Big Meet For A Small Car: Miatapalooza 2013

In the past, I’d been to what I thought of as large car meets. Forty or fifty Subarus? Sure! That’s enormous! But I recently learned that it really isn’t. I’d heard that the Miata community was large, but little did I know how big it really is until I recently attended this year’s Miatapalooza in Lakeland, Florida, a parking lot celebration of every generation of Mazda’s diminutive roadster.

2013 Honda Grand Prix of St Petersburg

It is always exciting this time of year when the Honda Grand Prix takes over the streets of St Pete, but this year was especially thrilling, because I got to shoot as part of the photographer pool for the Grand Prix. This was closer than I’ve ever gotten to see the track, the drivers, the pit lane, and well… everything!

The Roadster’s New Kicks

The Miata is back from the shop, where it underwent some much needed maintenance repairs in order to be drivable in time for the April car events taking place in the Tampa Bay area. Now that the roadster is driving smoothly, I was finally able to address the biggest eyesore it came with—those ugly wheels.

Some Good Old FWD Fun

Tonight, for only the second time, I got to drive my late step father’s RSX (non-type S with an automatic). The roadster will be in the shop until Monday and my mom let me borrow the ‘Teg since I have a meeting tomorrow morning. I have to say that car is a hell of a lot more fun than I remember it being. It’s still a little slower than the Rabbit in a straight line (because it lacks torque) but holy hell does that thing corner! I think we’ve changed the air filter since the last time as well. Now I see how my step father was always able to keep up with me so well in the entrance road to their gated community. I’m impressed. Most of the problem is the automatic. Just when you’re getting into the power, it goes to the next gear. So to counteract that, all the way home I found myself flipping it over into “manual” mode and ringing it out. Man, this thing is fun!

VSR Motorsports Grand Opening

One of my favorite local speed shops, S&R Performance, merged with Vortex Motorsport recently and on Saturday night my wife and I attended the massive grand opening of their new shop, VSR Motorsports.

Honda Grand Prix track construction

Early on Friday morning, I attended the beginning of the construction of the street course that is annually built on the streets of St Pete for the Honda Grand Prix.

These massive wall pieces weight 12,000 pounds each! They will make up the safety wall of the track. The track is put together piece by piece, with interlocking parts almost like a very large set of Legos.

Hellaflushed

On the weekend before last I started getting the Miata on the road to better health with multiple coolant flushes. The system was quite dirty, so the first step was draining the radiator. Simple enough, it’s just removing a plastic plug from the center of the radiator. What could go wrong?