Our trip to Roebling Road Raceway brought back some memories. We have watched John race here a couple of times in recent years, but we had been here once before a long time ago for a different reason.
In the early days of Miatadom there was a national umbrella club that was the central point of information for the rest of the clubs around the country. The Miata Club of America, along with Mazda’s help, put out a glossy magazine quarterly that went to every member and they planned and put on events around the country at different places with the help of local clubs. The 1991 National Event was in Savannah and we decided to go.
There were lots things to do, poker run, scenic drives, a riverboat cruise, etc, but the big draw was track time at Roebling Road. Each person who wanted would get one session on the track both Friday & Saturday morning. I don’t recall how many laps we got, but my guess is five, a warm up lap, 3 at “speed” and a cool down lap. Your best time of the two days would be counted towards a small bit of prize money or trophy or something. To help keep the speed down some and to keep folks from running right off Turn #1, they placed a cone lined chicane* near the end of the loooong straightaway.
*In the intervening 2 decades they’ve built one into the track.
All you needed by way of safety equipment was a Snell approved helmet and I ate up a significant portion of the Miata’s trunk space on the trip with a borrowed coworker’s motorcycle helmet. Tech inspection consisted of making sure your lug nuts were tightened to the proper specifications. They also opened the hood and looked underneath to check for modifications because they were going to handicap the cars based on any improvements made.
As you can see in the image above, my bone stock 1990 Miata lapped the 2.02 mile track in 2 minutes and 15.19 seconds. John’s best lap time in his race prepped 1990 Miata last Saturday morning was 1 minute and 24.9 seconds. That means if we left the starting line at the same time, he would pass me just I started on lap #3 while he was beginning his 4th lap.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1218