2007 Mazda Miata NC MX-5
When it comes to my life, if I'm having fun doing it, it's worth sharing and doing with others. Track days have proven no exception in my 1999 Corvette C5 track project car, as I have quickly come to enjoy it very much and I've even had fun taking a few friends along as passengers. Thus after my most recent track day, I found myself wanting to get my friends involved. I tried to convince a few friends that track days are a blast, and they all said they'd surely enjoy it, but as most folks so wisely do before taking a big plunge into an expensive hobby, they hemmed and hawed and didn't move on it. So, knowing most folks need the low cost entry to see just how fun it is, I started searching for a budget buddy car for friends.
My search criteria developed pretty quickly: I needed a car that was reliable, not something a friend could get themselves into too much trouble with power wise, and ideally not so expensive that if a friend wrecked it I'd be bothered or I'd be chasing expensive parts on the car for months on end.
After a few track days of watching a variety of common cars on the track, two choices were left: C5 Corvettes, and Miatas. All other common track cars I saw failed to complete a full track day on a hot day, or were crashed with a novice driver at the helm due to having too much power/capability. Between the Corvette and a Miata, the Corvettes were notably more expensive and were starting to get into the too much power to capability ratio, so the Miata become the logical choice. It also didn't hurt the argument that at my last track day at Streets of Willow Springs my C5 Corvette couldn't keep up with a stock engine Miata, thus showing me it was also a very capable platform.
The headache with Miatas, and the used car market right now in general, is that everybody knows what they have is interesting. They know it's a limited commodity as well, and thus wanted ridiculous amounts of money for absolute garbage. Often people would be selling a 20+ year old Miata for what seemed like a good price, and I'd click on the advertisement only to discover the car didn't even have an engine in it.
The Miata I found was a tough find, and arguably not that good of a find at all. The owner wanted a large sum of money for a salvage title miata. It appeared clean though, it had very minor modifications that to me did not run the risk of incompotence being an issue, and outside of that the car was unmolseted and had clearly not been beat on. I test drove the car, and it arguably had a better initial functional and mechanical state than my C5 Corvette. Thus, I purchased it for a price most would heckle but was playing out as reasonable in the current market, and took the plunge.
Thus begins the story of the 2007 Miata NC MX-5 track car.