The MX-5 Miata of the Month from

January 2005

Ryan Belknap

mpbelknap@yahoo.com

Congratulations to Ryan on the selection of his Miata as the January Miata of the Month!

My adventure started in the spring of 2000, when I was contemplating doing some work on my 92 Z28. I remember talking to my dad, he mentioned to me that maybe if I was thinking about doing all this to my existing car, then there's always an option of  getting a new car altogether. So I thought, hmmm, good idea. So that weekend we went looking to see if anything popped out at me.

Sure enough the first outing we went for, I noticed my sleek 99, a little two- seater sitting all by itself amongst a bulky Eclipse and a neglected Integra. Right away it caught my eye and the pushy salesman was quick to open the door for me and to fill me in with all his useless blab about how this is a perfect little convertible, but you all know they know the bare minimum of anything so you cant believe them.  But he didn't need to sell me on this one, I was already sold.

So fast forwarding through the long boring process of purchasing it. I took it home that night, not even knowing how to drive a 5 speed. So after an hour in an empty parking lot I was set to hit the open road with my new ride. I can remember looking all my friends faces and my girlfriend just saying, "what are you thinking?" they didn't understand, but in due time they would see what it would turn out to be!

Six months later I started to dig my fingers into it bit by bit. First rims and tires, then intake, and small little mods every paycheck, or when the opportunity arose. Slowly people started looking realizing the transformation. After all the bolt-ons started getting boring I remember tearing into the headlights with my car group at the time and drilling the horrendous yellow markers out. Just little things like that made me smile when I looked at her. I seem to never be satisfied, so I turned to force induction.

On my last deployment I sent my beauty to the shop to be torn apart and reconstructed into a road tearing machine. All I needed was a JR MP 62 Supercharger, with all the goodies, and she was a 13 sec. monster. Besides the fact of where I was at the time, I wanted to come home just that much more to see my ride and what it became while I was gone. It's safe to say I was not disappointed when I arrived.

I didn't hesitate to embark on the cross country trek to my duty station in Washington, from Ohio. I never ran into a problem and it handled flawlessly the whole trip.  I love the feeling of snapping people's necks as I drive by and they question themselves "What was that?"

Previous Miata of the Month Winners

Will you be next?