Well, after months of looking around and driving a bunch of cars, I finally settled on a track day car. I won't bore you with the details, and so without further ado, I introduce you to the Green Jelly Bean.

Its not the M3. Rather, its a track prepped 91 Miata. Why the change of plan? At the last track day, I picked up a catalog from Flying Miata. I could not believe how cheap stuff was, easily 1/2 to price of comparable equipment for an M3, and 1/3 or less the price of same stuff the CS. Porterfield R4s? 275 for CS, 97 for Miata. Need an exhaust? $400, not 1500. Then I checked into cars, and obviously there's tons more Miatas than M3, and the market is soft.

Then there's the fun factor. These cars are a blast to drive. Sure, it does not have the power of the CS, and its ride is not nearly as refined, but it will pull 1 g (its got 15x8 with 225/45s), and then feel is very direct. The car has a Sparco race seat, Autopower roll bar, Simpson harness, Tokico HP dampers with H&R springs, CSF race radiator, and 949 Racing 6ULs. Plus it gets 25mpg! All for the princely sum of $4200.

As for power, I'm planning to put in a supercharger, good for about 150hp. There's plenty of units in the market, they're pretty reliable, all for less than 3k.

Ostensibly this car is for my wife for tracking, but I have a strange feeling I'm going to love driving this one as much as the Cayman....

If anyone is going to Thunderhill on 7/12 I'll see you there in the Bean and the BluBlst.

Bob