Astroman

Yep. My air-cooled 3.2 has 168,000 miles on it and, to my knowledge, has never been rebuilt. AND it still makes pretty good power on the dyno.

AND (knock on wood) I've never had an engine-related DNF in 14 race weekends (and 2 years of DE before that).

I'd say I've gotten my money's worth out of her...

M758

Really the best thing is to get the SM or 944. Reason.... you think you can afford more, but when you are planning you never really calcuate the full costs.

So if you think you can afford 20% more you will be find when you realize everything is going to cost 25% more than you planned. You would be only 5% over budget.

If you must spend more then Spec boxster is good for cost containted spec class. Non spec classes are much harder to put a handle on costs as you can spend a ton of money trying to make car competitive. A ton of wasted money on things that did not help or worse buying a car that will never be compeitive in the class you choose.

M758

NASA So-cal is a strong group, but don't be afraid to race with them. They run races well and welcome new racers. You can be dog slow in class and still have nice time in NASA.

sig_a

Formula Vee must be the cheapest way to open-wheel racing.

And Miata is "best value" sportcar ever -- track or street.

Miata drivers routinely push around much more powerful 911's in all but the fastest high speed corners.

Matt Romanowski

Not sure where you drive, but that doesn't happen around here.

All racing is expensive at the pointy end.

winders

I was going to say that would only happen to under-tired or over-weight 911's by comparison. It's not like Miata's have some magic grip characteristics.

Scott

Potomac-Greg

Been a while since I visited. I'm partial to SRF (as a participant). It's everything you need, and nothing more. I trailer it behind the wife's SUV, and can carry two spare sets of wheels. Cobby old, non-interference engine, but a bona fide racing platform. Impeccable safety record.

After that it's Spec Miata. But to be in either of these groups, you have to be more into the racing than the cars ('cause the car's aint much). Some people, for very good reason, can't see themselves racing a girlie car (;-)), or in the case of SRF, an inverted hot tub, and they want a GT car image.

One thing you don't get with an SRF is a roof or a windscreen! (This was from last Sunday.)

http://youtu.be/hyG6rzHJ3lg

sig_a

Mostly it's tired, inexperienced 911 drivers in torsion bar cars being out maneuvered by light weight Miatas running modern design suspension systems.

Some "learning curve" GT3 drivers, as well.

Vampire

On any given Sunday, more Mazdas are wrecked than any other car

ninjabones

i can vouch for that! i've got a tight group guys who all came up through the pca de ranks together (nearly all are pca instructors and are involved in racing in some capacity with scca, pca, nasa and others) 6 of us have dabbled in the spec miata scene as an adjunct to other racing endeavors, and all 6 of us have been involved in some type of incident in the miatas over the past two seasons. two cars were totaled (one of which was a car that three of us shared and was nearly totaled two times before her eventual demise). one guy got wrecked so bad (tagged from behind going into 4 at summit point) that he broke a few ribs and didn't drive for a year.

three are still pretty gung ho about the spec miata thing and enjoy that type of racing. three will never get into a miata again. i think you just have to try it to see which half you will fall into.

dp35

Try this:
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Matt Romanowski

Care to share when we should watch? I'm not going through 43 minutes to see one time a Miata passed a helpless guy in a 911.

Sterling Doc

Fast driver in (any) slow car >> slow driver in fast car.

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Joe's hit it on the head. Spend the money to do a cheaper car right, and you'll come out ahead of trying to scrape by in a more expensive class.

I have an endurance season championships in the Miata populated NASA E3 class. Just won this seasons opener by 5 seconds after three hours of racing on a trouble free run (had to be!). Reliability is all a matter of preparation.

sig_a

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18 through 20 is a sample.

Miata suspension is independent double wishbone front and multi-link rear. 1.6 liter engine mount point is behind front axle. 2150 pounds. Nearly 1 million sold to date.

Circuit Motorsports

They actually seem to be greater than the sum of their parts. When they've been classed into classes like ITA which base a lot of classification off of power to weight they have been overdogs so far.