Jump to content

Photo

Marc Hoover's T1 Miata

- - - - -

  • Please log in to reply
7 replies to this topic

#1
Johnny D

Johnny D

    Veteran Member

  • Moderators
  • 6,121 posts
  • Location:Fremont, CA
  • Region:San Francisco
  • Car Year:1999
  • Car Number:88

Turbocharged Miata has been winning and setting track records in the fastest Touring class

 

HooverCar.jpg

 

One of the great things about the Miata is that there are many places to race it. For those looking to prove their driving skills but not their development prowess, there's Spec Miata. If you like to tinker a bit more, you can look at the Street Touring classes in SCCA or Performance Touring in NASA. Like to tinker a lot? SCCA’s Production classes may be your calling, or GT-Lite. There are many classes you would expect to see a Miata, but in Touring 1 with Vipers, Corvettes, Ferraris, and Porsches? That's just crazy. But Marc Hoover doesn't call it crazy. He calls it winning.

 

Hoover used to race Mazda-powered D Sports Racers (now Prototype 2 in the SCCA  vernacular), and even won an SCCA National Championship in the class in 2001. A hard hit into a wall, though, left him unable to walk for a while. As he tells it, when he recovered and started to rebuild the car, his wife said, “No, I don't think so.”

 

Hoover-200x300.jpg

 

“At the time, my son Jason was doing Spec Miata, so I got involved with that,” Hoover explains. “But it wasn't really fast enough for me. So then I changed the car to STU. We also ran it in NASA PTD and won the championship with it there. STU was awesome. Every Runoffs race was a podium. It's just a natural progression to want to go faster and faster, isn't it?

 

“However, I got on the wrong side of somebody and they didn't want me in the class anymore. They gave me an invitation to add a bunch of weight to my car or take the turbocharger I was using away, so I started looking for another sandbox to play in. I started reading rules, looked at Touring 1, wrote in and got it approved. I'm an old D Sports Racer guy, so it's right up my alley to engineer and have fun with it, and I have been.”

 

Obviously a big Garrett turbocharger added to the 1.8-liter engine helps develop the power Hoover needs to compete against the big-bore machinery in Touring 1, not to mention set several track records this season. The big wing on the back helps, too.

 

“It's like the signature of the car. People look at it and wonder about it. But it works really well. The whole car is working really well right now. There's more in it, I think. I've spent a lot of time working out the bugs, and it’s amazing how well it works. There’s a lot of stock Miata components in there. The differential is stock, and the axles and the hubs. I have a transmission cooler, a differential cooler. I'm using a T5 transmission in it now, but I'm planning on putting a sequential gearbox in it,” he says, adding that the car is currently about 100lbs over the minimum weight, and the sequential transmission carries a 100lb weight penalty.

 

Hoover says his power output is “in the 300s.” That's a lot of power out of 1.8 liters, so much of what has been done to the car and the engine is designed to handle that power.

 

“When you step up the power level, there are other considerations,” he explains. “I'm using pistons that are designed for a drag racing motor. I tried to overkill everything in terms of engineering. The frequencies that develop around the intake system, there's a certain area where frequencies develop from the rpm and the boost pressures. I found a JDM throttle body damper, a hunk of rubber on a bracket that bolts onto the throttle body bolts, but they don't have them anymore. So I now use a BMW transmission mount – it's a bigger piece of rubber, has a stud, and I bolt them to the brackets. It's really interesting what happens when that thing's not there. You have to figure all those kinds of things out.”

 

That's the sort of engineering that the tinkerer in Hoover likes to do. He says the car is fantastic as it is – thanks in large part to the Hoosier tires he's using now – even if he wants to continue making it better. But he also loves the attention the car gets, especially when it's setting track records at COTA and taking double wins in the recent Hoosier Racing Tire Super Tour at Buttonwillow Raceway Park.

 

“The fan base is growing for it,” Hoover says. “People love to see it in T1, and love to see it win.”


  • Rob Burgoon likes this
2011 NASA Western Endurance Racing Championship E3 Champ
We have a Winnah! - Won their 1st race... Congratulations! Beta-Tester - Assisted us with beta testing the website. Donor - Made PayPal donation Bona fide - A bonafide Spec Miata driver Novel Approach - When a paragraph simply won't do... Survive the 25, NASA Thunderhill - Survive the 25, NASA Thunderhill Instigator - Made a topic or post that inspired other Make it Rain - Made Paypal donation of $100+

#2
Mike Colangelo

Mike Colangelo

    Member

  • Members
  • PipPipPip
  • 87 posts
  • Region:Cal Club (SoCal)

I saw him wheel that thing around Buttonwillow Raceway two weekends ago. 

 

Hoover is a great driver.  I'm convinced he'd be winning in just about any car.


  • Mark likes this

#3
Tom Sager

Tom Sager

    Veteran Member

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • 1,693 posts
  • Location:Chicago Suburbs
  • Region:Central
  • Car Year:1996
  • Car Number:94

Cool.  Must be a kick in the pants to drive.  Miata's in some form in so many classes. 


Donor - Made PayPal donation Bona fide - A bonafide Spec Miata driver We have a Winnah! - Won their 1st race... Congratulations! Make it Rain - Made Paypal donation of $100+

#4
UFfitz56

UFfitz56

    Junior Member

  • Members
  • Pip
  • 9 posts
  • Location:Sarasota
  • Region:CFL
  • Car Year:1996
  • Car Number:56

Off topic but you're allowed to run a turbo in STU?



#5
38bfast

38bfast

    Veteran Member

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • 1,113 posts
  • Location:Sterling Heights, MI
  • Region:OVR
  • Car Year:1999
  • Car Number:38

Don't see many of Mikes wings (HRP) on Miata's. 


Ralph Provitz
V2 Motorsports

#6
RacerJason99

RacerJason99

    Member

  • Members
  • PipPipPip
  • 31 posts
  • Location:Orange County
  • Region:Cal Club
  • Car Year:1999
  • Car Number:48

Off topic but you're allowed to run a turbo in STU?

 

STU is an engine swap class, so it would be "based on" a Mazdaspeed Miata engine.



#7
tburas56

tburas56

    Member

  • Members
  • PipPipPip
  • 166 posts
  • Location:FL
  • Region:South East
  • Car Year:1990
  • Car Number:56

 

 

 

This is my Original 94 Orange Pumpkin SM Car, I stuck a 2004 MSM junk yard motor, MSPNP3 in and ran 2:05 flats for 45 minutes at the Glen with SM suspension. 2:25 at Sebring, 2:08 at Daytona

 

Blast!


  • Danny Steyn and Danica Davison like this
Donor - Made PayPal donation SCCA National Champion - Won SCCA Runoffs at Road America Majors Winner - BFG Supertour Winner - World Challenge Winner - World Challenge Winner June Sprints winner  - June Sprints winner Grand-Am Winner in a Mazda - Grand-Am Winner in a Mazda MX5 Cup Winner - Has won a Race in the MX5Cup.com Series We have a Winnah! - Won their 1st race... Congratulations! Series Champ - Won a points based series in a Spec Miata Bona fide - A bonafide Spec Miata driver

#8
Bench Racer

Bench Racer

    Different strokes for different folks : )

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • 5,508 posts
  • Location:Wauwatosa, WI
  • Region:Milwaukee
  • Car Year:1990
  • Car Number:14

Hauling the Freight :bigsquaregrin: 

 

https://www.bing.com...88354&FORM=VIRE


Broken record - You are starting to sound like a broken record. Donor - Made PayPal donation Bona fide - A bonafide Spec Miata driver




1 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 1 guests, 0 anonymous users