Few cars are as easy or as forgiving to drive as the Mazda Miata. Anyone who's driven the roadster in anger inevitably steps out of the car with a grin a mile wide. When Mazda brought out the new, refined third-generation MX-5, we were worried that, despite possessing much-improved street manners, the bigger car had lost the old Miata's spunk. Boy, were we wrong.
The folks at the Skip Barber Racing School know all about driveable spunk and have finally drafted the new MX-5 into its fleet for a three-day driving school designed to get people ready for amateur racing. No big expensive Porsches, Corvettes or open-wheel formula cars, just ludicrously easy-to-drive MX-5s anyone can prepare and race for just a few large ones. We checked out the first of the schools at Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey, California. Other schools will soon follow at Road America, Sebring, Lime Rock Park and on certain dates at Daytona, Moroso, and Miami Homestead.
The program starts with the usual chalk talk about vehicle dynamics, the traction circle, and driving lines-for newbies completely green to the concept of a race track. The grinning starts on the autocross course with a few flying laps. As you get more and more comfortable, the Skippy guys quicken the pace and actually encourage you to over-drive in order to learn your limits, as well as the car's.
With plenty of run-off and instructors well-trained in the art of dodging cars, getting into the groove of the cone dance comes instinctively as you pitch the car with a gentle flick of the wrist and steer with one foot on the gas and the other on the brakes. Call us evil, but we did relish the fact that if you wipe out an entire row of cones, a crew of professional race car drivers/instructors will scramble to pick them up as you pull away for another pass.
Upon graduation from the autocross course, students are put through another meeting, then sent off to a threshold braking and heel-toe downshifting exercise in preparation for the road course. This is the same exercise used for the dog-box transmission formula cars, except this time there are synchros in the transmission, and vacuum-assisted ABS. Even with the advanced and aggressive system in the MX-5, having ABS onboard actually makes threshold braking more difficult. Stop too aggressively and the ABS kicks in, minimizing the full bite of the tires, which-you quickly learn-isn't always the best way to scrub off speed.
The Skip Barber-built dual-purpose (circuit and autocross) Mazda MX-5s are only race-spec in terms of handling and set-up. While safety hardware is present-the AWR cage (the same one used in our Project Time Attack Miata), window net, emergency engine shut-off, and fire suppression system-the cars use BF Goodrich g-Force Sport street tires with appropriate spring rates and screw-up-friendly alignment settings. They're race-modified, but these MX-5s won't be nearly as competitive or edgy as a real SCCA Pro MX-5 Cup car. This gives rookie-fresh students a little more breathing room when driving near the upper limits of their talent.
Mazdaspeed provides all performance parts, like the cold-air intake, tubular four-into-one exhaust header, and sports exhaust. Skip Barber's technical staff also add additional silencers at the exhaust tips, to further reduce sound levels at such noise-sensitive tracks as Laguna Seca. Adding some race-car teeth to the roadster is Mazdaspeed's aggressive clutch-type limited-slip differential (not legal for SCCA Pro Cup cars) and anti-roll bars. Since the car sits on street tires, the suspension receives just Mazdaspeed sport springs and dampers, instead of a full-on, competition-spec coilover system. The lower spring rates and added travel of the sport suspension versus a race suspension helps keep the MX-5 driver-friendly, much easier to learn things like weight transfer on.
While Skip Barber MX-5s don't conform fully to SCCA Pro Cup or Showroom Stock class rules, they are set up so any driver can get comfortable in a short space of time. Down the road, each Barber school might build a competitive regulation-spec MX-5 for use by advanced students looking to compete in the MX-5 racing series.