Why do people say the Miata is "too slow"?

Lots of good points here. I looked at the fully track prepared Corvette that was listed here. 

The slower Miata is better for me, since I mostly street drive, and I will occasionally hammer on whatever I'm driving. I'm safer and less likely to get in trouble.

In reply to mad_machine :

I was asked to hoon my mustang the other day, leaving a parking lot.  My immediate response, "I don't want to be THAT mustang guy on the internet"!  Plus my kids would never let me live it down.  If there wasn't all of that on youtube, I might think I could pull it off...

So back to why do people think the Miata is to slow.

It comes down to powerband. To get a Miata going you have to rev it, Americans raised on low RPM high torque V8s are convinced that the rods will fly out of the block if you rev it over 5K.

As mentioned early the new Miata and the twins run the 1/4 in the 14's, the majority of  Muscle cars back in the day ran around the same 1/4 mile time. Yes the Miata is only as fast as a V6 Camry but a V6 Camry will out drag most 60's muscle cars.

It's all down to perception (my least favorite word in the universe)

I was recently looking at some race results and saw that a 32 Alfa Romeo GP car is 20 seconds a lap slower than my Datsun 1200 which is 10 seconds slower than the Spec Miata lap record. Niether the Datsun or a Spec Miata are fast and an Alfa GP is not slow.

You are right if you ignore every other choice.   Can you go faster for less money in something other than a Miata?  

Absolutely.  

Now a Miata isn’t a bad car. Mazda did a great job making a Japanese Lotus  Elan.  Plus they had the good sense to realize that they had a good thing. 

Instead of radical changes they’ve done a good job of  developing it. 

But still, there are other cars out there and some are faster for less money.  Look at the challenge for examples. 

In reply to frenchyd :

Check the challenge?  One of the most common ones that is a Miata, and it's had some good results, too (including at least one overall win).  Especially considering the work required to make them top 10 cars.  I know if I wasn't an Alfa person, I would use a Miata, no question.  

Why do people say the Miata is too slow?

Because they never drove a 1.7 914