When was the last time you played pinball? More importantly, when was the last time you played pinball in a car?  Last weekend at Citi Field, Mini hosted the Mini Motoring Challenge, an action-packed romp around coned-off courses in the 2014 Mini Cooper Hardtop and some of its fiercest rivals. For the evening, they turned a recently sleepy baseball field parking lot (no offense, Mets fans) into a swarm of bright lights and loud music.  Attendees could bounce around a lit-up pinball machine course, attack the corners in a scaled-down Silverstone replica, or evade the fuzz in “the Getaway,” luckily without any legal consequences.  The Daily News Autos was on hand to see how well we could do in the new Mini, and score a taco or two from the food trucks.  On hand as well were some of the 2014 Hardtop’s direct competitors, which as it turns out, span many makes and price ranges. Mini had everything from the Toyota Prius C and Fiat 500 to the Volkswagen Golf and Mercedes-Benz CLA 250, as the 2014 Hardtop range includes everything from the bare-bones turbocharged 3-cylinder Cooper to the hopped-up and optioned-out 4-cylinder Cooper S. While these are all technically rivals, a Fiat 500 Abarth, Ford Fiesta ST, or Volkswagen GTI might have leveled the playing field a bit.  The 2014 Cooper Hardtop range starts at $20,700 (before destination charge) and can reach well over $30,000 with a fully-loaded Cooper S.  But it’s easy to forget price points when you’re tossing the Cooper S into a tiny Brooklands corner replica at full tilt and trying not to understeer… which the Mini disposes of quite nicely, if we’re honest.  In sport mode, the interior lighting glows red, and the infotainment screen flashes the phrase “Maximum Go-Kart Feel.” While it may not truly be a Go-Kart, Mini has done their darndest to make the 2014 Cooper S handle like one, despite an increase in size and curb weight.  In relation to the (frankly outmatched) Fiat 500 and Volkswagen Golf, the Mini feels tight and tossable, and the engine makes a satisfying grunt and “brrrrap” noise when the single-clutch automatic rows the gears.  While there’s only so much that can be said about a car after a few laps of a parking lot cone circuit, the 2014 Cooper S thankfully maintains the small-wheelbase feel that we’ve always liked about Minis. We’re due to get one back in the fleet soon, so stay tuned for a full review.  If the Mini Motoring Challenge makes its way around again next year, be sure to register as soon as you can. Unless, of course, you can think of many better ways to spend a Saturday evening than thrashing a Mini around a parking lot.
With a giant “pinball machine,” a scale model of Silverstone made out of cones, and a getaway course, the 2014 Mini Cooper Hardtop had a lot to play with at Citi Field.