!! Get it track ready and have fun.
I know plenty about tracking slow cars. I did an HPDE day in the truck in my avatar when we went to shake it down. It was running a Datsun 720 motor, probably all of 95hp if we were lucky. On track with Ferraris and tricked out Mustangs. I've driven some uber slow cars in LeMons too. Watch your mirrors, use point bys and you'll be fine.
You may have more fun trying to wring out every hp from your 116 hp Miata that can take a curve than you will trying to gently apply throttle in a 700 hp beast of a Hellcat that lumbers through the curves.
Tracking a slow car is one of the most fun and rewarding things you can do. The miata is perfect, just male sure you pass the broomstick test.
It is. You will become very good and watching your mirrors, holding your line into a corner, and figuring out where it's appropriate to make room for someone to pass. These are all fantastic skills that will make you safer on track no matter what you drive.
Yes, the Miata is a perfect track car.
I'd say you learn more with a slow car as a faster car is better at masking/making up for your mistakes.
You also learn to ignore people complaining about slow cars in their group holding them up on the straights (who conveniently forget to mention that you're all over their arse in the next corner).
Slightly more seriously, a Miata is a great platform, because they're cheap-ish to buy and cheap to run, plus there are a lot of well-documented upgrade paths so it can grow with your skills. I think the only other car that can match it in running costs, size of aftermarket and probably also lack of speed are Honda Civic/CRX/Integra of similar vintage.
I did a track weekend in a bone stock 2011 Honda Fit, which the corner workers dubbed the "MisFit". It was hilarious fun, and as Tim says, you learn more in a slow car. Your Miata will be leagues faster than the Fit in the corners, and understeer less relentlessly. You don't need to make warp speed to have fun!
My only regret about doing HPDE weekends is that I didn't start doing them years earlier than I did. Don't wait - do it!
If I wasn't already balls deep in this Fairmont, I'd definitely be getting a Miata, and doing the "fat guy in a little car" thing.
P. S.: The forum doesn't automatically translate "balls deep" into something more polite.
You should have loads of fun in a stockish 1.6 Miata. Hawk pads are fine on such a light car, a lot of Miata drivers find that HPS front and HP+ rear gives good balance. If the suspension is original you may want to start looking at freshening it a bit as that ride is a quarter of a century old by now. Enjoy!
bluebarchetta wrote: Is a stock 1.6 Miata still an appropriate track-day car in the Hellcat Era?
Heck yeah it is! Get out there and have some fun! Slow cars are fun, fast cars are fun, rented pickup trucks are fun, (don't tell Avis) they're all fun. The fun at an HPDE is driving whatever you're in as well as possible.
snailmont5oh wrote: If I wasn't already balls deep in this Fairmont, I'd definitely be getting a Miata, and doing the "fat guy in a little car" thing. P. S.: The forum doesn't automatically translate "balls deep" into something more polite.
Lol
Depends on who you run with. With the clubs I like, there are always a bunch of guys in cars like the E30, Mini, Civic Si, Fit, etc. that you can play with. If everyone's running a GTR or Z06 it does get a little old.
Depends also on where you're going.
Palmer or Thompson - great.
Texas World or Road America - not so great.
As others have said, it depends where and with whom you run. Also, this track thing is a slippery slope. You get hooked on doing them but get really damn tired of pointing people by 2 dozen times a lap. We got newbies showing up in new C7 Z06s and GT2s. I don't care who you are, if you are driving a Miata, those cars will blow past you on every straight. I started in an FRS with double your horsepower and quickly got tired of the point bys. I moved up to a M3 which started as a street car and gradually morphed into a track only, trailered toy. Now I'm in a C5. I know a lot of guys who started with Miatas but not so many that stayed with them.
Got to go, Sebring event this weekend and the first since I had work done on the motor to get me to 400 rwhp!
This is relevant to me since my recent acquisition of the VWGuyBruce's Metro:
1.0L 3-cylidner, 5-speed, maybe 60hp. I really want to run it at a SCCA Track Night event. I know I'll be a rolling chicane on the straights, but it should corner like a mofo.
I've driven 600+ horsepower Mustangs on the track, but that was all about surviving the corners until you could rocket down the straights. I did a track day in a Focus ST and that was more entertaining than the Mustang. Now I want to take a step back and learn better car control in a less powerful car.
I'd say rock the Miata at HPDE, let the big horsepower guys drag race down the straights, they will hate having you stuck to their bumper in the corners.
chaparral wrote: Depends also on where you're going. Palmer or Thompson - great. Texas World or Road America - not so great.
Very much the case. The more technical the track, the less speed advantage the high powered cars have. Example: At Hallett track days, at the morning drivers' briefing the track boss makes a point of reminding the rich guys with their high-dollar street toys not to be an ass by saying something like, "When you guys with 400-500-600 horsepower a see a CRX or Focus or a Miata on your bumper for more than three corners in a row, I expect you to point them by at the next designated passing zone and let them go. Because half a dozen corners later they're gonna be completely out of sight and a half a lap ahead of you."
WildScotsRacing wrote:chaparral wrote: Depends also on where you're going. Palmer or Thompson - great. Texas World or Road America - not so great.Very much the case. The more technical the track, the less speed advantage the high powered cars have. Example: At Hallett track days, at the morning drivers' briefing the track boss makes a point of reminding the rich guys with their high-dollar street toys not to be an ass by saying something like, "When you guys with 400-500-600 horsepower a see a CRX or Focus or a Miata on your bumper for more than three corners in a row, I expect you to point them by at the next designated passing zone and let them go. Because half a dozen corners later they're gonna be completely out of sight and a half a lap ahead of you."
HA! When I did a Mustang track day at Hallett the main instructor said none of us there would ever be as fast around the track as his son in his stock Miata, and I believed him.
You should absolutely go track your Miata.
Driving a slow car fast is about momentum. There are a lot of 400+hp cars at every HPDE and every run group. New drivers in powerful cars in Novice and Intermediate will kill your momentum in the corners. Advanced drivers in powerful cars will eat you up everywhere.
Hopefully the Miata scene is big enough to have Miata-only HPDEs to go play in.
This is the part where I keep harping about the need for a vintage track day venue or run groups sorted by HP. Driving a slow car fast is very rewarding -- getting off a corner just a little bit better than the other guy, slowly reeling him in down the straight, all while doing the math on whether you can make the pass before the braking zone...man what a rush! That will never happen unless you have cars with similar horsepower.
Right now, the bar at most HPDEs is set at 300hp. Seriously.
I don't see it being an issues at all. Go in the slow group. If you have a decent set of tires and skills from AutoX, your lap times will probably not be that different than newbies in 300hp cars. If they want to go around, they can blast by on the straights.
Here ya go, an example of what to expect. This was my first ever HPDE session (in actuality a "Hyperdrive" which is a get your feet wet, jump into 1 session of an HPDE weekend) in a stock 92 miata on star specs with a roll bar. That's it!
2016 NASA Spring Rumble Hyperdrive Summit Point
Watch for the F360 challgenge stradale at the ~9:18 mark.
I was instructing a friend of mine in his 1.6 Spec Miata at Sebring. I got point bys from BMW M3's and a Shelby GT500. There's no better feeling that getting a point by from a much more expensive car with far more horsepower.
The lap record at Sebring for SM is 2:35, and I've ridden with Andy Pilgrim in his own personal, bone stock, CTS-V Sport at a 2:35.
In reply to johndej:
I forget how LOOOONG the straights are at Summit Point until I see a pack of 120 hp to 150 hp cars on it!
Watch your mirrors and give a point by to anyone who catches you. If someone caught you, they're probably faster, so once they're behind you your probably holding them up.
The hardest part of the learning curve for me, was to be following someone, and realize I could hit the gas earlier coming out of a turn, and never come close to rear ending them. Following a faster car, I'd feel like I was going to hit them on the way out of a corner, but that just wasn't going to be possible. I could point right at them and floor it and they'd just pull away. Took me another day out there really break that feeling.
This exchange was also fun:
Instructor: "feed in more gas, a little more, a little more"
Me:"I've been flat for the past 4-5 sec, that's all she's got"
You'll need to log in to post.
