JSC Speed's 1993 Mazda Miata Project Car
With the new header, intake and test pipe installed I took the Miata up to Pocono for two days on the North course with the Del-Val Miata Club. The car performed phenomenally! Between the improved swaybars, the stickier tires, and new intake & exhaust components, I was very impressed with the car's on track demeanor. Having never been to the North course before I had to be signed off by an instructor to go out solo, which I accomplished in the first session. I was running in the blue group (green ->blue ->red ->black ->instructor) and was encountering traffic within a lap or two, so I was having to pull into the pits every two laps to leave a gap in front of me. After the second session I requested that I get bumped up into the red, and the head instructor said sure (he had been in running in the same group as me to see how everyone was behaving and said he was following me around on the track and noticed my traffic issues).
Running with the red group was incredible. The drivers were far better to deal with, and while I had the least powerful Miata on the track (everyone else either had a built NA motor or added FI), I was still catching and passing several cars (including a Cayman). In between sessions I spoke with several of the other drivers in the red group, and all of them were asking what turbo/supercharger kit I had under the hood! One guy, that I remembered passing two times, was running a MazdaSpeed Miata with some exhaust work and a tune and claimed he was making 200whp! Now, my header, test pipe and intake did not make me 100whp, but the tires and sways were working for me and enabling me to get a great launch off of the corners and carry more speed into the turns. I spent the second day in the red group again ran a few of the blue sessions too with some of the instructors, which was extremely enlightening.
Pocono North runs clockwise and uses NASCAR turn three as a "straightaway," so turn one of the North course is off of the speedway into the infield. Turn one is extremely fast and two has a relatively short braking zone and a very late apex. Turn two was the corner I most wanted to push the envelope on, but it also happened to be the one corner I really didn't want to go off of due to the camber that created a ramp that would launch you if you went of course there. Riding with one of the instructors, and then following him gave me a better understanding of how far I could push that braking zone. In following sessions I found that I gained a decent amount of speed by changing my line just a couple of feat on the entry to turn one.
The left side Toyos definitely took the brunt of abuse on those two days because of all the right hand turns, but over all I was truly impressed with the way these unproven tires handled the track time. My previous track day on the Falkens resulted in greasy and not so much fun tires after three 20 minute sessions, while the Toyos endured two days of seven or eight 20 minute sessions with very little greasing.