having its own national level racing class, dominating local autocross events and from the factory has a chassis that is a great foundation for cheap auto racing...not a sports car?
Nope. You could create a national level racing class for Yugo's if you wanted to. Just takes money and a bunch of people tricked into racing Yugo's.
Which is why Mazda worked so hard to create the racing class for the Miata. Instant credibility. The conversation goes:
"Hey, those miata's are soul-less little garbage cans on wheels".
"No way, they're sports cars"
"Yeah right, you're delusional."
"No really! See, look, they have their own racing class."
Ta-daa. The soul-less little garbage can on wheels becomes a sports car. All it took was Mazda pushing the sports aspect of the car. They held Miata racing events, sponsored races, you name it, they did it. Brilliant marketing, got to give them credit for that.
But Miata's are "sport car lite". They have just enough performance to trick the uninformed into thinking they might be a sports car. But they have no soul, no character, no
style like sports cars used to have. But fool enough people into thinking they're sports cars and viola, they're sports cars.
And the very definition of "sports car" has suffered because of it. True, Mazda has improved the performance of the Miata as the model has evolved. But the damage was done.
A sports car used to have style, panache, character. A lot of the old sports cars weren't actually very sporty if you look at the performance numbers. But they had something else too. Spirit, bravado, whatever. And that was more important than just the performance numbers. Which was a fact totally lost on Mazda. Because on that definition, a Miata can NEVER be a sports car. Don't care how fast it goes, how well it handles, or how many racing classes there are.
So yeah, I'd take an old MG over a brand new Miata any day, and I don't care that it would hand my @** in an autocross.
