My first race in the Thunder Roadster was everything I wanted it to be except for one thing: oil temps. As I raced through the field during the Aussie Pursuit race, I was closely monitoring my oil temperature gauge as the temperature crept to 290 degrees. Flirting dangerously close to being pinged...
Sometimes your subconscious makes choices that you aren’t 100 percent aware of. And over the last two seasons, I have experimented in several racing series. With nothing quite feeling right. There was always this nagging, ‘this ain’t it’ feeling, no matter how I approached...
Standing at a crossroads. That’s what the last couple of years have felt like in my racing journey. And it has led me to a decision that’s as bittersweet as it is exciting. There’s a real sense of loss in leaving behind a class that helped shape me as a driver. But for a number of reasons, it’s...
What does a racer do during downtime besides work on racecars? How about watching other types of motorsport? And that is precisely what I did the first weekend of June when Hydrofest rolled into Lake Guntersville, AL, just down the street.
Two hours into my endurance race stint, my foot was on fire, literally. By the time I stepped out of the Total-D Miata, I had a second-degree burn. Welcome to the world of Miata hot foot.
There’s something surreal about racing against your past self, especially when the ghost you’re chasing isn’t just a lap time, but a version of you that was younger, rougher around the edges, and driving a car that still had something to give. That’s exactly where I found myself at NOLA Motorsports...
I came across an ad for these little matchbox drift cars. You mount them to your dash, and they move when the vehicle turns, giving the appearance of a ‘drift.’ At first, I thought, ‘That’s silly.’ Then it became, ‘Eh, kinda cool.’ Which quickly turned...
The minimalist chassis of the Miata Exo Car (aka ‘ghettocet’) makes it the perfect platform to test ideas. Complex designs become relatively easy, like mounting the radiator in the rear. And very early in the build process, I decided on such a rear mount design. As I near the end of the...
The ‘ghettocet’ Miata affords plenty of opportunity to take things back to ‘old school.’ With that in mind, let’s explore hockey puck motor mounts on this project. It’s something I built years ago for the CA18DET swapped 240sx. And something very fitting to...
At this time of year, I usually write a farewell to (insert previous year here) message. And that is sort of what this is. But seeing as I did a pretty good job documenting 2024, I want to focus on this new year, 2025, instead. Let me paint a picture. It’s the beginning of January, and...
The internet has a way of making direct answers challenging to find and unnecessarily complicated. Unsurprisingly, removing the power steering from a Mazda Miata is no exception. The back-and-forth on the pros and cons is confusing and somewhat comical. That is why I am here to say resolutely that...
I have been building and racing racecars for a long time, and one of my favorite things is removing unnecessary crap. In a 1.6l equipped Miata that spends its life at wide open throttle, the ISC or Idle Speed Control System just so happens to fall into that category. In this guide, I am going to...
