Well here's my response to this. While I am NOT a fan of the people's curse where the car gets destroyed, I wouldn't mind that particular car be banned and require to be put on the trailer just like what happened. The whole reason I haven't built a Lemons car myself is the fear of it getting crushed as well. I put a lot of time and money into my street cars AND racecars and no matter what way you slice it, there's going to be blood sweat and tears doing anything involving racing on a budget.
The miata driver was very good. I ran with and passed him back and forth with our best laps on Saturday. I ran our best saturday with a 1:33.3 AND our best Sunday on borrowed tires to a 1:32.7. This is in a REAL Lemons car the 45 light blue 1979 280z car. Yeah, it needs a quart of oil with every refuel. The fuel filter plugged with rust TWICE too. I stuffed that miata in traffic repeatedly and he found a way out MANY times and got back around for the pass. I knew they had a very fast car and that they were sandbagging hard after that session since he could get back around after only a handful more turns. I'm a local and have run hundreds of laps on this track and while he and I were both driving very aggressively, we were being cordial and fair in traffic. I am known to be a very good driver and I can attest, whoever was in the black miata in hour two of saturday was damn fine behind the wheel.
BUT my problem lies here -- I picked up the paper and found 5 miatas for sale locally. NO miatas for $500.00. Actually out of the 5 in there, the cheapest one is $2200.00 and has 147k miles on it! I'm not saying they aren't out there, but this team has magically found 3 of them!! This black one is actually a good looking car (hadn't been wrecked from what I could see) - why would anyone unload a perfectly running driving miata (that didn't smoke at all) for $500? That's where the people's curse steps in.
As far as prep, Miata's sure can go 1:30.2 with good street tires, gutted, and 1 cut coil off the springs - I actually buy that. On top of that the timing can be bumped, and all the other free mods were done, but with his skill level and only that prep it is Definitely possible. It also didn't have to make weight like spec miatas do - he could potentially be FASTER than a spec car in this case. Again, I ONLY question the initial purchase price of the car.
Now someone keeps defending this pink car, but it sure was fast as well, it just wasn't piloted as well.
I personally, feel that there should be some kind of ban on the miatas in this series. It's the ultimate weapon in most budget racing series'. RWD, super light, good power, GREAT handling, cheap to find...but I'd say NO LEMON.
My thoughts,
Patrick Harris