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"We left our hero and its driver in Daytona, basking in the sun and calm after a manic 3000-mile slog across the country, battling tumbleweeds, sunburn, FM radio&amp;#039;s head-melting pop country, and crushing boredom. Now it&amp;#039;s time for the main event: seeing what the Million-Mile Miata can do on Daytona&amp;#039;s treacherous banking. \u2013 Ed. Saturday is the main event: track time. I&amp;#039;ve beat through nine states for a chance to throw this car at the high banks and see what happens.  Daytona isn&amp;#039;t like most tracks, and the cars at the Ultimate Street Car Association event aren&amp;#039;t like most cars. Given enough legroom and a little aero, some of these machines could brush the underside of 200 mph. Daytona&amp;#039;s one of the fastest road courses anywhere, and the 32 degree banking plays hell on every component. I&amp;#039;m not just talking tires. In the driver&amp;#039;s meeting, we&amp;#039;re told that most wet-sump oil systems will cavitate on the banks, suck air, and turn your precious engine into a lump of hot, worthless slag. All I can do is sigh. This car still has to shuck me the 650 miles home after this is all said and done. I wonder how I&amp;#039;m going to pull off an engine swap in the paddock. The road course is a little over 3.5 miles, so we&amp;#039;re told to jump in our cars for a slow lead-follow around the track before lapping begins. I sit in the shade and watch the long parade of hardware slip past. When I finally jump in line and hit the slight bank just past the start finish, the glove box pops open and flops around in protest or celebration. I try not to veer around the track as I slap it closed. By the time I look up, the cars in front of me are tearing off into the horizon. I give the Miata hell in order to keep pace with the pack, and they&amp;#039;re still pulling on me. I&amp;#039;m getting left behind on the lead follow. We hit the high banks. I&amp;#039;m nowhere near the wall, staring through the upper corner of the side glass just to see where I&amp;#039;m going. Even wide-open in fifth gear I&amp;#039;m still losing sight of the cars ahead. The speedometer wanders up to around 100 mph and hangs out there. The windshield is full of nothing but asphalt curling in front of me.  Cone chicanes cut up the front straight to keep the big boys from reaching plaid and me from having time to finish my Sudoku while I wait for the next turn. We finish our lap, and I pull back into the paddock to suit up and wait for my first run. USCA very wisely put the pokey Miata in the slower Novice group where it won&amp;#039;t get stuck in anyone&amp;#039;s intake. On our first run, I ask an instructor to ride along to show me the proper line around the track. I&amp;#039;ve blitzed Daytona a hundred times in Gran Turismo, but seeing that wave of asphalt rise up in front of you is something no amount of virtual seat time can prepare you for. The guy who hops in the passenger seat is easy going, has spent some time racing spec Miatas, and looks like he&amp;#039;s going to sweat himself to death before the session&amp;#039;s up. The heat index is parked at 105 degrees.  RELATED: The Million-Mile Miata&amp;#039;s 3500-mile Daytona odyssey - Part 1 He points me around the track for the first lap, spends the second offering a little more advice, and hops out after the third, letting me finish the session solo. The organizers do a good job of keeping us all spaced out, and it feels like I&amp;#039;ve got the track to myself. Turn 1 always gives me grief in Gran Turismo, but it&amp;#039;s a hell of a lot easier to navigate in the flesh. I&amp;#039;m slow through 3, but can nail 4 almost flat out. The transition between 6 and 7 is a little iffy, and the big banks are almost boring. They give me time to check the gauges and put an eye on the mirrors. The Miata tops out at right around 110 mph. There&amp;#039;s nothing left in it, and I stay wide open all the way around 7 and into the straight before the bus stop, the kink in the back straight. It&amp;#039;s my favorite part of the track in game, and that holds true as now as I come through at the top of fourth gear. It takes some faith to believe the car will stick the transition, but it holds. The car&amp;#039;s loose as all hell because of those tires, but otherwise, it&amp;#039;s good. If anyone here&amp;#039;s having more fun, they&amp;#039;d have to prove it. Coming out of 12, I don&amp;#039;t have much time before I come into the cone chicane. I&amp;#039;m hard on the brakes and dip to fourth again, but it feels slow. I make a mental note to try to carry more speed. Just like that, the first session&amp;#039;s over. Back in the paddock, I check over the car. After just a handful of laps, the tires are already giving up. The front left&amp;#039;s taking a hell of a beating in the quick transitions at the bus stop and the cone chicane. The track surface is hotter than anything these all-seasons were built to endure, and they&amp;#039;re spitting big, nasty chunks out on the ground like so many molars. This is not how you get a car to a million miles. Track days are hell on a machine, and I feel immense guilt for beating on this little roadster after it trucked my tail across the country without a single complaint. There&amp;#039;s nothing I can do for the tires but check the pressure and hope for the best.  RELATED: Introducing Road &amp;amp;amp; Track&amp;#039;s Million-Mile Miata When the next session opens up, I take my time getting to the grid. There are only a handful of us in the Novice group, and I find myself slotted between a beast of a Mustang and RideTech&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;64 Impala. The old Chevy is as gorgeous as anything else in the paddock, and it sounds like a series of 12 gauge salutes played on repeat. This is the easiest game of &amp;quot;one of these things is not like the other ones&amp;quot; ever played. We roll out at graciously spaced intervals, but that damned Impala is breathing on my neck by the time I come into turn 5. That big boat&amp;#039;s fast, and not just in a straight line. It&amp;#039;s got brakes and grip to match. The Miata probably weighs as much as that car&amp;#039;s bench seat, but I can&amp;#039;t shake him. There are no point-bys in Novice, and the Impala spends the time on the high banks parked at my rear quarter. The big V8 under that long nose isn&amp;#039;t even breathing, and we come out of turn 7 and onto the back straight licking at the underside of 110. The Impala checks up before I do. I scrub some speed, keep fifth gear and come through the bus stop with everything I have. I am not a leaf on the wind. I am tire wail incarnate. But I&amp;#039;ve opened a gap on the Impala. The driver must have gotten the hint that there&amp;#039;s nothing else left in my car. He backs off and gives me more space. The Miata&amp;#039;s squirmy coming through 12. The tires feel like they&amp;#039;ve been swapped for slabs of Land-O-Lake butter. I brake hard for the cone chicane, but remember to try to carry more speed. I keep fifth, dive in, and go for the transition. There&amp;#039;s nothing left. The tires give up, and I&amp;#039;m drawing great, billowing phone cords between two rows of cones at around 70 mph. Who knows how many times I spun. I&amp;#039;m two feet in, and the car just won&amp;#039;t come to a stop. When I finally do, the inertia cracks my helmet against the top frame. Blue tire smoke wafts through the open windows, making the cabin look like the set of some B horror movie. No, Cole, you didn&amp;#039;t have the special tires you needed to pass on the outside.  RELATED: Chasing down a burglar in our $1,600 Miata I pull off the racing line as quickly as possible and get back up to speed, but the car&amp;#039;s developed a serious vibration. I head for the paddock, where I discover I&amp;#039;m now the proud owner of four very flat spotted tires. The front left is the worst of the bunch. The squishy sidewall rolled right over and gave up, which explains why it feels like someone&amp;#039;s trying to rip the steering wheel from my hand while I drive. No tire shop in town has a 14&amp;quot; tire that doesn&amp;#039;t belong on a trailer, much less a matching BFG. My track day fun is officially over. I manage to find a cheap replacement for the front left at a local Pep Boys and spend an hour hanging out with the Calvin stickers in my race suit while the crew takes care of changing out the tire. I&amp;#039;m pissed that I overdrove the car, and that I could have caused some serious damage by looping it. I was lucky it happened in the middle of a great asphalt expanse and not somewhere else on track. I get changed and head to the beach for something resembling seafood. I find only chain restaurants and tacky beach bars. Daytona isn&amp;#039;t like most seaside towns. The Red Lobster parking lot overfloweth. I keep driving, hoping to find a hole in the wall with food that&amp;#039;s spent more time in the water than a freezer. The sun&amp;#039;s going down when I run out of road. I&amp;#039;m at the end of the island: the South Turn. Half a century ago, this is where the lunatics that ran in the Daytona 500 would whip towards the water after tearing down the back straight on Atlantic Avenue. Now there are just a handful of beach houses and a plaque. I get out and listen to the ocean, glad to feel the sand under my shoes. The Miata&amp;#039;s still covered in its stickers, and I set about pulling them off. There&amp;#039;s no better place to do it. The decals come off in easy sheets, and it feels good to bring the car back to its familiar self on hallowed ground. It feels right. Maybe it&amp;#039;s being in that place and standing on that ground where so many people reached for something so foolish, but I&amp;#039;m overcome with the urge to get in the car and go. I&amp;#039;ve been here too long, and as the last of the light drips from the sky, I make up my mind to pack up my things and drive straight home. I&amp;#039;m done with Florida, and if this little car will help me get back to my wife, I&amp;#039;ll love it forever. If you&amp;#039;re going to sit down at a card table with fate, it&amp;#039;s not best to start things off by throwing your drink in its eyes. But that&amp;#039;s exactly what I was doing. Fresh off a track day, I was pointing this car north with the intention of driving 600 miles straight through the night.  RELATED: Restless in the West And it doesn&amp;#039;t seem crazy. Blame it on the sun, the dehydration, or the low blood sugar, but somewhere between Sedona and this moment, I accepted the fact that this little blue car would take me wherever I wanted to go. It would do it without pause or hesitation because some cars are inherently willing and good and will return your faith 10 fold. Check the fluids and go. It&amp;#039;s just past 11 p.m. by the time I leave Daytona, and I&amp;#039;m thrilled to have the top down without swimming through a pond of sunblock. When I finally make it out of Florida and into Georgia, it feels like I&amp;#039;ve won the lottery. I collect my prize at a blur of a truck stop: a cassette converter that finally lets me play music from my phone. I key up Queens of the Stone Age and jump back onto the colorless interstate. Everything seems to take longer at night. There&amp;#039;s something about the darkness. There are no landmarks by which to mark your passing, and by 4 a.m., I start to worry that the sun may never rise again. It seems possible. The high banks of the track are three lifetimes ago, like something half dreamt. I swear I was at Daytona, and there was this &amp;#039;64 Impala that would not get off my ass. I think I was driving a Miata? Yeah. Something like that. I keep an eye on the east and will the stars to fade from the sky. There is nothing in this world like a sunrise after a long night. The light comes slowly, like a lover too afraid of waking you to move too quickly to bed. I&amp;#039;m just happy to be able to see the horizon again, but the light brings a new, very real fatigue. I&amp;#039;m worn threadbare. I have to stop somewhere between Atlanta and the Chattanooga. I&amp;#039;ve been up for some 30 hours, and I&amp;#039;m shaking with caffeine and the effort of staying awake. I pull into what was once a used car lot, lean back, close my eyes, and sleep as comfortably as anyone ever has behind the wheel of a 1990 Miata. I&amp;#039;ve had worse rest in five-star resorts.  RELATED: Photos: Million-Mile Miata, Sedona to Boulder It&amp;#039;s a short break, but it&amp;#039;s what I need. I&amp;#039;m closer to home than I&amp;#039;ve been in a week, and crossing the Tennessee state line feels like some impossible victory. I&amp;#039;m two hours from home, but I might as well be in the driveway. It&amp;#039;s a perfect summer Sunday morning in East Tennessee. Mist hangs in the hollows, bending the light into a soft spectrum of purple and orange as it moves through the trees, and the Miata hums straight through it all \u2013 a little streak of brilliant blue in the middle. I pull into the driveway a little after 9, shut the car down, and take a breath. The exhaust plinks its satisfaction back to the bluebirds and robins in the trees, and I feel strange to be still, to have arrived. I am drunk with emotion and fatigue. My heart swells with the thought of this little car and its selfless service. How many other 25-year-old machines could shoulder their neglect and your abuse to carry you across a continent, to a track, and home again? It makes no sense. It should have left me on some forgotten two-lane in Colorado, or by the side of the highway in Mississippi. It could have laid down and died right there on the long straights at Daytona, and I could have no more cursed it for doing so than the I could the sun for setting. But it didn&amp;#039;t. It took me home. My wife walks out of the house, bleary with sleep and smiling with the surprise of my arrival. I haven&amp;#039;t been home for 10 days. I ask if it&amp;#039;d be all right if I took her to brunch. She&amp;#039;s in the car before I can say another word, and we head back down the road. The Miata is bright and alive on the roads I know best, content as ever to just keep running. Follow all of the Million Mile Miata&amp;#039;s adventures on Facebook. READ THIS: Flyin&amp;#039; Miata Mazda MX-5 V8 "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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