All valid reasons to sell my AP2, buy a high mileage AP1, .....AND......have chump change left over for some tasteful mods. Maybe matching wheels as well. I'm on it!

 

I think the new Miata looks fantastic! Have you seen what Honda is doing with the 2020 S2000? It’s quite the looker. Really incredible stuff.

 

Miata did lots of versions including a turbo mazdaspeed. The NC had a major facelift with an engine that raised the redline. I’m no expert on Miatas so I’m my list is incomplete. For whatever reason you ignored or don’t know about changes to in Miatas.

 

As an owner of both cars, I have a bit of a hot take. After driving several S2000s, Civic Type R's, and Porches....I find the ND MX-5's shifter feel to be superior. This genuinely surprised me because while the S2000s had a shorter throw, it never felt as precise nor satisfying to row as the NDs.

 

The ND I codrive is taken apart for a bit for some stuff so my codriver and I ran the S2k this weekend at an autox. He has only ever driven it twice at a practice event. Was immediately as fast as me in it. For reference we tend to finish within .1 sec of each other in his car so we are very equal drivers in that sense. He was smiling ear to ear after each run in the s2k. He really loved driving it. We still finished further behind the fastest drivers in our club in it than we typically do in the ND which is expected when autocrossing a much heavier car in the same class As far how me and him compared, we finished 0.059 seconds apart on our fastest times of the day!

He actually seemed to like shifting the S2k better than the ND. He liked the short throws. But both have very good gearboxes.

As for street driving, neither of us have input there. He has never driven and S2k on the street and has really only driven his ND back and forth to local events. It is STR prepped with a race seat and he uses in 100% for autox. Being that it was a development car for a company producing parts for the ND's before he bought it, they never used it for anything else either. It has 12,000 miles and about 10,000 have been on a race track or autocross course. So it sits in his garage until taken out for events.

 

Just curious, how much further back were you both in the s2k than you'd have expected to be in the ND? What was the overall time on the course (30s or 60s course)?

I know it's not exactly a scientific study but I've been curious, with equal drivers, how much faster is the ND than S2k. I've got a guy in my region that would be worth asking that question to.

 

Good question!

So I typically gauge myself off of Adam Barber. If you know who that is, then you know how fast he is in that STS CRX For those that dont know, he has himself a national championship in that car. He has held driver of the year a number of times locally and is thus a pretty good gauge.

Typically this season, in the ND, on a roughly 60 second course, I can run approx 0.5 sec behind him in raw times. I have had a few bad events where I blew up but on my good days that is where I tend to fall in the ND. Hey, I never said I was a national champion

I ran 4 local events in the S2000 this season for various reasons when the ND was not available. At two of those I was 1.5 sec behind him (on a 55 sec course). I never felt I put in a great run in those two events, so not blaming all that on the car. In the last two events in the S2k, I was actually closer, coming in about 0.6 seconds from him on a roughly 50 sec course. So that is about 1.2% vs 1% in the ND. The caveat to these two events was that the courses were big, had pretty much zero pinchy points and had lots of bigger sweepers. The S2k LOVES those types of courses. These two courses also had a big section where, if driven correctly, we were at the rev limiter at the end of a long section (probably 1/3 of the course). While the sts cars were bouncing off their limiters a long while, the AP1's fast 2nd gear and its power were able to be used to close the gap some. We were just hitting the limiter as it was time to shift and were carrying more speed through that whole section as a result. So I would say the S2k would have been slower, but much closer to, the ND on those courses due to that.

Overall, I would say that looking at data from previous years, I am about 0.5 sec faster at least in the ND than the S2k overall, with a larger gap on courses with tighter elements. The ND being so much lighter (between 400 and 500 lbs in STR trim) simply gives it a big advantage as the elements and turns become tighter and the amount of fast transitions increases. Long 70 foot slaloms in the ND are easily full throttle, where the S2k is a lot harder to manage at that speed in the same slaloms.

There was one practice event where I had my S2k and we had the ND there. There were 2 courses so they were both about 35 - 40 sec in length. I compared the S2k and ND back to back on the longer of the two and was nearly a full second quicker in the ND. That course had a few tight elements and had one 6 cone slalom, so that seems to align well with the data above.

In terms of raw time finishes (our events typically have about 70 to 125 entrants this year), excluding cars that are not cars (aka FMods, Exocet, Karts) I tend to be within the 5th or 6th fastest raw times in the S2k but 2nd to 3rd in the ND.

Again, not great data, and the weather/tire choices, etc play a lot into it, especially in MN. I also struggle a bit with consistency, so that makes it harder as well to go just by those numbers. I think the the pointy end of the stick drivers tend to hold a larger gap between the two cars. Those would be the folks that can flawlessly jump from car to car and get the most out of both. I am trying to get to that point... but still have to nats trophy yet!

 

That's pretty crazy. Your respective best attempts would have made for an interesting side-by-side video comparison.

 

I actually have the video. I planned to try and render them side by side to do just that

He beat me by 0.028 sec overall. We run Pro, so we take the fastest morning run combined with the fastest afternoon run for our times in that class. Meant to mimic the 2 day nats setup.

 

I also have the luxury of both cars in my garage (wife owns a '19 MX-5 RF GT-S. The GT-S has the Bilstein shocks and some other minor goodies whereas the Club Sport has the Brembo brakes). I prefer the S2K shifter and keep asking her if I can void her warranty with a Craven SS unit! I also find the Mazda cabin to be MUCH smaller than the S2K (along with most everything else about the car). Fun factor is quite high with the new motor (180hp, 7.5K redline) - this car has plenty of power:weight!

Overall, both cars are a lot of fun. I find the RF has a lot of wind noise and buffeting at speed, but she loves the pushbutton hardtop convenience.