Everyone in the club is probably familiar with the group of crazies who autocross their Miatas.

While autocrossing is a lot of fun, their is a learning curve, the driver must have a helmet and often

the car is modified too. Understandably, not everyone has a helmet and wants to learn how to

autocross just to see "what the 'ol Miata will do", but wouldn't you still like to know?

So what to do if you're one of those who'd like to "see what the ol' Miata will do?" Doing that on

the street is crazy, so you'll need to get off the street and onto a safe venue where you can run your

Miata WFO. How does drag racing sound, if you've never considered it, perhaps it's time to give it a

try.

Recently Chip Wigton, Mike DePietro and Rich Velardo spent $12, and a few evening hours, at

Norwalk Drag Raceway. For our $12 we had unlimited runs down the track in a safe, controlled

environment. We had a great time spinning tires, drooling over some of the real drag racing cars and

just "seeing what the 'ol Miata will do".

After each of our runs we were handed a slip of paper that told us our starting reaction time,

elapsed time for the first 60 feet, 1/8 mile and then the 1/4 mile. Our speeds for those distances were

also listed on the same slip of paper. So how'd we do? Best times; Mike (in his silver '99 with 5

speed) ran a best of 17.17 @ 77.40 mph for the 1/4 mile, Chip (in his 6 speed 10AE) ran a best of

16.352 @ 81.96 mph and Rich (supercharged '99 with 5 speed) ran a best of 14.689 @ 92.70 mph.

More important than the times was the fun we had, none of us was serious, we were there for grins

and practice and we found everyone to be friendly and interested in our cars.

Mike and Chip had been there before, it was a first time for me. I found the whole experience to be

very casual and super friendly. No helmet is required, you can run street tires (which each of us did)

and there is no special preparation of the cars needed. The procedure is pretty much drive in the

entrance, pay your $12, line up, stomp on the gas, laugh like crazy, line up after your run and do it

again.

Anybody want to give it a go some Wednesday evening? Give Mike or RIch a call or e-mail and

we'll set something up. The gates open at 5 P.M., (we were out of there by 7:30 after five runs and

lots of fun) the restrooms are clean; there are concession stands for food, drink, clothing and toys

located under the viewing stands for those wishing to watch. Don't forget to bring your S.O. so that

you have a cheering section! The only negative could be the sound level--it's loud.

Mike: mldepietro@sherwin.com Rich: gomiata@zoominternet.net