We are always adding new products and expanding our offerings for Miata enthusiasts here at 5X Racing Online Race Shop. In our latest catalog updates, we focused on Brakes. We know Miata brakes very well, so well that we even offer a Miata caliper rebuild/blueprint service. That's how well we know Miata brakes! Here's a look at the new brands and products we've added to help you get your Miata slowed down:

• Axxis High Performance Street Brake Pads for Miata's
• EBC "Stuff" Brake Pads for Miata's
• Project Mu Miata brake pads, strait from the raceways of Japan!
• Brembo Big Brake Kits for Miata's
• KSport Big Brake Kits for Miata's
• Rotora Big Brake Kits for Miata's
• Full offering of Techna-Fit stainless steel brake lines for ALL performance vehicles

Racing in Florida always brings two possibilities: heat, and rain. Well, we experienced both of those Florida factors this past weekend at the NASA Florida race weekend held at Sebring International Raceway! While it wasn't the first time we've experienced heat and rain, the weekend did provide our first experience in providing trackside support for two future Spec Miata drivers participating in NASA HPDE program. Since John decided to hand over his title of NASA Florida Race Director following the last NASA event at Homestead, he opened up a new door that has been in the plans for 5X Racing. That plan was to transcend just selling Spec Miata parts by offering trackside support and coaching services for up and coming Spec Miata drivers and established Spec Miata drivers alike. Our first weekend offering trackside support and coaching brought us two customers, one wanting basic support services to perform the necessary maintenance items needed throughout the weekend while he adjusted to his Spec Miata, and one customer who had a proven Spec Miata and crew but wanted to learn how to go faster in her Spec Miata. Sebring is a tricky place to learn, as it has 18 turns, but with our track experience and Spec Miata setup knowledge, we were able to coach our driver to her best ever lap time at Sebring in a Spec Miata! Everyone was also officially welcomed into the 5X Racing familly paddock, where many of racing stories and good times are had!

On the track, no session was the same as weather played a HUGE role in determining the weekend. Our Saturday morning warm-up and qualifying sessions were dry, but the race was a different story. The biggest question on Saturday was: "is it going to rain for our race?". Everyone in the paddock waited until the last minute to decide on what tires to use, and as the dark clouds moved in, we chose to use dry tires as there was still not a rain drop to be felt. As we went out for our pace lap, the skys opened up and brought on a typical Florida mini-hurricane of rain. As the pace car pulled into the pits, the two 5X Racing cars pulled in behind him and John decided to mount his rain tires with the idea that either everyone out there on dry tires (all but 3 cars) would spin and bring out a full course caution, or everyone on dry tires would come in and mount their rains as well, leaving us on a level playing field. As we re-entered the track, we were one lap down from our tire change. John raced as hard as he could but was only able to work his way back up to 7th place, as the track started to form a dry line towards the end of the race that allowed all of the other competitors to regain speed on their dry tires. None-the-less it was a fun race, as it really tests your skills and capabilities of driving a race car at high speeds in the rain. At one point, John eclisped 100mph in the rain in his Spec Miata. Now that's tense!

Sunday brought a warm up session and qualifying session before the floods came. In our warm up, we broke in a new set of tires and played lead/follow with our team mates. In qualifying, John set a 2:40.0 lap in the blistering heat that was good enough for a 4th place starting spot in the race, which is venerable considering how much the hot weather effects the small Miata engine. It's too bad the race never came to a start, as John was looking forward to the consistent lap times a 30 minute race demands to improve his position. 

Overall it was a fun weekend. Rick was able to set his personal best time around Sebring, further improving his driving skills at this tough track. We were also able to meet new friends, help our new friends in their Spec Miata adventures, and get a little wet and muddy like little kids at the end of it all. 

Our next race will bring us back to the SCCA and the world famous Daytona International Speedway in August. We thought Sebring in June was hot!

We are Proud to Announce a new Business Partner! Treasure Coast Miata!

We have been working really hard lately adding unique and hard to get Spec Miata and Miata parts to our product catalog. One of the things we found that sell really good are used Miata parts, while clearing out our shop of the old parts that were stripped off of our race car builds and putting the parts on our site for sale, we noticed that they were being purchased almost as soon as we put them on there! This led us want to put more used parts on the site, but we surely do not have the time and means to run a Miata salvage business. As luck would have it, while playing vendor at a recent clubroadster.net event in Lakeland FL we met Wes Saunders who owns Treasure Coast Miata out of Hobe Sound FL (near PBIR). Treasure Coast Miata is a Miata salvage business that can provide any used stock Miata takeoff part you can imagine, and this comes in handy when you have a Spec Miata race car or several like us! We picked up a lower control arm from Wes at the meet for $25, but in the meantime we also talked business and were able to strike up a business partnership. While 5X Racing specializes in new Spec Miata parts and performance aftermarket parts for Miata's and other high-performance Mazda's, Treasure Coast Miata specializes in used Miata parts, so our business partnership involves us using Treasure Coast exclusively for our used parts needs and sending our customers in search of used parts to Treasure Coast Miata. In return, Treasure Coast Miata uses us for their Spec Miata parts needs and sends their Spec Miata part seeking customers to us. The deal works in the best interest for both of our companies as we don't specialize in used miata parts, and Treasure Coast doesn't specialize in new miata parts. In addition to having a good supply of used parts for our team and our customers, we also help out another local Miata company that supports local Spec Miata racing with a Team of their own. We are very pleased to be partnered with Treasure Coast Miata and hope that our customers find good service and good prices while fixing their broken Spec Miata's with Treasure Coast Parts!

Please do us a favor and visit Treasure Coast Miata's website, and be sure to bookmark it so the next time you need a used Miata part you will know where to find one!

http://www.treasurecoastmiata.com/

2010 was a great year for Team 5X Racing's Spec Miata Racing Program. We made the switch from full time SCCA Spec Miata to full time NASA Spec Miata for the beginning of the 2010 season because we were getting a little dragged down by the rough driving styles found in Central Florida SCCA Spec Miata racing. Also, the 50+ car field environments were a little to overwhelming for new to SM 5X Racing driver Rick Adamczyk to learn his racecraft in, whereas NASA FL was just starting up their Spec Miata program with the help of 5X Racing owner John Adamczyk. So to say the least, 5X Racing went head first into NASA racing for 2010 both in terms of where we were racing and who we were supporting. 

Along with choosing to race with NASA, 5X Racing also supported NASA FL's Spec Miata Challenge Series as a title sponsor. For the entire year of 2010, we were able to call the series the: "NASA Florida Spec Miata Challenge presented by 5X Racing". This was a big step for us as we normally do not advertise, but chose to use our marketing dollars for supporting our local Spec Miata racing series instead of buying magazine space or banner ads on a web forum. We think it worked out very well and it seemed to stike a chord with our customers, as they liked the fact that we gave back to the Spec Miata community and supported them as they support us!

The 2010 racing season could not have worked out any better for Team 5X Racing, especially owner/driver John Adamczyk. Out of the 14 races we participated in, John won 11 of them! On top of winning 11 races, he also went on a 9 race win streak that lasted from January to October! John's win record was more than enough to claim the drivers championship for 2011, and in addition to John's 1st place points finish, Team 5X Racing driver Jim Blaisdell was able to take 2nd place in the points championship, and Team 5X Racing driver Rick Adamczyk was able to take 3rd place in the points championship! Wow! What a year for Team 5X Racing!

We couldn't be happier about our performance in 2010, and we hope to continue our progress. We are already off to a great start by renewing our sponsorship of the NASA Florida Spec Miata Challenge as well as continuing our points lead. Currently, as of the June Sebring Event, we are 1, 2, and 3 again in the points, with John, Jim, and Rick mirroring their 2010 performance so far.

Great results both in business and racing here at 5X Racing! Thanks for reading and hope to see you at the track soon!

Since the NASA FL Spec Miata Challenge is on summer break until September, we decided to participate in a Southeast Division SCCA Endurance race at our favorite track, Roebling Road Raceway in Savannah Georgia on the weekend of July 3^rd-4^th. For the 2010 season, we made the move to NASA Spec Miata Challenge racing for the laid back atmosphere, contingencies, and the chance to promote our business in a more customer oriented race series. We have limited our SCCA racing schedule to only a few choice races to fill in our race schedule when there wasn’t a NASA race available, SCCA racing has shown to be tough on equipment and very frustrating, as the competition is a little out of control at our local races. We really just got tired of doing body work and tearing up our cars, it wasn’t worth the effort, time, and money spent to try and keep up with an SCCA season. Regardless, racing is racing and a 90 minute endurance race at Roebling Road has been something we have wanted to do for a while, so we hauled the 5X Racing rig and two Spec Miata’s up to the 2.2 mile sweeping road course west of Savannah for our last race for at least a couple of months.

The format of the weekend had lots of racing to offer, the schedule was drawn out over the course of three days, and included: Two 90 minute enduros (ECR), and two 30 minute sprint races (SARRC) each with their own 20 minute qualifying session. Since racing on Friday would not be possible for our whole team, John chose to participate in Saturdays Enduro and Rick chose to participate in Saturdays 30 minute sprint race. Sunday would be a fun day in downtown Savannah and getting home at a reasonable time for the 4^th of July holiday for John, Rick, and Jim. 5X Racing would be represented well at Roebling, with Team members: John Adamczyk, Rick Adamczyk, Jim Blaisdell, as well as close friends George Munson and Chris Fulton all appearing at the event. The Ironman award of the weekend goes to Chris Fulton for participating in every race available over the course of three days! Jim Blaisdell participated in both enduros, and George Munson shared Chris Fultons car with him in Friday’s enduro, but raced his own car in both sprint races.

With our last visit to Roebling Road resulting in a DNF in the SARRC Invitational Challenge due to a major crash, we were aiming to get back on the podium for a redeeming return to our best track. The weather was very nice for July, as high 80’s were forecasted for Saturday, so the lap times would not be affected too much due to extremely hot temperatures.  We experimented a little bit with our proven setups on the 5X Racing shop scales, dialing in an exact 50-50 cross weight balance on both 5XR cars. This proved to work against us, as Roebling is all right handed turns except for two left handers. The cars were balanced well, which made them fast through the left handers, but left us lacking grip in the right handers. Despite the handling issues, John was able to post a qualifying time that was good enough for 4^th in class, and 6^th overall for the Enduro. Rick was taking his time to feel out the track, since the last time he was there was in his drivers school back in 2007. He would start towards the back of the pack in the sprint race. Jim Blaisdell and Chris Fulton slotted into the midpack for the enduro, but in a 90 minute race consistency and smart driving is the key to a good result, not starting position.

When the green flag dropped for the start of the enduro, cooler heads prevailed and everybody played nice, which is not too common in SCCA Spec Miata racing at Roebling Road! 1^st place qualifier Alex Bolanos made a quick get-away with Tom Fowler in 2^nd; while Matt VanVurst, Roger Burdette, and John Adamczyk battled for the 3^rd position for at least 45 minutes! Alex Bolanos, driving Cliff Blanchard’s 1.6 Miata ended up losing an engine about a quarter of the way through the race, which moved everyone up a position. We had planned our pit strategy to need refueling around the hour mark, as the required 5 minute pit stop would be plenty of time to refuel and refill the ice in the cool shirt system. At the 55 minute mark, John was forced to break away from the battle with VanVurst and Burdette when the engine bogged coming out of turn 2 from fuel starvation, luckily there was enough fuel in the tank to make it around to the pits. Team 5X Racing’s pit was shared between John Adamczyk, Jim Blaidell and Chris Fulton, the stops were staggered to eliminate the threat of multiple cars pitting at the same time. With the pit crew help of Rick Adamczyk and Chris Fultons father-in-law Woody, we were able to perform a perfect 5 minute pit stop with refuel and ice refill in the cool shirt system. Once back out on track, John put the pedal down and hoped for mistakes either on the track or in the pits by VanVurst and Burdette. John was able to pass the Fowler/Bogart entry for position, which moved him to 3^rd place in class. Although he had an open track ahead, John was not able to regain the time lost when his engine bogged from fuel at the 55 minute mark to close the gap to VanVurst and Burdette, as they would go on to fight for the entire 90 minutes and not make a mistake costly enough to allow the 3 car battle to ensue once again. So after 90 minutes of mistake free racing, only an engine bog would keep John from the chance at victory in the 90 minute endurance race at Roebling Road. After all was said and done, John brought the #25 5X Racing Spec Miata home in 3^rd place! Not a bad result for our first enduro at Roebling Road and first enduro with a single driver completing the entire race without a driver change! Both Jim Blaisdell and Chris Fulton brought their cars home in one piece for solid finishes and a good knowledge of Roebling Road, the development on both of their cars will surely benefit from their experience in both 90 minute enduro’s completed on this 4^th of July race weekend!

So long for now, we will resume racing again in October. We will still be involved in our respective racing communities and plan to produce some very innovative spec miata parts and accessories with our extra time, so keep an eye on 5XRacing.com for new product announcements and specials!

Thanks for reading and following!

John Adamczyk