Number 10 in a series… As of Monday, August 19, 2019 at 9:00 PM eastern time:
| Track | Daily | Crush |
|---|---|---|
| 1968 Austin Mini Cooper S | 1968 Morris Mini Cooper | 1991 AM General M998 |
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| After dropping it off at MiniTech for some Honda VTEC goodness. | To match my new Go Fast Honda powered track monster. | If you even can, so as to keep it from accidentally crushing either Mini. |
This is a word for word cross posting of my write-up on the Club’s Website…
This is not an actual photo of the number of cars that showed up to kill bugs, but it felt that way to the organizers…who at the start were way too busy handing out dot stickers and route maps and removing any previous bug splats off the noses of cars and then again at the end with judging and handing out prizes to take any photos, so if you did take pictures, could you kindly email them to masters.miata.club@gmail.com, so I can add them to this post.
When: Saturday, August 17, 2019
Where: Greg’s Gas Plus, Sonic and the dark back roads of South Carolina in between
Attending: Sarah Acord, Donna & Brian Bogardus, Don & Kaye Boltz, Ellie & David Brock, Pat Charlotte, Shirley & Mike Dyer, Brenda Hays & Guest1, Glen Link & Deb Tonini, Dennis & Karol Mason, Trudy & Hal Scott, Stacey & Cindy Timmerman, Margie & Bill Vandermaas, Ralf & Annie Wilms and Sue & Dave Woomer.
There were 3 cars already parked in the usual spot by the time we arrived at Greg’s Gas Plus.2 And soon after Miatas started rolling in. And rolling in. And rolling in. Quickly we filled the left side of the parking lot. They still kept coming and now they were lined up in a double row on the left side of the building. It has been a few years since we have had this large a turnout. Departure time was set for 8:15 and just about the time everyone were heading towards their cars to leave, an 18-wheeled behemoth inched its way into the parking lot to fill up the business’s gas tanks leaving barely room for the first 4 or 5 cars to get out.
Consequently, when we did leave, where we normally lead the troops, Donna and I ended up about car number #4. Cars #5 & 6 were not too far behind us, but after that the next 8 had to wait a bit to leave the start point as random OTMs3 came along on SC230. We were not too worried as I had gone over the route with several people and we did hand out a copy of the map for the technical 6 right turn route. When the light rain started after about 10 miles of the first leg, most everyone shrugged it off, but it started to come down a little harder as each of the next few miles were driven. When we got to the turn onto SC23 we caught car #2 with it’s roof up already and could see car #3 pulled over and raising theirs. A little further down the road we found the lead car pulled over and car #2 pulled over with them. So now Donna and I were in our usual spot, in front, with the rest of the 13 cars stretched back beyond our visible horizon. About then the rain tapered off to nothing and nearly all the folks who stopped to put their tops up, just left them up rather than stop again.
The rain, besides the damp car interiors and occupants, had little effect on the overall outcome of the Bug Splatting Contest because it seems that most of the insects came out of hiding after the rain stopped. At turn No. 4 onto Sweetwater in Car #10, the Timmermans, noticed that the cars ahead of him continued on straight. I guess the lead car of that, as it turns out 4 car group, either missed my briefing or didn’t look at the map or both and they all went the more pedestrian and 2 mile longer route to end up at the Sonic with everyone else.
The big, and I mean literally big, winners of the night were the Dyers as they claimed the beautiful Biggest Bug Trophy to take home with them. There were a couple other cars who had very similar sized splats on the front, but Mike & Shirley also had a quarter-sized, still twitching, partially flattened mayfly on the lower bumper which put them over the top. Glenn and Deb earned the Fewest Bug honors by arriving at the finish with as clean a car as when they started and if I didn’t know it was impossible, I would swear they must have activated a Star Trek-like front shield. The Vandermaas’s, er, Vandermaases, oh never mind, Margie and Bill did a direct flight path crossing with a formation of miniature housefly looking insects to take home the Most Bugs prize. Trudy and Hal Scott were awarded the Closest to the Dot prize for there own squashed mayfly that was within a couple inches of their green Avery dot.
Because the Rally Masters had a little bit too much fun in the Dollar Store there were also four Door Prizes up for grabs for the rest of the folks who didn’t claim any of the “major” prizes of the night. The Timmermans took home a pack of edible glowing worms.4 The Boltzes left with a wooden 3-D puzzle of a spider that they didn’t have before. The Brocks were the lucky recipients of a Matchbox-sized Chip Foose modified VW Beetle. And Ms. Acord received a possible cheat for a biggest bug win next year with a prize that consisted of life-size plastic Palmetto Bug dining on a fried egg.5
So for practically every Tuesday and Friday morning walks since sometime in May I have been rocking the Everyday Driver Podcast on my walks. So that is around two dozen hours of listening to these two guys talk cars. They also have a show that runs on Motortrend TV first, before ending up on Amazon Prime, so I have been watching those when they air and the old ones on Amazon, so there have been about 28 episodes of that I’ve seen. They also have a YouTube Channel with a literal crap ton of videos, of which I’ve watched a bunch of.
Needless to say, I am familiar with their work. The other day while walking and listening to a podcast I had a crazy idea. But I then quickly realized my database skills are not as good as I thought, so all I managed to create was my one demo. I emailed it to them at their gmail address and told them to feel free to run with this idea and sell ’em on their Amazon Store.
Enough of the one marquee/theme TDC’s, let’s do a regular one. As of Monday, August 12, 2019 at 9:00 PM eastern time:
| Track | Daily | Crush |
|---|---|---|
| 1956 Lotus Eleven Le Mans | 1966 Volkswagen Bus | 1964 Fiat 600D |
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| I don’t know actually how aerodynamic this really is, but it sure looks slippery as an eel. | I’d pay several thousand bucks just to have a 6′ wide print of this bus for a living room wall. | After looking at all the photos attached to the auction I fully believe this car has no good angle. |
Instead of just hosing the Rubicon off, I actually gave it a proper washing. I also cleaned off the the Weather Tech rubber mats along with vacuuming it out. Even though I am 6′ tall and have fairly long arms, I had to go inside the house to bring out the 2-Step Steel Folding Step Stool Ladder to get the roof clean. 🙂
If I have one complaint with my experience with Crazy Dave’s Rental Cars, it is, it would have been nice when renting to someone whose car had shut off inexplicably leaving him stranded on the side of the road twice in the last couple weeks that the vehicle he would now be driving had a stop/start system. The first time it happened was a heart fluttering moment. So, in spite of that little hiccup, I will be giving Crazy Dave’s a 5 star rating, because where else can you rent a new Jeep Wrangler Rubicon for 2 days with unlimited mileage for the cost of a half a tank of gas.
Stray observations in no particular order:
That’s enough for now, I’m sure I’m forgetting a few things, but our experience with our extended test drive hasn’t made us want to go right out and buy a Jeep, but neither has it totally dissuaded us from buying one either.
When mulling Option #3 from Wednesday’s post I thought, hey wait a minute, I know someone who has one, I’ll ask him. So on my morning walk on Friday I walked over to his house. I got a quick Jeep primer and then a surprise; he offered to let me have his for a couple days. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I said, “Mmmm, OK.”
First off, this jeep is practically brand new, with a mere 9300 miles on the odo, and still has that telltale scent. It is also optioned very nicely too. With the hardtop on, the A/C on, SiriusXM playing and ensconced in some comfy leather seats you are in a very modern vehicle. Definitely not your father’s Jeep. Make no mistake, this is a very large ride. When in traffic you look down on cars and see eye to eye with today’s 4-wheel drive 1/2 ton pickups. In spite of the size it can feel very car-like in its handling though, with its fairly short wheelbase and 4,000 lb weight it feels quite planted on everything except very sharp corners.
Donna and I have put it through the paces. We tooled around some county back roads listening to Channel 14, The Coffee House from outer space for hour or so. We did our weekly grocery shopping in it, in the afternoon. We took the front 2 panels of the hardtop off, rolled down the windows, opened the back window and went for an evening drive. Not Miata-like, but it did feel fairly open and was an enjoyable ride. Probably a lot more convertible-ish if we could have taken the whole top off…
Today we went over to Goodwill to get rid of some stuff that has been collecting dust in the attic for the last dozen years or more. Almost all of it would have fit in the Mini, but two trips would have been necessary. The Goodwill folks didn’t want all of it, so we just drove the Jeep to one of the local County Drop-Off sites. Tonight we are going to take another opened up evening drive.
Tomorrow morning I’ll hose off the dead bugs, vacuum the dust out of the back and fill up the tank before returning the Jeep back to Crazy Dave’s Car Rental. We did learn that the Jeep really isn’t for us, at least not this Jeep, it is too big and too refined. If we do ever get to Oregon, we might get one from a couple generations back (a later year TJ maybe) when they were a bit smaller, then we can use it to bomb around on Forrest Service roads and get out in nature.
When they got around to looking at the car in the shop on Monday it would not start for them either. The first thing they did was take my trusty backup Cam Angle Sensor out of the trunk and put it in. What do you know, the car started right up. With the car not showing a Check Engine Light nor having a stored code in car’s Engine Control Unit the tech suspected it was the main engine relay or the ECU itself. Because the ECU would be expensive and a nightmare to replace they opted to change the hundred dollar relay first.
After replacing the part they parked it outside and left it running for about 30 minutes and it never shut off. Then in the afternoon the tech drove it around for 25-30 miles. It never quit. He repeated the process again the following morning with the same positive results. I picked up the car on Thursday afternoon and Donna followed me right home.
Since then it has been backed out of the garage and parked out under the awning twice. Once yesterday and once today because we had some looky loos visit the house and we wanted to make our paltry one-car garage look large. Full testing will be on Monday morning. After I do my morning walk, and with Donna at the gym, I’m going to take the car on an adventure tour of about 40 miles. she is suggesting that I just circle our one mile block 40 times, but I’m going to throw caution to the wind and venture out into Aiken County.
Even if it passes that test, both of us, one more than the other, will still not trust the car to get us to Hilton Head and back at the end of the month. There are just too many places while travelling through South Carolina’s Lowcountry where the road is two lanes with no paved shoulders, just maybe a half a car width of soft grass, bordered by water (and possibly gator) filled ditches of indeterminate depth.
We have started doing some of the pre-prep work on our alternatives, tune in tomorrow for details.