One of the oldest traditions in racing and road-tripping is Targa competition. Invented in Italy in 1906 as the Targa Florio, a Targa is an extended road trip with speed competition sections mixed with transit and endurance sections. The "Targa" name comes from the Italian word for a crest, or plate -- the emblem traditionally bestowed on the winner. After the Targa Florio became famous, other nations took up the practice of high-speed races over public roads. Thus, the event was imitated in Britain, Mexico, Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, and on the Canadian island of Newfoundland.
You might wonder what a 102-year-old Italian goat-trail race has to do with us? Just ask any racer or rallyist for a short list of the races he or she hopes to enter in this lifetime, and you'll get your answer. Targa Newfoundland is one of the most exhilarating challenges in the world, and it's tailor-made for a Miata.
Targa Newfoundland is a week-long high-speed tour of the rocky Canadian island in the North Atlantic. While it is primarily designed for classic cars, you can enter any year, make, or model. The complete circuit involves about 1400 miles of winding roads, and about 350 of those miles are run wide open, as fast as you dare go.
So if we have to explain the appeal of speeding along a high cliff road with the raging Atlantic on one side and the rugged hills on the other, why did you buy a Miata anyway?
But as much as every racer dreams of making the Targa, very few actually achieve the goal. Keith Tanner of Flyin' Miata has decided to wait no longer, and has built the perfect car for the task.
Tanner is an accomplished authority on Miatas, to say the least. He is the author of Mazda Miata Performance Projects, How to Build a Cheap Sports Car and Miata: Find It, Fix It, Trick It. His day job is spent working as a technician for Flyin' Miata. So he knows his stuff when it comes to building a go-fast MX-5.
"For some reason, Miatas have never played a serious role in the Targa Newfoundland. The car should be ideally suited to the task, combining agility with predictable handling. I'm out to build a car that could win the event. I don't expect to actually win, but I'm going to build the best tool I can for the job. The ideal Targa car is a fantastic road car. Not one that is compromised by a stiff suspension or a peaky powerband, but one that offers lots of suspension travel and a wide spread of torque. So that's what I decided to build," Tanner says.
Tanner based his project on a basic 1994 1.8-liter Miata because of the car's generally great handling and large catalog of available upgrades. Using a Frankenstein approach, Tanner picked the best parts from a variety of damaged and ruined Miatas to build his perfect ride. Then he built and painted the car with his own hands, in his own garage. "People always assume I have access to all sorts of wonderful toys but that's rarely the case. There's very little on this car that couldn't be done by someone else equally motivated," he says.
Sturdy Platform
The Targa Miata chassis is a 1994 R package car that had previously been destined for a rotary swap that never materialized. The previous owner of the car did Tanner a favor, though, and stripped the whole thing down. "He even seam-welded the chassis. Even better, it's never been damaged. It was a perfect start," Tanner says.
Targa Newfoundland is a week-long high-speed tour of the rocky Canadian island in the North Atlantic. While it is primarily designed for classic cars, you can enter any year, make, or model. The complete circuit involves about 1400 miles of winding roads, and about 350 of those miles are run wide open, as fast as you dare go.
So if we have to explain the appeal of speeding along a high cliff road with the raging Atlantic on one side and the rugged hills on the other, why did you buy a Miata anyway?
But as much as every racer dreams of making the Targa, very few actually achieve the goal. Keith Tanner of Flyin' Miata has decided to wait no longer, and has built the perfect car for the task.
Tanner is an accomplished authority on Miatas, to say the least. He is the author of Mazda Miata Performance Projects, How to Build a Cheap Sports Car and Miata: Find It, Fix It, Trick It. His day job is spent working as a technician for Flyin' Miata. So he knows his stuff when it comes to building a go-fast MX-5.
"For some reason, Miatas have never played a serious role in the Targa Newfoundland. The car should be ideally suited to the task, combining agility with predictable handling. I'm out to build a car that could win the event. I don't expect to actually win, but I'm going to build the best tool I can for the job. The ideal Targa car is a fantastic road car. Not one that is compromised by a stiff suspension or a peaky powerband, but one that offers lots of suspension travel and a wide spread of torque. So that's what I decided to build," Tanner says.
Tanner based his project on a basic 1994 1.8-liter Miata because of the car's generally great handling and large catalog of available upgrades. Using a Frankenstein approach, Tanner picked the best parts from a variety of damaged and ruined Miatas to build his perfect ride. Then he built and painted the car with his own hands, in his own garage. "People always assume I have access to all sorts of wonderful toys but that's rarely the case. There's very little on this car that couldn't be done by someone else equally motivated," he says.
Sturdy Platform
The Targa Miata chassis is a 1994 R package car that had previously been destined for a rotary swap that never materialized. The previous owner of the car did Tanner a favor, though, and stripped the whole thing down. "He even seam-welded the chassis. Even better, it's never been damaged. It was a perfect start," Tanner says.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Leave a comment