Masters Miata Club

10 Years Ago Today

As part of the Moss Motoring Challenge for 2015, one of the “Destinations” was something called Coffee shop (with friend) and I still needed it late in the year, so I sent out an email blast to the Miata Club saying I’d buy them a cup of coffee if they came over to my favorite coffee shop and be my friend. I had two cars show up. I’m standing in front of my 2003 Garnet Red along with Rita and Larry Garner and my fairy godfather, David Adcock. Larry and Rita’s car is on the right and the car in the middle belongs to David. Little did I know that 8 months from then I would own that 2002 Silver car of his.

On a side note, when the Moss Motoring Challenge asked for the same “Destination” in 2017, I put it on the club’s website as a club event, and a lot more people showed up for that one:
 

Masters Miata Club 2004 Pool Party

Because I’m being lazy (see today’s Instagram post) here is the Club’s newsletter report and photos from the titular event:

Pool Party

Saturday, July 10th

We held our annual pool party at the Creer’s this afternoon, where we have done it every year for the last 5 or so. Because the Jim & Judy are pulling up stakes and moving to the Sunshine State soon, next year we will have to drive to Spring Hill, FL to have it at their house.

There were plenty of grilled brats and dogs to be eaten, along with the usual assortment of side summer type salads. Then there were a couple of delicious homemade desserts to finish off the meal.

We called it a pool party, but a majority of those who came didn’t go in the pool. Only Donna and I and the hostess floated and bobbed around a bit. It was a heck of a lot cooler in the water, than sitting around it, even if you were in the shade. Jim didn’t even get in the water. Too bad too, as usually he and I make fools of ourselves by having a big-splash contest off the diving board.

Jim did make a fool of himself in a slightly different manner. He climbed a couple of ladders up a couple of levels of his house to get to the top of the roof so he could take a group picture…

Poker Run

This is a reprint from the Masters Miata Club newsletter, The Driver, November 1999 Volume 6, Issue #11. Reprinted with my Permission, because I wrote it.

Date: Saturday, October 23, 1999
Time: 8:30 AM
Place: Georgia Welcome Center
Members Attending: Bill Baugh, Bonnie Baugh, Brian Bogardus, Donna Bogardus, Kurt Breitinger and Rudy Wilmoth.

After the usual chat session at the Welcome Center the four cars started barreling west on I-20. After about an hour and a half, Brian, who was leading, remembered that last time he had made a pit stop about midway between Augusta and the Interstate exiting town. We were way past that, so he picked the next exit that looked like it had a concentration of fast-food places and pulled the train into a waiting McDonalds.

In what turned out to be a preview of things to come, the place was jam-packed. Apparently this was also the getting off the Interstate point for travel to Athens, home of the University of Georgia. As luck would have it, it was football homecoming weekend, and the area was thick with cars flying red and white flags with black Gs on them like so many Staff Cars for Generals of the UGA Army.

Back on I-20 for a few more miles until we got off in Covington for the northern backroad loop around Atlanta to Alpharetta. The last two times the Bogardi had made this trip it went smooth as silk, but that was with a 7:00 AM start. Today’s later start was just enough for the millions of normal people who live in the ever increasing rash of suburbia surrounding Peachtree Center to wake up and hit the road. This made traffic a mess in the semi-small, normally sleepy, towns that the caravan had to pass thru. The first major setback was in Lawrenceville. They were having their annual fall crafts fair and probably some sort of pagan celebration to the pumpkin, which ground us to a halt. Of course now the “Spiraling Traffic Density to Time Postulate” kicked in. The further behind we got, the worse the traffic got.

Then, I think just to test our mettle, the Georgia D.O.T. tossed in an unexpected detour. It was “nicely” planned to take 2 lanes of impatient traffic on the right side of the road and funnel it into one left turn lane within the span of 50 yards. Then of course the detour signs magically disappear within a few miles leaving us to wonder whether we are still going the right way.

Finally our plucky band of adventurers arrive at the MCA Headquarters. It had taken us 4 hours to travel the 120 miles that usually takes 2-1/2. We were 30 minutes later than the listed start time, but that was not a problem because they were just starting the cars on the Poker Run. Looks like these bimonthly events may become a victim of their own success. The place was jammed. It looked like there were about 200 Miatas scattered around. The cars filled up the parking area around the HQ building and had spilled over into the parking areas of some of the neighboring complexes.

After the frazzling trip, Donna at first balked at getting back into the car when she found out that the Poker Run was an 80 mile affair. After convincing her that the route was rural, not suburban and that we would stop at the first likely place to eat something, she agreed to navigate. Because of complex directions, driving and navigating was really a two person job, so Rudy agreed to ride with Kurt.

The Bogarduses and the Baughs were following each other because Bill and Bonnie wanted to get a bite to eat as bad as Brian and Donna. Kurt & Rudy were several cars back. They were certainly right about the rural part, north and east of Alpharetta is still just Georgia farm land. The bad part about that is that there was no place to eat. At the first card stop we ended up feasting on Moon Pies and RCs at a little country store. That would just have to suffice until the post run BBQ.

On the final stretch back in to HQ for lunch we had about 6 Miatas running together along the back roads. Can’t help but wonder what those farmers thought about the steady stream of little Furin Cars travelling down those roads.

I don’t remember what Bill and Bonnie or Kurt and Rudy had, but on our last card Donna and I managed a pair of eights. We thought we were hot stuff. We were nowhere near the money, the winner had a straight flush! The Master’s group didn’t come away entirely empty handed though, Bill & Bonnie won a poster in the door prize drawings.

Miata driving on back roads, good food, car-nut camaraderie and near perfect top-down weather. Plus R-Speed and others had displays of all kinds of car goodies to separate us from our money. Thanks Vince and Norm for having us. Way to go, MCA. Big thank yous to Diane and Doneeta who probably did most of the work.

In The Rearview Mirror

I did the Masters Miata Club newsletter from 1998 until 2006 when I ran out of steam doing all the printing and the mailing. There was a person who said they would take over and then didn’t, followed by two others who wanted to give it a go, but didn’t have the knowledge to do it. The no newsletter was not a total loss because the interweb existed and I had been doing a webpage for the club for several years at that point.

BMW Plant Tour

Date: Friday, February 2, 2001
Time: 7:45 AM
Place: South Carolina Welcome Center
Members Attending: Bob Anderson, John Battles, Bill Baugh, Bonnie Baugh, Brian Bogardus, Donna Bogardus, Karen Breitinger, Kurt Breitinger, Jim Creer, Judy Creer, Lee Davis, Carol Haff, John Haff, Ron Kaufman, Jean Schwalbert, Russ Schwalbert, Stacey Timmerman and Rudy Wilmoth.
Guests Attending: John Nichols, Jeff Timmerman, Bob Taylor and John Wages.

We had a eleven cars, three with hard tops being early February, gather at the welcome center in the early morning cold, even Rudy had his top up! It was Stacey Timmerman’s job, with son Jeff navigating, to keep this many cars together on the trip. Amazingly enough, they did a fine job. We got on the Interstate for a few miles before heading north on back roads to our rest stop in Clinton, SC. Not long after getting on US 25 we picked up the first of two planned additions. John N. & Bob T. in a Merlot with a black hard top.

Just past the mid-point we pulled our caravan into a McDonalds for brunch. Here we picked up our second planned addition, Bob Anderson. Bob had thought he would meet us at the BMW plant, but got an earlier start so he just meet us here.

The rest of the trip was all Interstate, I-26 to I-385 to I-85. As we merged with I-85 near our destination, reports came from the back that a white Miata was passing our group. After passing about half of us, he must have figured we were on our way to have some fun, so he tucked in line.

As we pulled into the BMW parking lot we were now fourteen strong. Our late joiner was John Wages, Vice-president of the Foothills Miata Club. He was out running errands when he happened on our group. We offered him a spot on our tour, but he pleaded poverty, didn’t even have $5. We offered to pay his way in and he took us up on it.

We were about an hour or so early for our tour appointment, so this gave us plenty of time to check out the Zentrum, which I guess is German for a mix of museum, gift shop and snack bar. Lots of interesting variations of BMW production cars, race cars and motorcycles in the museum and all kinds of trinkets and clothing in the gift shop. A lot of us ended up in the snack bar, where you get a cold German beer to help pass the time until it was time for the plant tour.

The tour started with a 20 minute movie that showed you some places that you can’t actually go into in person. There were three screens, one in front and one on each side, and the movie was filmed from the point of view of a car chassis going through the welding of the body and all the painting process. Kind of neat to stand there and get painted red by robotic arms.

After the movie we then donned safety glasses to protect our eyes and headphones so we could hear our perky little tour guide. When they designed and laid out the plant it wasn’t with tours in mind, so we were just wandering around on the assembly floor, staying inside some painted yellow lines though, so as not to get run over by forklifts. There were actually two guides, one up front with the microphone talking and one in the back to make sure you didn’t wander off or try and put a Z3 tail light in your pocket.

We stopped and got to watch them mate a body to the powerplant subassembly (engine, transmission and front suspension) and it took about 2 minutes and 8 bolts. Like everything there it looked too easy, which I guess is a good thing, just not as exciting as I expected. The best part was the final test room where they take the nearly completed car and put it on a dyno-like rollers and shift through all the gears and do some heavy braking. Someone gets in the car and a computer tells them when to shift and brake. That same computer reads the data to see if it meets specs. We watched a white Z3 go through its paces and when it was driven out of the booth an employee reached down and picked up a couple stray bolts and a washer off the floor from underneath where the car was! I hope none of those were one of the 8 holding in the powerplant.

After the tour, most all of us went back one exit on I-85 to eat at a California Dreaming restaurant. Fortunately it was 2:30 PM on a weekday and after a little bit of rearranging, we were seated at a table for 22.

After eating, most all of us went back home. Four cars just went across the street to the Courtyard by Marriott to spend the night, so they could hook up with the Foothills folks in the AM.

North & South Drive

Date: Saturday, February 3, 2001
Time: 9:00 AM
Place: University Square Publix, Greenville, SC
Members Attending: Brian & Donna Bogardus, Karen & Kurt Breitinger, Carol & John Haff and Rudy Wilmoth.
Guests Attending: Sean, Jerry, Tony, Ron & Cat.

Brian figured we need to leave the hotel a little after 8 to make it to the starting point on time. This required an early rise, so we could eat, get checked out and get gas and be ready to go at 9 AM.

Conveniently located in the Publix shopping center is a McDonalds and this is where we parked while waiting. Ron Merrit was the first of the Foothills Club to show and Cat Thomson was the last, which, they said, is how things normally shake out on their runs. So our early rise was all in vain as these folks normally meet, eat and then drive. We finally got moving sometime after 10 AM.

And when we did, we got twisty. They took us on some roads that were only a few miles from the start that were totally awesome. It is almost enough to make you want to move to Greenville. After a circuit around the reservoir we headed up SC-11 and then cut up towards Caesar’s Head State Park. After a brief break in the park’s parking lot we went back to zooming around windy roads until we came Highlands, NC where we made ourselves at home in the Sagebrush Steak House for some grub.

After lunch we were all pretty much wore out, so we just headed back to Greenville and then on to Augusta. Fortunately, we couldn’t get home without traversing some very snaky roads.

February Meeting

I did the Aiken Bicycle Club newsletter from 1993 until 1998 when the club decided to move to the web, which I of course volunteered to do. I created a rudimentary website by today’s standards on the now defunct Geocities.com. To fill my not so free hours in the evening and satisfy my need to write witty things, I took over the newsletter of the local Miata club I was in.

Date: Thursday, February 1, 2001
Time: 7:00 PM
Place: Old Country Buffet
Members Attending: Bill Baugh, Bonnie Baugh, Brian Bogardus, Donna Bogardus, Kurt Breitinger, Tony Cappucci, John Haff, Gail Smith, Tom Smith and Rudy Wilmoth.

No meeting room and no Treasurer’s report this month. But we did get the Smiths to join us, we haven’t seen them since last year’s anniversary dinner. Also, a chance meeting at an Interstate rest area brought someone else to the meeting who would have missed it. (I’ve left the names out to protect the guilty.)

Old Business:
1) New Logo. Still again no progress on this front. Wendy seems to have forgotten us. Brian brought along a doctored up copy of Rembrandt van Rijn’s painting “The Syndics of the Cloth Guild” as a tongue-in-check offering of a new Club Logo. (In case you are unfamiliar with the painting, it was the basis for the images used on the boxes and in the advertising for Dutch Master’s Cigars.

New Business:
1) We chatted about a few of the upcoming events. Kurt floated a trial balloon up on maybe attending an Augusta Lynx game. It was well received, so he is going to proceed with arrangements.

2) Brian read the first, and he thought, easiest, of his two proposed amendments to the bylaws. Section A. under Article III, Meetings, states “General membership meetings shall be held monthly, on the last Saturday of each month, unless otherwise determined by majority of a quorum vote of the general membership.” Brian would like to change, “last Saturday” to “first Thursday,” because that is what we are doing now anyway. After quite a bit of discussion on what a quorum was, not putting a day in at all, and other stuff, Brian was about to withdraw his proposal. Hating to see a grown man pout, the rest agreed to let Brian fulfill his obligation under Article XII of the bylaws entitled Amendments, i.e. read the change to the membership so it can be voted on at the next meeting.

3) Brian then read his 2nd proposed bylaw change. With the all but official demise of the Miata Club of America, he would like to change the Club’s name from Master’s Miata Chapter to Master’s Miata Club. And remove the line “This organization shall be a local chapter chartered by the Miata Club of America.” from Article I, Name, of our bylaws. Everyone just shrugged and said, “Whatever.”

Th-that‘s all f-f-folks, the February meeting was adjourned and the weary went home.

Masters Miata Club Bug Splat

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