The Bucket List Episode 2: Slow Car Fast

Fresh from my experience of driving the Isle of Man TT course, I wanted to explore a bit of grassroots motorsport. Those of you who have played the Gran Turismo games may remember an endurance race that involves driving a Mazda MX-5 around the short Tsukuba circuit in Japan for four hours. Well, that race actually exists, and has been run since the original MX-5 came out in 1989. And while I didn't exactly want to run a virtual four-hour endurance race, I did run a twenty lap race with a grid of sixteen cars (all MX-5 Cup cars). At the end of it, I honestly found myself wishing I'd set it for thirty laps instead. It was brilliant! The small MX-5 may not be the most powerful car out there, so it encourages a smooth driving style to conserve momentum. Starting in the middle of the pack, I found myself pushing the limits trying to catch up to the lead cars; staying clear of the kerbs that would throw my car sideways and force me to sacrifice momentum to gather up the slide.

I have found that the slowest cars often provide the closest and most exciting racing. This also applies to the virtual realm, and the MX-5 definitely delivers. There's a reason these things are raced all over the world. If you get the chance to race an MX-5, for real or virtually, I highly recommend you do so.

The Mazda MX-5 Cup for Assetto Corsa is part of the Japanese Pack DLC, while you can pick up the Tsukuba Circuit I used for this race from https://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/tsukuba-circuit.2629/ (registration required).

This race was run in March 2020. Since then, a different Tsukuba mod was released, a convert from Gran Turismo Sport. You can download it from https://sharemods.com/uydgkug1ctti/ddm_tsukuba.zip.html.

And if you're interested in reading about the actual four-hour endurance race at Tsukuba, here's a good article.