This event started last Thanksgiving when a bunch
of us cylinder over achievers from V8miata.net decided we need to get together.
As the idea took shape The Mitty quickly bubbled to the
first choice of venues. The Mitty is a historic racing weekend at
Road Atlanta with 350 race cars of every type you can imagine mostly from the
60s and 70s.
The event also features complete access to the paddock which was worth the trip in itself!
So now we had a plan but being over achievers we needed a goal. The most V8 Miatas ever in one place was 13 so the challenge was before us.
Dare we shoot to double that?
PLEASE SUPPORT FLYIN' MIATA!
Now I need to back up to my annual trip to Omaha with my
son at Christmas for a sec. Due to me being very dumb I put the car in
the ditch so for me prep on the car for the Mitty run started weeks before the
event.
The good news is no real damage was done and I was
driving. The bad news is my preparations ended in disaster a few hours
before I was to leave. I have not dropped a car in 25 years of wrenching
but sure enough Jenna slipped off the jack and destroyed a tie rod
end.
So it’s 10pm on the night before a 3000 mile trip with no chance of finding a tie rod end for a Miata within 100 miles of me. No worries this is Road Kill after all so I whipped up a very micky mouse splint, did a quick alignment and was in bed by 1am.
I rolled out in the morning just as planned.
The top came down by Missouri and pretty much
never went back up!
My first stop on the tour was at a fellow V8
guy that is just getting started on his build.
We set his hard top on Jenna just to see what it looks like but I’ll not
be owning one any time soon.
I left him the
same smile everyone has the first time they drive a V8 Miata
Day 2 on to the Peach tree state
I stayed with a fellow V8er that built his
car at the same time I did. He lives way
up in the hills of North Georgia so we did some rock crawling with her.
Shannon is a great guy (and cook)
and we stayed up way too late catching up.
The MPG
for the first half of the trip would have been 28 had it not been for that
white C6 vette. They always
think I am all rice and no spice…
Friday was on to the Mitty and wow what a day
it was!
Friday evening was the track time and while
they tried to keep us in line there may have been some, ahh, less restricted maneuvers
occur on the backside corners and straight…
That is my friend Shannon in front of me. He has a beautiful car!
After the track time it was a picnic hosted
by V8 Roadsters in their vendor both and as you might expect no one talked
about the weather!
Saturday it rained pretty hard in the morning
so lots of car clubs did not show up and several of our guys did not
either. I was pulled so hard to the
track I doubt I could have taken much more visiting anyway so I’ll summarize
the day with 2 minutes from my favorite race and the assurance that the rest of
the events were no less epic.
Saturday Night was dinner hosted by MX5
Atlanta and Sunday morning my Son and I rolled out to the tail of the dragon.
Another 2 minute video if you are interested
in seeing that.
From there it was off to my CMS friend Tom
with a little detour on the way. Nothing
like the smell of fresh donor car in the morning!
My friend Tom is a great guy and so nearly my twin it’s uncanny. We both play drums in bands and are in to the same kind of music. We both love sim racing, autocross and historic racing. And we both are tinkerers that are just as happy to work on a car as to drive one. Oh and the car of choice is of course the Miata!
Miatas tend to consume alignment bolts if you drive them hard and the new set on my bench didn’t make it to the car before the trip and sure enough one of them moved on the dragon. So Monday morning a quick tire rotate and field alignment in a parking lot started my day.
From there it was just road tripping home with
a stop or 2 along the way to see the sights. 
As the sun set over Iowa I felt the need for a pick me up and what better than a…
I made it home around mid-night and the stats
are the trip are:
About 2000 of that 2800 miles was with the top down. (The
top speed was from a track event last summer not the trip)
The thing I always enjoy
about traveling in a cartoon character of a car is so many people ask about
it. LeeRoy in the Illinois rest stop is restoring a vintage
dragster and asked about the hood latches. Mike in the Mazda 3 in
Kentucky said he would buy my gas if I gave him a ride. The
guy in Missouri said he has an LS1 swapped RX7 he started for the first time
over the weekend. By God’s grace I have no sense of time so I don’t
notice or care when a 15 minute gas stop turns into a 45 minute
visit.
All in all it was an absolutely delightful trip that I hope to
repeat next year.
So did we meet the challenge of 26 V8 Miatas at Mitty? Well
yours truly was as in charge as anyone is for such things was having too much
fun to remember to count so we are not sure. But there was no
shortage of horse power in that parking lot!
LFX V6 car using the aluminum 323hp VVT V6 and 6 speed
from the latest Camaro.
LSA 6.2L / 556HP supercharged Exocet
LS3 V8 Exocet
