Motoring Challenge

Not Even Close

I redeemed the $50 gift certificate for our 20th place finish in the 2014 Moss Motoring Challenge. The cockpit cover we have been using needed replacing. We have already replaced the side elastic and the velcro would have to be next, as the all three spots it is used were no longer staying stuck reliably. Fortuitously, the cost of a new cover fell close to value of the certificate.

An hour ago the UPS guy dropped a box off on the front steps. I went out into the garage to put in on the Miata. It doesn’t fit. Our old one fit awkwardly around the mirrors, but it still covered everything as it should. From 2001 to 2005 the seat on the Miata had taller built-in headrests. They are so much taller than the ones in earlier year cars that they earned the nickname “surfboards.” The OEM tonneau covers required you to slide the seats forward and then push the seatback back so that it didn’t stick up past the level of the doors.

I thought maybe that is what I needed to do here. Well, with seats laid back it sort of fits and covers all the right areas, but you have to stretch the elastic that goes down the doors to hook on the frame rails so tight that I can’t imagine them lasting more than a month of use.

I came back inside and went to the Moss Motors web site to see if the description said anything about not fitting 2001 to 2005 cars. It did not. There was a link to something called instructions, so I clicked on it. It says that those door straps attach to the weld seam at the bottom of the car like we are doing with our current car, but the photo shows it attached to the bottom of the door itself. I went back to the car and tried hooking it that way, didn’t work. It might, but you would have to open the door first.

The current, worn out cover goes on the same general way as this one, 4 elastic hooks and 3 velcro straps, but with the addition of moving both seats, then opening & closing both doors, it becomes too much of a hassle. Might as well cycle the top. This cover is going to be returned.

Prize Patrol Visits

Trunk Lid

When we commute to the Valve Store(TM) in the Miata I get to check the mail when we get home. When we drive the Sonata I just pull into the driveway and Donna gets out and walks back to the mailbox. The driver’s side mirror on the Purple Whale is the same height as the mailbox and I almost tried to force the two of them into sharing the same space at the same time when I checked the mail for the first time in the Sonata. The Miata on the other hand glides easily below the mailbox level.

Spring seems to be here, so the Emperor was our chariot of choice for today’s trip to and from work. When I pulled open the mailbox lid there was a big padded envelope in there. As I pulled it out, I remarked, “What’d I buy?” Donna answered back with mock seriousness, “You better tell me.” Probably thinking I bought another BlipShift T-shirt with a Miata on it. But then the light bulb went off over our heads, it was the prize package from Moss Motors. Inside was a T-shirt, a sticker and my $50 gift certificate. The shirt is in the wash (a small phobia of mine) and the sticker has already found a home on the trunk lid. The fifty bucks? Maybe I should buy my wife something nice, like a T-shirt with a Miata on it?

Weekend Wrap Up

Show Ring

Saturday, up late, and drove over to Augusta to go see the One Year Anniversary Edition of Cars & Coffee. We arrived just before 8:00 AM and the lot was already crowded. Having never been to one of these, I had this idea that it was one big happy car guy gathering, but in reality it turned out to be a Gathering of the Clans. All the like marquees bunched up to seemingly prevent any intermingling. The row of Mustangs ran 50 cars long from Washington Road to nearly the Pottery Barn store front. Finding no other Miatas to get next to, we parked one row over from the Fords and went into the Sunrise Grill for breakfast. When we came back out about 40 minutes later there was one pickup truck two spaces over, but nobody else was in the same row as us. Donna and I walked one circuit of the lot to look at the cars and then left to go get some Motoring Challenge points.

Sunday, up later than Saturday, and went to breakfast at Ridgecrest Coffee Bar. After, it was home to watch Sunday Morning and finish up the last 4 episodes of Season 3 of House of Cards. This afternoon we got off our lazy butts and went for a walk in Hitchcock Woods. Last time we were there is was in early January. Because it was probably the first really nice Sunday weather-wise this year, the woods were full of walkers, dogs and horseback riders. Our destination was the Horse Show Ring (see picture above) to eat a snack and then headed back out. Because we didn’t have a map, the walk turned out to be longer than first planned, so while never really lost, there were a few times where I wasn’t exactly sure where we were. Not that we complained any, because it was a beautiful day to take a 4 mile walk.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1468

Motoring Challenge Points 4, Approx Miles Driven 60
Totals So Far: 34 points & 715 miles

Cars & Coffee

Daily DriverA little thing called Cars & Coffee, an informal car guy gathering, started out in California 7 or 8 years ago and has been spreading around the country. Mostly in big towns, but now some of the smaller places are picking up on it.

Turns out there has been one in Augusta, GA on the first Saturday morning of the month for a year now, but I never knew about it. Someone in the Miata Club brought it up at the yearly planning meeting and requested I put it on the MMC’s event calendar.

Shoot, I like cars and I like coffee, so Donna and I are going to go over there tomorrow to check it out. We also have an ulterior motive, it will count as a car show point in the Moss Motoring Challenge…

The 11-1/2 year-old, 149,000 mile Miata got a bath tonight. I even used a bit of some spray-on wax to gussy it up more gooder. When you get that close to the Emperor you can see it is starting to show its age in paint chips, scratches small dents, so I made up the little sign you see above to place on the dash.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1467

Who’s Your Caddy

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McTKSbG6Jrg

One of the destinations this year for the Motoring Challenge is “Location Filmed in Movie.” Our first thought was Heavy’s BBQ near Crawfordville, GA. It was used as the bar Stella’s Roadhouse in Sweet Home Alabama, but remembering our lousy meal we had there and it doesn’t look on the outside much like it did in the movie any more, we shot it down.

My next thought was the 1994 movie Nell because some of the scenes were filmed in Robbinsville, NC the gateway to the Tail of the Dragon. Any excuse to get to the mountains of western North Carolina & east Tennessee.

Thinking back closer to home, Disney remade the 1965 movie, That Darn Cat in Edgefield, SC just 25 miles up the road. The 1997 version of That Darn Cat starred Christina Ricci in the Haley Mills role and the production company painted practically every business building that fronted the town square.

Then I remembered there was a movie filmed even closer to home, because it was filmed right here in our Fair City, Aiken, SC. The cinematic masterpiece Who’s Your Caddy, that has a 6% score on Rotten Tomatoes, was the talk of the town back in 2007.

I was fully prepared to watch the whole movie just so I could find a recognizable Aiken landmark, but was spared the ignominy when within a minute and a half the hip hop moguls pull up to the clubhouse of the “Carolina Pines Golf & Polo Club” and it is The Wilcox, a historic Inn that was voted one of top 50 small hotel by readers of Condé Nast Traveler.

Now I just have to figure out how to get a half dozen stogy old white guys smoking cigars to be sitting in the white rocking chairs out front when I take the photo.

Beam Me Down Scotty

City - Bowman, SCAfter finishing up the graffiti photo shoot we continued on into Bowman, the home of the UFO Welcome Center. We visited (AKA drove by) the place when we were in Bowman taking post office pictures back in 2007. Knowing that a roadside attraction might be worth a point in the Motoring Challenge, we thought we might drive by again and get a photo.

Trouble was we didn’t have the location of the Welcome Center. I seemed to remember that it was like one street of the main drag. Bowman ain’t that big, how hard could it be? US178 runs through it northwest to southeast and SC210 is perpendicular to that. There are maybe 6 streets each, parallel to those roads.

We had covered about half of our search area when I noticed a big blue water tower with TOWN OF BOWMAN painted with what looked like a house painting roller. To add extra interest, the tower was home to an very large flock of turkey vultures. We still needed a town that began with the letter B, so…

We never really paid any attention to water towers before, but ever since we needed a picture of one for the Motoring Challenge we realized they are everywhere. This got my weird little mind thinking, maybe we should use a water tower that has the town name on it for all of the challenge requirements. Donna said that maybe I shouldn’t make this any more difficult than it already is. I’ll work on her, if we do this again in 2016 that will be how we do it.

After taking the water tower photo we headed out of town towards home, when out of the corner of her eye, Donna saw the Welcome Center. We circled back to get a photo, but after seeing the structure, decided against it. It was very dilapidated and looked like it might fall down any minute. Looking through the Google Images of the thing though, it appears to have been in this same state for a lot longer than that time frame.

I searched the Life of Brian for the photo I was sure we took during our first visit, but can’t seem to find it. Thinking on it now, I bet I didn’t take a photo in 2007 for the same reason I didn’t take one last weekend, that thing is ugly.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1461

Artistic Graffiti

Destination - Artistic Graffiti

What exactly constitutes Artistic Graffiti, I’ll leave that debate to the finer minds of the NY Times, for me it will be anything above a hastily painted gang marking on a stop sign.

I’m sure if we lived in a large city it would be easy to find something like that, but here in Our Fair (small) City it is really nowhere to be found. A search of the internet for “artistic graffiti Columbia”, the nearest decent sized town, resulted in nothing but mention of art shows with graffiti-like pieces for sale. Because we abhor going to the big cities of Charlotte or Atlanta there was no way we were going to make a pilgrimage there to drive aimlessly through their warehouse districts looking. This left happenstance.

And that is exactly what happened yesterday on our way home from the palindrome. We we zipping right along and had just passed over I-26 on SC210 heading to Bowman when we both noticed something bright blue off to the right. This prompted an immediate u-turn.

When GSV went through in May 2013, whatever the base of this wall was, was already gone, but it was unpainted…


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Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1460