Special guests

We have a few well-known folks who will be joining us at the event. Here's who you can expect.

Derek Jenkins

In his role as Design Director, Jenkins oversees a staff of about 25, which pushes creative boundaries by developing advanced ideas for Mazda's next generation of cars. You can see their work in the current Mazda6 and Mazda3.

In other words, he's going to design the next Miata! He was our Grand Marshal in 2010 and will be reprising his role for 2012.

Tom Matano

Tom was the Design Director for the first two generations of Miata. While he is no longer with Mazda, he's still a vital part of the Miata community and loves to see the cars used as intended. Today, he is the Executive Director of Industrial Design at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. His enthusiasm for the Miata is being passed along to his students, as a couple of them have volunteered their design services for our event - that's where our logo came from.

Read his welcome letter to everyone coming to Miatas at Mazda Raceway. He was our Grand Marshall in 2009.

Garth Stein

Garth has written a number of books, but you probably know him from The Art of Racing in the Rain. It's the story of Enzo the dog and Denny, a racer who's facing challenges on and off the track. Garth will be on hand to sign your copy and meet his many fans. He'll also be acting as our pace car driver for the parade laps on Saturday.

Remember, bark twice to go faster!

Keith Tanner

Keith spends his days pushing the limits of Miatas as one of the techs at Flyin' Miata. He's also written a number of books on the car, the most recent of which is How To Build a High Performance Mazda Miata.

He has been very active in the online community for over 15 years, answering questions and helping solve a huge range of problems. Evenings are taken up with a range of projects from lightweight sports cars to an MGB GT with an LS1 inside, always using Miata parts of some sort.

He and his wife Janel have raced a rally-prepped V8 Miata in the Targa Newfoundland, and were leading overall in the Open class for much of the 2011 race before finishing in third. That car will be at Mazda Raceway this spring, giving rides.

Dan Edmunds

Dan is a mechanical engineer and auto writer who runs the vehicle testing department at Edmunds.com (no relation, he swears!). Before that he worked as a test driver and suspension development engineer for two major automakers, Toyota and Hyundai.

“Thing is, my SCCA showroom stock racing experience actually got me in to the vehicle development and evaluation game on a professional level”, says Dan. “It actually made a difference on my resume. Too bad I didn’t learn any really sneaky car setup tricks until after I took a break from road racing and parked the Miata.”

But he’s still got that same white 1990 Miata, a car that first got an SCCA logbook in September 1989 and earned the Mazda Miata its first-ever race win in February 1991. It went dormant in the mid 90’s but came out of hiding in 1999 to win a rallycross championship and complete a gravel stage rally using a suspension setup Dan developed. Through it all the car still has less than 7,000 miles on the clock. It was restored to its original showroom stock trim and made its debut at our event in 2010.
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