Summer time is the right time to feel smug about owning a roadster and so it is with my little Mazda. Early mornings and evenings are best; indeed it’s hard to avoid the temptation to go out for a drive just for the hell of it some nights even after a torrid trudge along the M25 back from the office. Maybe because of that. It’s nice to be reminded driving can be fun.
Early morning diversion along lanes summer treat
Recently Matt and I attended the
RMA/PistonHeads track day
at Silverstone, meaning an early start and further refining of my
Dream Drive route
to the track along Beds/Herts/Bucks back lanes. Matt was in
the Caterham
, I was in the Mazda and it was one of those idyllic early morning drives that makes sense of open top cars. Even cheap, rattly ones like mine. Now it’s 25 years old I can kind of forgive that though; from a facsimile of classic roadsters the MX-5 is now the genuine article itself. Indeed, just the other day I was driving along my road and heard a small child say “Look mummy, a classic car!” as I passed. Bless.
At Silverstone the PH fleet assembled, Nathan turning up in the unsuspecting Mini van. Even as a combined total PH’s horsepower figure was probably some way off the average for the day for a single car but each of our rides would have its moment in the sun… In a noble gesture I offered to take the Caterham for a vital sighting lap with Matt onboard and if not especially fast it certainly felt tied down and focused. It is a proper racing car after all! In comparison the Mazda felt like a bit of a soggy blancmange, frankly. Lots of roll, the odd shudder through the body over the kerbs and the kind of softness around the edges a ride in a Seven would show up in any regular road car.
Team PH: the three slowest cars on the day
Still fun though. Matt’s Caterham is set up for poise and pace; the Mazda basically just wants to slide everywhere. It’s not an especially fast way around a track and after a very polite ticking off (“Race control said there’s a Mazda trying to drift – was it you?” Ouch…) I wound my neck in and attempted to keep it tidy. But with as soon as the nose tucks into the bend the Mazda just wants to settle into roll oversteer, meaning lovely neutral four-wheel drifts through fast corners and easily caught slides after more significant weight shifts through the Becketts complex and the like. Nothing showy, just fun. Obviously I was way off the pace of anything else going round but it was huge fun and I enjoyed a couple of corners with an E-Type race car whose overall speed was different league but seemed to enjoy a similar angle of attack round the corners.
I’ve probably doomed myself now but beyond filling the fuel tank and checking the oil every now and then (it doesn’t seem to drop) the Mazda makes few demands. I have noticed a lack of enthusiasm from the dash vents with the heater on though; the fan works but nothing much seems to come out of them so that’ll need investigation at some point. Other than that though…
And the grandstands erupt! OK, they don't...
A quick point about noise too. I was amused to attend the briefing for
AMG’s new V8
engine the day after Silverstone where a great deal of time was spent discussing the emotional value of making an engine sound right. My mongrel mix’n’match approach to sound tuning is far less scientific than AMG’s but I like to think the ends are the same. See what you think
here
from half a lap with a mic buried in the boot. I like it. Meanwhile a ‘5-owning colleague is looking for a new exhaust and asked my advice, albeit with the caveat he didn’t want it as noisy as mine. I’m deaf to such ideas though – if anyone has any recommendations for him by all means share them below.
Mazda noise test
Fact sheet:
Car: 1993 Eunos Roadster (JDM import model)
Run by: Dan Trent
Bought: January 2011
Purchase price: £1,250
Last month at a glance: Skidfoolery at Silverstone proves worth of eco tyre option
Silverstone photos: Jakob Ebrey