Tyres and trackdays
By Martin Spain
The Mazda gets some new rubber, and enjoys a second outing on track, this time at Oulton Park alongside another Drive Cult car.
It's been a while since my first report on the MX-5, and I still haven't decided whether or not to go down the tuning route. There's been some good discussion in the comments on my first post as to what I should do, split quite evenly between modifying it and keeping it (mostly) standard.
Whilst I'm still torn between keeping the '5 stock and adding all sorts of goodies, I have done probably the most important upgrade: the tyres. I'm no longer a one-man tyre test, thankfully! I spent a lot of time surfing through the various MX-5 forums on the web to get advice on the best tyres to put on the standard 14" wheels.
It turns out that there aren't many folks on these forums who run standard wheel sizes, so much of the information was aimed at 15" or 16" wheels, many with JDM-style deep-dish alloys. I'm not one for that sort of thing, and there definitely wasn't the budget to upgrade the wheels and tyres at the same time, so I called a few MX-5 specialist places up and asked their opinion.
The advice I got was that Falken ZE912 tyres are amongst the best tyres for the standard wheel size of 185/60 R14, offering a decent blend of grip and longevity at an extremely good price. I've not had any experience with Falken tyres before, but duly ordered a set from Camskill Performance which arrived next day - a very impressive turnaround!
Of course, like a daft Englishman I was fitting a set of summer tyres as winter approached! That said, I wasn't planning on using the '5 much over the course of December and January, so I figured I wouldn't have to slither around in the snow on totally inappropriate rubber. I was wrong! My wife's car decided to fall to pieces - quite literally, the front suspension collapsed! - and so while that was in the garage being repaired, the little Mazda was pressed into service in the snow.
I drove it a short distance to put some fuel in it before handing it over to Mrs. S, and very quickly decided that it'd be too scary for her to drive the 100-mile round trip to her workplace! Being rear-wheel drive and very light, the '5 can be a handful in the snow, particularly when shod with summer tyres. That's fine when you want to have a play, but no good for commuting. Working from home seemed a safer option!
I did have a quick trip out in the snow anyway, just for fun, and discovered that, unsurprisingly, the '5 will go sideways for England in the white stuff. Even turning into my road at less than 5mph, the tail was quite happy to slide around. Low-speed sideways fun has never been so easily accessible! It's just a shame that I couldn't find any deserted carparks before the snow melted…
Trackday fun
Before the Snowpocalypse (™ The Daily Mail), I had a chance to take the MX-5 on another trackday before the end of the year. So, two-fifths of Drive Cult descended on Oulton Park in mid-December for some on-track action, as Jack Wood brought his Cayman out to play alongside the MX-5.
I'd only driven a few laps of Oulton in the Cayman prior to this, so the morning was spent trying to learn some of the lines. Jack gave me some pointers, and I steadily began to gain confidence in the damp conditions. Oulton is unforgiving in places (Druids!), especially when it's slippery, so I was taking it very easy while I tried to memorise the lines.
A dry line emerged in the afternoon, allowing Jack to give the Cayman a proper run on its decidedly tired-looking Michelin PS2s! I had another good couple of sessions on-track, finding a rhythm and building a bit more speed. The new tyres worked well in both the damp and the dry, though I wasn't pushing anywhere near as hard as some of the other cars!
The MX-5's lack of power really shows out on track - it just doesn't have the grunt to slingshot out of the corners or uphill, and so the trick is to carry as much speed as possible into and through the corners to make up for this. That requires a lot of confidence and experience, which I'm very slowly learning. I was the slowest car out there for much of the day, and it's hard not to get frustrated when you're constantly having to get out of the way for faster machinery.
In theory, this lack of power should make me a better trackday driver, since I won't be relying on sheer horsepower to get me around the circuit quickly, but rather using the correct lines to carry speed through the corners. However, a bit more power wouldn't go amiss too!