Hi Guest!
Hey - did you know if you click on the title of a thread it will take you to the first unread post since you last visited that thread?
but were afraid to ask: 
STOP!! Never post your email address in open forums. Bots can "harvest" your email! If you must share your email use a Private Message or use the 
smilie in place of the real @
Pretty Please - add it to our Events forum(s) and add to the calendar! >> 
Well, Bill, I've got a Miata and am not nuts about it. They are hot to drive without the AC on. Ventilation is poor. Having to run almost all the time with the AC on is aggravating to me. Then there is the power steering and the power brakes that take away any feeling of being connected to the road. My wife call's it her car so I would have a hard time convincing her to sell it and, I admit, when a long trip is planned the Miata is usually what we take.
BTW, good to hear from you Bill. Hope you stick around.
Everyone has an opinion, but I don't experience the hot temps without the A/C on vs. what anyone would expect. As far as the disconnect with PS or PB, if driving to the supermarket is defining road feel, you might be right. If you push the car and drive it as it was designed you would be hard pressed to describe a Miata as lacking in suspension or braking? As much as I love old British Cars, other than a true raced prepped MGB, I don't know of one Midget Sprite or Buyeye that could have taken the abuse of pushing redline for 5 track sessions and never experiencing brake fade or running hot on a hot August Saturday as it experienced last weekend. Prepping the car involved changing fluids and air pressures. I did add frame stiffeners. Past changes were springs and shocks. The three cars we ran this weekend may have had a total investment of about 12K.
Today, Spec Miata is the most popular club-racing class in the country and the largest single class within NASA. Nearly one in six amateur race entries on any given weekend is a first- or second-generation Mazda Miata, and more than 3000 Spec Miata conversion kits have been sold to date. Just as the MG TC was the foundation of amateur racing in the postwar era, its modern, Japanese successor has been the savior of amateur racing today, partly because the buy-in is only about 10 grand.
I'm not saying that a Miata isn't very good in handling and braking. I'm saying that the power steering takes away the road feel. You are running early Miatas with, I'm betting, the R package without power steering. Its not just Miata's that lose road feel with power steering. I have a Toyota pickup that requires constant steering because there is no natural caster feedback. Power brakes don't cost that much in weight or power loss. When we bought our first Miata I still had an MGB with slightly upgraded suspension. One could compare the Miata most closely to the MGB. Back then I preferred driving the MGB. There are, of course many things a Miata does better but for handling my preference was the B. I could make a long list of comparisons and for most people the Miata would probably win.
Familiar with spec Miata and, as I've said for some time, too bad there aren't other makes of cars that can compete with their spec's.
Kurt.
