And for once in a couple years I don’t mean it in the context of the Moss Motoring Challenge. Like last year I’m going to make a paper mask and then just don regular attire for work on Halloween. This is a small piece of the mask I’ll be wearing, a costume sneak peek if you will.
While trying to describe the loop driven on our vacation to a co-worker, even I got confused, so I made up this rough estimate of the way we drove. The little red star is Aiken. We left heading northeast and proceeded in a counter-clockwise direction, driving through parts of 21 states and Washington D.C.. We had tossed around the idea of doing it clockwise, but this way had the big advantage of hitting D.C. early on Labor Day Monday instead of mid day during the work week.
On Tuesday night’s MLB.tv broadcast of the FRS game, to go along with the odd “highlights”, we were treated to an actual commercial for some brand of baseball cleats. Interestingly, this stuff only came through when watching on the Roku, on the PC in between innings there was just the usual silence. Then Wednesday night it was back to silence on the Roku. My guess is that they are testing the feasibility to start showing actual commercials. Doesn’t matter to me, next year I’m going back to just the radio broadcasts.
We had our Miata for all of six month when we read about these events in the summer magazine and considered going to the east coast version because we weren’t that far away from Callaway Gardens. But after a very un exciting possible South Carolina Miata Club formation meeting we decided we liked the Miata, but Miata people, no so much. So we didn’t register for the event. On the weekend of it though, curiosity got the better of us, so we drove down to Callaway Gardens, but never really saw any Miatas around.
Can you say Callaway?
– by George P. Burdell
Do you remember the first summer camp you ever went to? Meeting different people that you were striving so desperately to find a common bond with? Suppose you found not only a common bond, but a passionate one – your sports car. Now throw in a healthy dose of maturity and you have an idea what it’s like to attend a Club Rally. Most of this past summer’s Callaway event attendees had never seen such an event before and all were pleasantly surprised to find that you can be a kid again.
The Miata Club of America 1990 East Coast Rally was held at the prestigious Callaway Gardens just south of Atlanta. Over 100 people were in attendance. Space Coast Chapter founder Chet Young even came without his Miata after testing the air bag!
What kind of people attend a Club Rally? The same kind that inspect your teeth for cavities, advise you on which stocks to buy/sell, and that are students at college. That is to say, all kinds. But the best of people, because Miata owners just want to have fun.
What happened at this rally? Let us tell you about the gymkhana, the road rally and the concours. The gymkhana was a slow speed driving test around some carefully place traffic pylons. Not everyone could conceptualize the need for slowness and multiple pylons were ingested by countless Miata mouths. Accuracy was key. Speed was a deterrent. So was manual steering. The course workers began to step back when certain drivers belted up.
The road rally was a timed course on public roads, outlined by very cryptic instructions. Finding the way was not as hard as staying on schedule, especially if you got stuck at a railroad crossing. Duane Simpson, our fearless racer, was seen making a U-turn in the rally (a definite no-no). Since he was driving the official Club race car, everyone who saw him made a U-turn as well. Lemmings, as they say.
Then there was the concours. These events are for those who really, and we mean really like to keep their Miata clean. Many were up before the crack of dawn, hotel ice buckets full of soapy warm water ready to hand wash their babies. How clean is clean? When was the last time you took Q-tips to your tire treads?
In addition to the outside events, there were substantial seminars. Mike Harris, service trainer for Mazda’s Eastern Region gave an excellent presentation on service basics. The Simpson brothers discussed the finer points of road racing and the proper lines for track driving. Road Show sponsored a clean-up/detailing seminar for those in the concours mindset. During the Friday night dinner, attendees were treated to an informative speech by Norman Garrett about the development of the Miata and the automotive industry in general.
The entire weekend wrapped up with a delicious cookout at a very lovely lakeside setting. It was even topped off with a three dimensional Miata birthday cake. In addition to the event winners, awards were given to:
Most Miles on a Miata: Charles Taylor – 46,530
Oldest Driver: Robert Moore – 61
Most Miles Traveled: Bradlee Shattuck – 1193 (from New England)
Chapter Attendance: Space Coast
Pylon Mutilation: Becky Simpson
And were there door prizes! A complete Millen Aero Kit, a Mazda spoiler and rear skirt from Monarch Mazda, and many others.
There’s more to tell but no space to tell it. Just ask anyone who attended if they had a good time. Will there be another Rally like this next year? Count on it!
Do you know the way to Monterey?
– by Lyn Vogel
A contingent from SOCALM (The Southern California Miata Association) is invited to the Miata’s first birthday party during the 17the Monterey Historic Automobile races. We’re promised scenery. We’re promised racing. We’re promised a party with Bob Hall, Mark Jordan, Norman Garrett, and Vince Tidwell. We decide to go any way.
Day One – We gather the group from stops in San Diego, Anaheim, and Los Angeles. Our goal today is the swiss-styled village of Solvang, 130 miles north of LA.
We are encouraged by the appearance of club member and Los Angeles Sheriff’s Deputy Charlie Hildebrandt. We want to know – Does he have a little magnetic siren for the top of his er, hood? Can he get us out of any tickets we may incur? Alas, bad guys await. He must return to his beat and we must travel without police escort.
Irony of the day: George Christensen’s Miata is rear-ended by a Honda next to the sign of one of our pick-up points, Disneyland – “The Happiest Place on Earth”.
Day Two – Some more join our caravan and we are now 35 cars strong. Freeway gaping from passing motorists is plentiful. We pass by a Miata billboard and it occurs to me that the sight of this many cars is bound to lead people into showrooms. . . (Mazda salesman to his manager: “No kidding boss. This customer on the floor says he saw maybe fifty Miatas on the road!” “. . . Fifty?” “Yeah! We’ve had fanatics in here before but this guy’s having delusions!”).
We stop halfway for gas and create the longest restroom line they’ve ever seen at this convenience store. Also stopped is a late model Rolls Royce. We do mental calculations as to how much money you’d have left over if you traded in your RR for an MX. We are depressed.
Back on the road to our overnight stay outside of Monterey our troop is passed by an impressive driver of a new Mercury Capri “X-R-2-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E”. She is aloof. She has her top up. She is bored.
The motel where we stay for the duration finds it is not only housing SOCALM, but the Bay Area Miata Association, The Bay Area RX-7 club, and the Alfa Romeo owners club. Car washing begins in the earnest and we quickly exhaust their supply of towels. Maid service is on red alert.
The night’s poolside reception is a success. there are impromptu speeches by Miata design team member Tom Matano, Mazda Information Bureau’s Fred Aikens, Wisconsin club president David Fogelstrom, and giving the “benediction” to the evening is the president of the Alfa Club. Presenting us with a bottle of saki he wishes us as much fun with our sports cars over the years as they’ve had with theirs.
Day Three – A day at the races! Laguna Seca is a viewer-friendly park with lots of spots to watch the action. Mazda has cordoned off a huge area calling it the “Hundred Car Corral”. The combined efforts of the Bay area and Southern California provide that many cars. We are giddy with pride.
Everyone is on their own for the next two days. enjoying the historics, the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance a 1/4 scale red Miata birthday cake. Bob Hall’s Miata with special metallic teal green paint was on display as well.
Overheard during the weekend: Mark Jordan commenting on the mock-up birthday cake and its bumpy frosting, “I think it needs some surface development”. Bob Hall refers to the front tie downs in the Miata grill as “fangs”. Car nut Jay Leno visits the Mazda tent and tells a couple of jokes. Tom Matano remarks on one of the design goals of the Miata team, “People should want to go out to the garage and take one last look before going to bed at night”.
And outside the Club’s motel, didn’t we all see each other doing just that.
When watching the FRS on MLB.tv, in between innings, instead of the local commercials I used to get when listening to the radio broadcast I get a barely animated MLB.tv logo and audio silence.The quiet is eerily disconcerting.
Tonight for whatever reason, they have starting showing a couple of 30 second highlight clips followed by a minute or so of the aforementioned silence in between inningsSome of the clips are so old they are from pre-HDTV time, so they are fuzzy and in 4:3 format. To make matters worse they seem to only have a dozen or so of the clips, so they get old fast.
I think I’d rather have the silence.
Tomorrow it is back to reality, so let’s hang on to the vacation just a little bit longer shall we. The Emperor used nearly all of the 15 fill ups he received in the last two weeks averaging 29.1 MPG for the trip. Because he is royalty he only drinks Premium Fuel at an average cost of $2.656 per gallon. The highest gas price paid was $2.959 in Pennsylvania and the the cheapest was $2.449 in Arkansas.
We took over 320 photos with the vast majority of them for the Motoring Challenge, but a few of them were just for the heck of it. Here are most of those:
He’s got an oil leak. Wednesday when we left Vicksburg, MS in the morning the car clattered a little longer than usual, but I chalked it up to the fact that is was parked nose up at about a 20° because of the slope of the lot. At our first stop of the morning I smelled a little cooked motor oil, but chalked that up to the ratty pickup truck we were next to in the quick stop lot. At the second stop I smelled it again. This time we were all alone in the lot.
I popped the hood and, oh yeah, the smell is coming from there. I checked the oil. The bottom of the dip stick was dry! Added two quarts of oil and it brought it up to full. At least it only needed two…the car only holds four. From then on for the next day and a half and 650 miles we carried around a quart of oil in trunk. Every couple miles I’d add a 1/2 quart or so.
Yesterday I jacked up the car and boy was it oily. I bet half of what I lost was coating the underside of the car. I was more on the right side than the left and it really seemed to be coming from around the oil filter. But when I went to see if it was loose, it wasn’t, it was still tight.
I sprayed Simple Green around the bottom of the car and pressure washed it as best I could using my lame homeowner weekend washer. Changed the oil and filled it up again. Then I washed the car and gave it a quick spray wax. I then laid a towel down in the garage and parked the Miata over it.
This morning we went to breakfast at Steak & Shake in Augusta with the MMC. When I backed out of the garage the towel didn’t look dirty at all. The leak went away? Highly unlikely. On the way to breakfast we stopped on I-520 going into Georgia to get the last State we’ll get for the Motoring Challenge, bringing this year’s tally to 22 (if you count DC as one & they do), this is exactly twice last year’s eleven. When we got home at about 11:00 AM the Emperor got parked back in the garage.
We went out this evening in the Purple Whale to fill it with gas and get an ice cream cone. On returning home I backed the Miata out of the garage and looked at the floor. There was a pool of of about 5 or 6 ounces of clean oil on the floor. I guess the leak is still there. My guess now on the source is near the upper front right, probably the valve cover gasket. It leaks out during operation and falls down on to the plastic under tray and then during that 8 hours of down time drips slowly onto the floor. The dip stick was down a half a quart.
I think it is time for another visit to the Miata Doctors at Panic Motorsports.
I wish we made it home before dark today so I could have taken an updated photo (the one above is from Monday) because the front of the Emperor is so bug splattered now that I’m actually proud of how messy it is.
Today was our longest day at 445 miles, with our shortest day (the layover day Sunday) coming in at 135 miles. Coincidentally those same two days were our worst point wise at 2 each. Our best points scoring day was last Tuesday the 9th with 10 points gathered thanks to those emus! All told we drove 4,180 miles and tallied 62 Motoring Challenge points, about 67-1/2 miles per point or .015 points per mile. We were gone for 13 days which means we averaged 321.5 miles and 4.75 points per day.
