Kenny and Toby were at the third annual Mazda Rev It Up / Zoom-Zoom Live.

The highlight of the event was the national autocross competition.  The giant FedEx field parking lot was converted into a sea of cones with thousands of competitors.  Instead of the Mazda 3 and Mazda 6 in previous years (no slouch but still…) this year’s competition featured the brand spanking new “NC” Miata, which further added to the attraction and excitement.

The event also included more “festival” features such as (tame) test drives, freebie and merchandise stands, food, drinks and music.

Kenny and Toby both attended the inaugural event at FedEx field in 2003, while Toby also drove in 2004 with his friend Chuckie at Shea Stadium in New York.

As with previous years, the first prize at the Finals is a new Mazda (!) so the competition brought out many “national-level” autocrossers including multiple national champions.  Mazda also had pro driver who drove the course periodically to set new benchmarks to account for weather and track condition.  It was amazing and humbling to see the champion autocorssers beat those pro times!)

As with most autocrosses, we got the drive the new cars for barely one minute but we get to push it at 100%.  It was a fun drive (though Kenny did not like how Mazda softened the new Miata.)

The readers won’t find Kenny and Toby rocking a new Mazda in later posts so obviously they didn’t win…