88 wheelsmag.com.au
AMN rain. I can hear it now,
even through my helmet as
I sit cocooned in the rollcage-
encased cabin, pitter-pattering
away on the tin roof of the pit
garage, taunting me with its
relentless thrum.
“It’ll be fine,” I lie to myself,
resolutely ignoring the lizard
part of my brain that taunts:
“The car’s on slicks...”
Outside, a black-clad Mazda
engineer stands in pitlane, his face
turned to the spitting sky. Even from this
distance I can see the shiny gobs of rain on his
forehead, but that doesn’t stop him waving me onto
the track, the edges of his mouth curling into a tight,
cruel smile. With a deep breath I snap my visor shut,
flick the ignition switches and disappear into the haze.
Three laps later, my shiny MX-5 Cup racing car – one of
only two in the entire country – will become a muddy
mess of rotating metal. Damn rain.AT THIS point a sane person might ask: Why? Why,
when the sky is black and hawking forth sheets of
water that make the track shinier than a shaving
mirror, would you venture out at all? Especially on
slicks. Well, as is often the case when there’s a racing
car involved and a lap time to be achieved, sanity
didn’t really enter into the equation. Cars just like
this one have been dicing in tightly fought one-make
championships around the globe all year, and Mazda
has flown this example out to see if it’d make a viable
grassroots championship here. But testing this box-
fresh, racing version of our 2016 COTY is only part
of the reason Wheels has come to Winton. Our real
mission is to compare the MX-5 Cup with its standardroad-going equivalent, the 2.0 GT Roadster, to discover
how great a change fitting racing-spec suspension and
rubber has made to the MX-5’s sweetly honed chassis.
I also want to know just how much quicker the racing
car is at full noise. Lap times, then, are crucial, but so
far things haven’t been going to plan.
We’d arrived at Winton in the early morning light
to find an even more depressing scene: the circuit
shrouded in thick, oppressive cloud, its dark, reflective
surface even slipperier. Constant rain meant slicks were
out of the question, so with a set of R-Spec Yokohamas
bolted on, I’d ventured out in the Cup car for five
wobbly and excessively tentative laps that produced a
best time of 2:04.08 – a benchmark quickly smashed by
the road car.
Conventional Bridgestone Potenza road tyres that
clear water more efficiently and a more familiar
dynamic package meant I was more confident in the
road-going MX-5; which quickly provided a vivid
reminder of what makes the ND MX-5 so special. The
steering is light and reactive, the larger 118kW/200Nm
2.0 litre engine is torquier than the base car’s 1.5 and
has just enough grunt to overcome the rear rubber.
And the softly sprung double A-arm front, multi-link
rear suspension delivers an almost comical level of roll
that’s key to the MX-5’s dainty charm. The short-throw
gear-change is sweet too, and the pedals perfectly
positioned for heel-and-toe downchanges.
It’s fun and predictable – the only real complaint
goes to the flat seats that lack lateral support – and
by lunch time the road-going MX-5 had set a 1:58.60;
almost six seconds quicker than the Cup car. Not
exactly the result we were expecting.
So, with a sliver of pale blue sky just visible through
the low-slung cloud and the semblance of a dry line
forming, the decision was made to bolt on the Cup car’s
slicks and go for it.