I finally understand Mazda
Miata owners. Over the
weekend, a few of us went over to participate in Mazda's
Zoom Zoom Live! event, and we had
a blast. The gist of the event is that Mazda supplies a bunch of cars, and
you supply some excess testosterone beating on them. There were four main
activities; first, the "School of Zoom", which included seat-time with an
instructor beside you who both encouraged you to go as fast as you could
through an autocross course with an RX-8, but also gave you tips as you went
to improve your lap times or correct bad habits. Next, there was "Jinba
Ittai", a timed event driving a Miata with a bowl suctioned to the hood with
three golf balls in it; the goal is to make it through the event without
dumping any of the golf balls, and do so quicker than everyone else. Then
there was the matched-time "Gymkhana" event, held with Mazda 3, 5, and 6
vehicles; the closest time to the "Match Time" wins (rather than the fastest
through the course). Finally, there was the "Performance Challenge" event,
which was an all-out timed autocross event in Miatas.
The RX-8 event was probably the most useful to me, mainly because I initially
didn't take to the RX-8 at first, and didn't do as well as I'd like. After
six runs in the RX-8, I'm convinced I was running lap times similar to the
instructors (although there was no timing gear, so you'll have to take my
word for it). That car is a heavy pig, and with rear-drive and no low-end
torque, it was challenging to keep it moving on the course; if you screwed
up, the lack of torque down low really penalized you. There was one corner
that I consistantly came into far too hot, and I nailed it perfectly on my
final run after doing an at-rest talk-through of the corner with the
instructor. Fun car, and it would probably be very enjoyable with a large
shot of nitrous to take care of that small torque problem below 4000 RPM.
The Jinba Ittai event was my worst of the weekend, while Kris set the record
for the weekend. The time to beat was 31 seconds the first day, and 30 seconds
on the second; I managed a best of 32 seconds or so without dumping the golf
balls, while Kris pulled off a mind-boggling 26 seconds, and backed it up
twice with a pair of 27-second laps. The only thing I came away with from that
event was that you should keep everything in the car securely fastened while
autocrossing. ;-)
The Gymkhana thing was weird. The Mazda 3 and 6 are four-door sedans, with
the 3 having a pretty peppy V6, while the 5 is a minivan, complete with GPS
navigation and comfy seating. The goal is to come as close as possible to
the match time, and I pretty much aced this one; I got a 26.014, with a
match time of 26 seconds, and did it in the minivan driving it as hard as I
could without squealing tires or rolling them over on the sidewalls. We
drove the Mazda 3 later, and taking the same approach to the course, I ended
up with a 24.212, so obviously a) the minivan was never
meant to win, b) we were driving WAY faster than they
wanted us to for that course, and c) you'll go quite a bit
faster in the Mazda 3 than in the Mazda 5. ;-)
Finally, the event I fell in love with: the "Performance Challenge". The gist
of this is pretty simple: hop in a bone-stock MX-5 Miata, and drive it like
you stole it through the course. I only got two runs on this course over the
weekend, and I know I could have nailed this one if I had a chance to go one
or two more times. The car was perfect for autocross; it is unbelievably
light, and there's a ton of low-end torque (for the weight), making it easy to
place the rear of the car pretty much wherever you want it. It didn't get in
my way, and acted more like an extension of the driver than as something to
push around the course. The "time to beat" was 37.5 seconds; I managed 37.6
my first time in the car, and knocked another second off for a 36.7 the
second time, and did it with a few obvious errors (I drifted all the way
around both the first and second corners, and mistakenly clutched for the
second corner...WTF?!). There was easily another couple of seconds to be found
out there, and it would have been a blast trying to find them (and maybe taking
a few cones with me). That car was amazing as an autocross car, and maybe
that's my biggest problem with it: it's almost a single-purpose vehicle, and
it literally owned that course, but day-to-day, the lack of torque across
the powerband would really get on my nerves. Performance upgrades would
probably just ruin the car's original purpose, because at that weight, you
really wouldn't want it much stronger without slicks and a proper roll cage.
Overall, I had a blast. It wasn't the same as the Rev-It-Up event they held
last year, which had an almost pure autocross focus (and operated a lot like
a real SCCA event), and I missed some of
that, but the event did go smoothly, and the personal instruction was worth
more than any amount of individual seat time I could have gotten out there
(it didn't hurt that the instructor I got took me out with me in the passenger
seat for a lap; I got more out of that one lap than the rest of the weekend).
I'll definitely be there again next year.