Sandie Resnick either has really good luck or is some kind of master at winning items from radio stations. She has won a jukebox, vacations, gift certificates, and in 1990 she won a Mazda Miata. But for 22 years she never drove it, due to her inability to operate a clutch.
The Detroit News has the story about Sy and Sandie Resnick, who met back in 1961 at a wedding. Sy likes to give his wife a hard time about who really won the Miata because he was the one who filled out the contest paperwork and picked it up from the radio station. Sandie would attempt to take it out for a spin but had trouble getting out of first.
"If I stalled at a light," she says, "people honked." Since both of those things happened with regularity the handful of times she got behind the wheel, she confined herself to the passenger seat.
With her husband Sy behind the wheel, Sandie would shift the gears once they got rolling. A few years ago Sandie acquired a Pontiac Firebird from her sister and they no longer had a reason to keep the Miata around, so it was put up for sale. That's when a local publicist named David Adrian bought it for $3,995.
He uses it every day, with the help of snow tires and a wintertime sandbag in the trunk. Not long ago, he found himself at a committee meeting alongside another publicist, Tom McDonald, who works with Mazda.
Funny thing, Adrian said, and he told the story of the woman who won a Miata she couldn't operate.
Once the Mazda folks heard about the story they wanted to make sure that Sandie was finally able to get the zoom-zoom experience of their iconic roadster. So the automaker delivered a silver 2014 Miata with an automatic transmission to the Resnick's and let Sandie borrow it for a few weeks.
"Are you going for a ride again?" Sy would ask.
"Yes," Sandie would say, and off she would roar, making up for lost time.
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