Making Lemonade

Our Miata wasn't the fastest, but we did manage to put a few laps on the Three Pedal Mafia's Nissan pickup truck.

In fact, our top lap time was slower than most of the other cars in the top 20. This 944 was six seconds faster per lap.

However, we managed to almost completely avoid the penalty box, meaning we spent more time on track and less getting yelled at.

Our pit stops were also very short, usually just over two minutes long.

We ended day one in fifth place, just one lap down from fourth. After changing the brake rotors, we went out for BBQ.

The 24 Hours of LeMons always has interesting race cars, and this 1959 Studebaker is no exception. It was, however, dog slow.

As Sunday's race drew to a close, we had our sights set on fourth place.

We found Waldo... then passed him. The Miata was a blast on track.

Then, disaster struck–a total loss of brakes. We pulled the car into the paddock, and were horrified by what we found. With just under an hour left in the race, one of our brake pads had worn out sooner than we calculated.

The bad pad had welded itself to the piston, then the whole mess had been pushed out of the caliper completely.

We managed to salvage the piston, and reinstalled it with a fresh set of brake pads. The car went back out on track with 25 minutes left in the race.

In the end, we finished 11th–not bad considering our catastrophic brake failure. We were awarded an honorable mention for judges' choice.