The odometer on my '94 Miata read 142,318 when I backed out of the driveway at 6:17 a.m. on a Friday. The trunk was packed with a duffel bag, a tool roll, one spare quart of 10W-30, two granola bars, and a folding chair I'd borrowed from Jenn's tailgating stash. The destination was Road Atlanta for Gridlife South, roughly 350 miles one way. The car has no cruise control, no radio, no sound deadening, and no roof — I'd decided to leave the hardtop at home because the forecast promised clear skies. I was about to spend seven hours in a metal box that hums at 4,000 rpm at highway speed, and I was genuinely excited about it. This is the story of that trip, and why the discomfort wasn't a bug. It was a feature.
The Prep: What You Bring When You Can't Bring Much
The NA Miata trunk is 4.6 cubic feet. For reference, a carry-on suitcase is about 2.5 cubic feet, and my duffel was already pushing it. Packing required the kind of spatial reasoning I normally reserve for loading pallets at Vulcan. Tool roll went in first, wedged against the spare tire. Folding chair on top. Duffel bag in the passenger seat because the trunk lid wouldn't close with it inside. This is the reality of a road trip in a car designed before cup holders were standard equipment.
The Spare Oil and the Granola Bars
I brought one quart of Mobil 1 10W-30 because my Miata consumes about half a quart every 1,000 miles. Not enough to be alarming, but enough that I wasn't going to risk a 700-mile round trip without backup. The granola bars were Jenn's idea. She handed them to me as I was leaving, along with a bottle of water and a look that said, "You're 37 years old, and you're doing this." The look wasn't wrong.
Tire Pressures and a Prayer
I set the Toyo R888Rs to 28 psi cold, checked the oil, and topped off the coolant. The alignment was still dialed in from my last Barber day — 2.5 degrees of negative camber up front, which would make the car tramline on the interstate but carve through north Georgia's back roads like a scalpel. I accepted the trade-off.
The Drive Out: I-20 East and a Symphony of Noise
Birmingham to Atlanta on I-20 is a straight shot, 350 miles of mostly smooth pavement and rolling hills. In the GTI, it's a relaxing two-and-a-half-hour cruise with adaptive dampers set to comfort and a podcast playing. In the Miata, it's an endurance event. The engine spins at 4,100 rpm at 75 mph, which means the exhaust note is a constant, droning presence six inches behind your spine. There's no carpet, just a thin layer of heat shielding and the metal transmission tunnel radiating warmth into the cabin. By the time I crossed the Georgia state line, my right foot was already buzzing from the throttle pedal's vibration.
The First Fuel Stop and the Math
I pulled into a Chevron outside of Villa Rica, Georgia, with 287 miles on the trip odometer and the fuel gauge needle hovering just above E. The Miata's tank holds 11.9 gallons. I pumped in 10.4 gallons, which worked out to 27.6 mpg. Not bad for a 1.8-liter engine that's been tuned for track days, not fuel economy. I texted Jenn a photo of the pump and the mileage. She replied with a single emoji: the thumbs-up. I ate one granola bar while leaning against the rear fender, watching a family in a minivan stare at the car with the roll bar and the Toyo R-compounds. I waved. They waved back. The granola bar was stale.
The Numb Right Foot Problem
Without cruise control, your right foot spends every mile in the same position, pressing the same pedal at the same angle. By hour four, I'd developed a technique: wedge my knee against the door card to stabilize my leg, then use my ankle for fine throttle adjustments. It worked for about 20 miles before the ache moved to my hip. I tried left-foot throttle for exactly one exit ramp, decided it was a terrible idea, and went back to suffering. This is the kind of problem that sounds ridiculous unless you've done it. The car is a torture device. I couldn't stop smiling.
Gridlife South: The Reward
I pulled into Road Atlanta's paddock at 2:30 p.m., sunburned on my left arm and deaf in my right ear from the exhaust drone. The paddock was already packed: S2000s, BRZs, a row of E36 M3s, and a single LS-swapped Volvo 240 wagon that I stared at for five minutes. Nico met me at the gate with his camera and a bottle of water. "You drove that here?" he asked. "From Birmingham." He looked at the car, then at me, then took a photo of my right shoe, which had a visible indentation from the throttle pedal. "That's the shot," he said. "That's the whole story."
The Event, In Brief
I won't recap every session because you can find the official results online. What matters is this: I drove my Miata 350 miles, ran four track sessions over two days, and drove it 350 miles home. The car didn't overheat. The oil level stayed steady. The only mechanical issue was a loose exhaust clamp that I tightened in the paddock with a borrowed 12mm wrench. No tow truck. No drama. Just a 30-year-old car doing exactly what it was built to do.
The Drive Home: A Different Kind of Tired
The return trip was harder. My shoulders were sore from two days of wrestling a non-power-steering rack through Road Atlanta's esses. My right ear was ringing. I'd run out of granola bars, so dinner was a gas station hot dog in Tallapoosa, Georgia, eaten standing up at 10 p.m. under a flickering fluorescent light. It was the best hot dog I'd ever had.
I crossed back into Alabama at midnight with the stars out and the temperature finally dropping below 80 degrees. The Miata's headlights are terrible — sealed beams from the George H.W. Bush administration — so I followed a semi-truck for 60 miles, using its taillights to supplement my own visibility. At 1:42 a.m., I pulled into my driveway. The trip odometer read 703.4 miles. I turned off the engine, sat in the sudden silence of my own garage, and listened to the exhaust tick as it cooled. My right foot was numb. My left arm was sunburned. I was completely, thoroughly happy.
Was It Worth It?
The GTI would have been faster, quieter, and air-conditioned. I could have set the adaptive cruise at 78 mph and arrived refreshed and ready. But that's not why I built the Miata, and it's not why I drove it to Gridlife. The trip was the point. The noise, the vibration, the numb right foot — all of it was a reminder that this car isn't about comfort. It's about connection. Every mile was a conversation between me and the machine I built. That conversation gets drowned out in a quiet car. In the Miata, at 4,100 rpm, it's the only thing you can hear.
Next year, I'm doing it again. But I'm bringing better snacks. What's the longest road trip you've ever taken in a car that had no business being on the highway? Tell me in the comments — I need to know I'm not the only one making questionable choices.
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