2016 MX-5 STR Update #1: Crows Landing Championship Tour

First STR competition, and Ron Bauer in the 2016 MX-5 is already nationally competitive.The SCCA held its second Championship Tour of the season this past weekend at the NASA site in Crows Landing, Calif., about an hour and a half south of Sacramento. Ron Bauer was there with the 2016 Miata that he's co-developing with Mazda Motorsports. This was the first opportunity to get some testing against some of the top drivers in STR.As you'll recall from earlier articles, Bauer had been working on parts for the car in CS trim. Now with that complete, the focus for the remainder of the season will be on STR. STR allows a number of upgrades from CS, including coilovers, a rear swaybar, LSD, a full exhaust, a tune, bushings, seats, and a few other items. While Bauer has made a number of these changes to the car, the team will be testing parts throughout the season to get the right combinations, which will allow you to purchase parts directly through www.MazdaMotorsports.com.

The weather report looked promising for the weekend, with a chance of rain on Friday, and then dry and mid-70s for the remainder of the weekend. Fortunately, most of the rain skirted the site on Friday, allowing Bauer to get some test runs in to see whether the initial settings would work.