Meet this 14-year-old Miata-Racing Guinness World Record Holder
Celebrating 30 Years of the MX-5 Miata begins with celebrating our fans and their stories. We asked owners and enthusiasts from around the country to submit their MX-5 stories to celebrate the debut of the 30th Anniversary MX-5 Miata at the Chicago Auto Show.
It all started when then 4-year-old Robert Noaker received a go kart for Christmas. That gift sparked an obsession as Noaker spent the next eight years racing on road and dirt courses, earning coveted national championships.
By age 12, he was accepted into the Skip Barber School of Racing and completed the three-day course. And just this summer, at age 14, he was admitted into The Guinness World Records book. Noaker became the youngest person to win an IndyCar sanctioned race, with his first place finish at the Mazda Global MX-5 Cup in Lexington, Ohio.
“I was definitely in shock,” Robert Noaker said. “It took me a couple weeks to realize that I actually won it.”
Noaker spends most weekends at the track; he put 10,000 miles on his Miata in just sixteen weekends! Through racing, Noaker has met other MX-5 owners and has experienced the supportive Mazda community. “I’ve got to meet a lot of people over the past three years,” he said. “A lot of them have helped me along the way.”
During a recent race in Portland, Noaker described a big crash that ended up with a multi-car pileup in the very first turn, taking out 12 of the 25 cars. What impressed him the most: competitors immediately started sharing parts to fix one another's cars. Even at a professional racing level, this community builds each other up.
When most people think about racing, they think about the joy of going fast--not Noaker. “I like the feeling of going around the turns,” he said. “The braking forces and the side forces during racing are what I really like.”
“There could be other cars on the track,” Noaker continued, “and you'll blow them out of the water in the corners. The MX-5 is such a fun car to drive.”
