Miata owners always seem to be the butt of so many jokes online when it comes to their vehicles. Well, you better be careful throwing that shade around Indiana native Tony Thompson when it comes to his Miata because his isn’t your average Mazda. Thompson’s Mazda is a V8-powered pocket rocket that lights the boards with nine-second elapsed times.

The Mazda Miata was meant to be an affordable sports car that could hug the curves and provide a spirited driving experience, but that’s not what Thompson wanted at all. When the time came to give his Miata some rip, Thompson tossed the stock engine in the dumpster and stuffed a big Ford stroker engine wearing some Cleveland heads under the hood. The stock rear suspension would have buckled under all the Ford power Thompson planned to throw at it, so he replaced it with a 9-inch rearend, ladder bars, and QA1 shocks.

If having a Ford-powered Miata wasn’t cool enough, Thompson decided to take it a step further and keep the car street legal. Since the car was completed in 2008, Thompson has put a lot of miles on the car enjoying its performance and the looks he gets driving it around. At the track, Thompson has run a personal best of 9.71 at 145 MPH rowing his own gears and abusing the massive 28×10.5 slicks that sit under the rear of the Miata.

The team from 1320Video did a cool little feature on Thompson and his car during the Street Car Takeover Indy event. In this video, you get to see Thompson mow through the competition in the stick shift class on his way to victory.