The Miata’s First Track Day!

That’s a wrap for my car’s first track day, successful nonetheless! At a company outing, we decided to take our vehicles to the local race track, Autobahn Country Club, and invite a few of our friends and clients out to come enjoy what it’s like living with racing fuel in your veins.

Of those that came along, a few friends and coworkers, decided to join along in their cars! Jay brought his 2019 Corvette Z06, John brought out his 2021 Tesla Model 3 Performance, my friend Pete brought out his 2016 Ford Focus RS, and Blake brought out his 2006 Lotus Elise track car! I, of course, brought out my nearly bone stock 2000 Mazda Miata! After dealing with a few issues with my braking system over the past year, I decided to get it all tightened up (hoping it would hold) and see how she’d throw down on the track! With my already significant experience on this track with my motorcycle, I knew exactly where to be, and how to flow through this track. However, after 2 years of without a track day, I was feeling a bit rusty.

After all of the drivers meetings, registration and setup, it was time. With my heart beating in my chest, I slowly made my way out into the pit lane to go out on track, and off we went. After a single lap in, the thrill of the track came rushing back to me. The corners. The Apexes. My driving line. It was all back, and it never felt better. After taking it easy to see how my car was handling around the corners and getting the brakes up to temp, I decided to start pushing a bit further and further. All whilst taking it slower than I felt I could, knowing the brakes aren’t in the best of condition (this post explains what’s going on, and why I’m having problems). Watching my data logging on my android head unit, I’m seeing temps that I’m comfortable with, but after taking a few corners hard, I could feel the tires rolling over on themselves. So I decided it was time to come in, ending my first session.

After coming in, and my brakes feeling a bit squishy, I parked it and got out. The first thing I noticed is a STRONG smell of brakes, and after looking I could see my front left brake pads smoking. I knew then that it was either 1 of 2 things. Either my brakes decided to get unbalanced again, and I’m way over using the front left, or I never fully padded them in when I put the new pads on nearly a year ago. With hopes of it being the latter, I decided to air up the tires a bit and let her cool off.

After about an hour, it was time to go back out. In my head I felt significantly more comfortable with how my car was holding up and how it was performing, and wanted to show my friends a baseline for how to best get around the track in a flowing motion. I decided to “tow” John in his Model 3, and after going over the track map, and where you should be going around the map itself, we got in our cars, and lined up in hot pit.

Back out of the track, we both took a lap to heat everything up and get into our rhythm, one lap in, we started picking up the pace, while still over exadgerating where he should be on the track. However, I’m noticing that after each corner he keeps pulling on me hard in the straights, so I decided “Alright, it’s time to really pick up the pace”, so we started barreling into the corners, tires squeeling trying to keep traction, and my brakes getting softer and softer as I pushed deeper and deeper into the corners. Problem was, with his power he easily caught up to me in the straights, but with how light my Miata was, I was trailing away from him in the braking zones and through the corners. Throughout the entire time this session, I was feeling really comfortable about my brakes, as the pads seemed like they were finally holding together at this point. After about 20 minutes into our 30 minute session, we decided to call it and pulled into the pits.

We held off and decided to relax over lunch and ensure that we’re all hydrated up for the rest of the day, as at this point, it was only going to climb up past 100°F for the heat index, and I could tell my car was feeling every bit of that heat. John felt comfortable at this point to go off on his own and see what his Tesla could do after showing him the basics of the track. Now it was Pete’s turn! After speaking with Pete, I found out that he was trailing me in the last session trying to keep pace, but not picking up on my lines, and with over an extra 1,000 lbs his car carried around, he was noticing it was difficult keeping up. After reviewing the track map with him, I decided to “tow” him out on track and show him the lines and where he was supposed to be, so he can fully unlock what his car was capable of!

After leaving the pit we started as a decently quick pace, I could see he was really focusing on where to be, which is exactly what I wanted on our first cold lap out. Focus on the line, because we were only going to pick up the speed after this. After we both got our cars warmed up, we started to pick up the pace! I was really starting to get comfortable with my car at this point, so I started braking deeper and deeper in corners, my brakes finally felt like they were keeping up! A few laps in and Pete decided it was his time to shine, so he passed me on the back straight and took off! My grip on the steering wheel tightened, as I decided we’re now gonna see what the Miata can do as well. Each corner, I quickly catch up to him, as I can brake deeper into the corner, and keep my speed up significantly more than him, but on the straights he simply pulls away due to the power his car makes. Three laps later we decided to throw in the towel and head in.

As we parked up, I could see the ear to ear grin on his face. He felt it. The thrill of trying your hardest to pull away and the feeling of racing! I decided that after that I was going to throw the towel in the for day as I had simply had enough and didn’t want to push the miata in the blistering heat we had that day. The rest of the day comprised of trying to stay cool, and watching some of the crazy cars that came out, like the numerous BMW’s and porsche’s that managed to make it out.

To end out the day, I had a blast, and met one of my neighbors who saw the miata on the trailer as I was unloading and handed me some old eye lids he used to have when he had his old NB miata. I thanked him and rolled the car into the trailer to sleep as it has a long day!

As productive and informative as the day was for me, I definitely have plans to upgrade a bunch of parts on the miata! So stay tuned and follow along as I start to plan everything out!