Forget Horsepower — The Experience Is What Actually Makes Racing Fun

In high school, NASA NorCal driver Justin Hertel’s friends were into trucks, Mustangs, Camaros, and the normal offering of mid-2000s muscle cars. Hertel being who he is, was determined to find some way to have fun with his like-minded friends while distinguishing himself in his choice of car. His Chevelle did that. It was odd enough to raise some eyebrows, but accessible enough to be modified and maintained easily.

In his 20s, he had grand ideas of what the ideal car was and dreams of what he would do to his unusual machine, but without the funding necessary to realize this idealized image, he devoted himself to his eyewear line, Heat Wave Visual.

For a gearhead, a designer, a dreamer, and a racer who loves cars, being unable to live out some of his racing fantasies helped him get up early to work and allowed him to stay up late dreaming of what he would build when his ship finally came in. Perhaps this long period of contemplation helped lay the foundation for a life of racing, throughout which he would change his tune several times. From an overpowered muscle machine, to high-end track weapon, to a replaceable road racer, he left no stone unturned in searching for what he loved most about driving.

Big Appetite

In 2019, after a decade of dedication to his business, he could start realizing those teenage dreams. Nostalgia, stubbornness, and innovation took his 1988 Pontiac Trans Am GTA to a restomod level, which bordered on track car. As exciting and attention-grabbing as it was, the weight, heat-related issues with the supercharged LSA engine, and limited aftermarket made this street-track hybrid a monster that was as flawed as it was fun. It was a head-turner, however, and whatever you could say about it, you couldn’t say it lacked presence or a sense of fun.

This spurred a new line of thinking. Hertel recognized that going quickly on track might require he put his penchant for big retro themes to the side momentarily, and so he started searching for the best possible compromise between fast and effective.

Sometime after concluding that the Trans Am would always lack the sophistication and dependability a true track car needs, he decided to designate the big muscle car a party car: something fun, but also something lacking the edge and the connection an experienced driver wants at the circuit.

So he eschewed the style with which he built an apparel company and instead picked the most pragmatic of fast, no-nonsense track machines: a Porsche 991.2 GT3 RS. Though these are far from unique — a regular sight at track days in the Bay Area — the Porsche delivered in ways the Pontiac never could.

Funny enough, the two cost similar money in the long run. Unlike the Trans Am, however, the GT3 gave him the chance to start honing the finer points of his driving. The car was exploitable, reliable, tactile, strongly built, and scintillating.

Put a talented shoe in a GT3 RS and few car/driver combos will be able to show them their taillights. Plus, it’s easy to live with, despite the harsh ride. When it comes to filling up, driving to the track, setting a personal best, blowing the doors off just about everyone else, and driving back in some semblance of comfort, there aren’t many cars with the same strengths.

That isn’t to say the experience is relaxing.

“It’s a lot to take in. The Porsche is mentally taxing when driving that thing at 10/10ths,” Hertel said. “It’s a little intense. Everything comes at you so fast. After 17-18 minutes at pace, the fatigue sets in, and that’s what I want to elaborate on. Honestly, all that speed hurts your ability to learn. The fear of power, and arriving at a braking point that much faster, limits what you can get out of it without real commitment. They say if you can drive a slow car fast, you can drive a fast car fast, but that’s not true.”

Reality Bites

After a while, the appeal of setting a respectable lap time came to mean less than he once thought it should. “You see it frequently at high-level HPDE. These guys show up with sticker tires and lap timers queued up, and then after they give it their all, they’re frustrated. They get pissed about the weather, track temperature, tire age, tire pressure, a certain batch of tires, traffic, barometric pressure, and possibly the quality of the continental breakfast they had earlier that day – and then they leave.

“I get it. You can get bored of it when you run into a block and can’t improve, ” he added. “But saying that — and I can’t really speak to their individual experiences — if you come out all this way with a car that’s probably fast to drive and then leave after a couple sessions, what’s the point?

“It’ll get like that, too, if I don’t go faster. I ask, ‘What happened?’ Then, unconsciously, you start risking more to better your time even if the track isn’t there to support it,” he admitted. “It’s easy to get stupid real quick and get in over your head. You have to be cognizant to pull yourself back.”

What lapping days in the Porsche taught him was how, ultimately, how seriousness wasn’t doing much to make the driving experience enjoyable. Along with the sometimes overwhelming performance of the car, this cost consideration made Hertel wonder if there wasn’t something with a better pleasure-to-potential pain ratio.

Back to Basics

The solution was something a little rough and nearly expendable that he could make his bid for real racing with. Racing a Spec Miata wheel-to-wheel, even at its most basic, promised improvisation, intensity, and, if done cheaply, a lightheartedness that was sorely missing.

His friend and Super Touring racer Graham Downey suggested he buy a prepped Miata for low-effort, low-risk, low-cost seat time – something to thrash on carefree afternoons. “I just wanted seat time. So that’s why I got the Miata,” he said.

Soon after getting bit by the Miata bug, Hertel went and watched Downey race wheel-to-wheel in Spec Miata, and after witnessing the insanity of a field of Miatas squabbling for position, he bought a BSI-built car that had one season on it, so it was mostly new and ready to rock.

“It was fun, easy to drive, not scary, and so raw. You can drive it at 10/10ths – even 11/10ths – and still feel at ease. You can go off and hit a tire wall, but it’s rarely going to cause major damage. You have this conscience-free driving that you can’t with any other racecar. There aren’t many cars you can push like you can a Miata with minimal risk. It’s just fun and easy,” he explained.

“I mean, you try jumping an ST4 car and your splitter is going to be screwed, though the Miata will just take so much abuse. Nothing’s going to happen because a) you’re not going that fast and b) it’s built really well. I can continue to go deeper with this car, and it lets me know when I’ve overcooked it,” he elaborated.

The Spec Miata helped the leap from track days to race weekends, and in doing so realized what truly mattered to him: driving in close quarters, preferably with friends, with minimal time spent wrenching, at a comfortable level of speed.

The Right Stuff

“With racing, I think a lot less about lap times,” he added. “Racing is a learning experience; as long as I am improving, working my way up, and becoming more competitive, I’m happy. I run midpack and can hold my own. I don’t care about winning – I just want more of the on-track battles. It’s about the little victories, honestly.

“It’s an entry-level car, but for me, someone who’s a hobbyist and is super busy, it checks all the boxes. What else is that easy, affordable, accessible, and doesn’t force me to work hours on the car? The last thing I want to do is wrench after dragging my family to the track. Plus, there are good car counts regionally, and I always have a good time at tracks within two hours’ driving from my house.”

He put that to the test, when recently he was involved in an incident at Thunderhill resulting in a write-off. Within a few weeks, he picked up another Spec Miata and was ready to do business again. “It sucks to lose a car, and I liked that car a lot, but all things considered, it’s not that much of a financial investment,” he said.

Though his garage is filled with some headline-generating vehicles, Hertel’s little Miata now gets almost all of his attention. In just five years, he’s amassed an usually comprehensive set of experiences with cars. Dabbling in everything has given him a lot of perspective.

If I had to keep one car, it would be the Miata,” he said, a newly self-described mid-pack Miata racer. He’s gone through phases, though, and knows what it means to have lived a life as an automotive enthusiast who cares about more than being the quickest around. “I’ve gone from wanting a badass street car, to the fastest track car, to something I can have fun with. If you want to race, just go get a Miata. Whatever you do, just remember that adding speed and power doesn’t always equate to more fun.”

Knowing the difference between a 700-horsepower muscle car, a track-oriented Porsche, and a Mazda Miata racecar is uncommon. Generally somebody picks a lane and sticks with it. Hertel’s not a brand devotee or a clout chaser, nor does he need to prove himself to the world. He’s found something which works for him, but that’s only because he took the buffet approach to motorsport.