Month: April 2011

MMC Road Rally

Today was the Sort of Annual MMC Road Rally and Donna and I WON!

We didn’t run away from the field by any means, it was a very narrow victory over the second place team. But because there were only two cars competing, the worse we could have finished was second, even if we took twice as long as predicted in time, mileage or both to run the course. There were supposed to be 4 cars, but illnesses to entrants and/or family members cut the field in half. It is kind of sad that with all the work put into creating one of these things, thanks John & Jackie, that only 4 people even signed up to do the rally.

You can’t truly blame apathy for the low turn out, because if you take the folks that were supposed to run the rally it accounts for almost a quarter of the Club. Add in the folks who created the event and you are almost up to a third of the membership.

The problem is the size of the Club and so far we haven’t found a solution to growing the membership. I can’t tell you how to add members, but I can tell you why the Club rolls are shrinking. First off, Mazda doesn’t support a national Club anymore. When they did, every buyer of a new Miata received a glossy magazine that had a back page listing all the regional clubs that someone could join. Even if they were still doing that, the pool of possible club members would be shrinking because the sales of Miatas is falling off. In the US, annual sales have gone from nearly 36,000 in 1990 to a low of around 6,300 in 2010. Because the Miata is such a reliable car, used car sales easily outpace new, and those buyers never find out about the existence of a local Club unless they are looking. Also, now a days life has sped up to the point people don’t have the time to dedicate to Club memberships of any kind.

Pretty soon our little club is going to reach critical mass and disappear in a puff of exhaust smoke just due to natural attrition. So if any one out there has any ideas how to get folks to join a club, any club, suggestions are welcome.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1007

New Carport?

It had been there for 11 years before something heavy enough landed on the carport tarp to puncture it and it might be another eleven years before it happens again. And it might happen again in 11 days.*

This afternoon on our cycling trip home from work we took a slightly different route than usual which took us right by one of those portable building places. Right after we passed it we made a u-turn, which, on a tandem, takes more road than you might think. We went inside and picked up a brochure for one of those metal carports.

*We hope it waits at least twice that, because we were told that it takes about 3 weeks to get one of those metal carports installed.

We’ll Be Fine

We got up this morning and Donna asked if we wanted to head over to DD and get some breakfast. “Awesome,” I said. The reason this was such a great idea was we both enjoy our usual meal there and secondly we needed to get a couple of bagels for Friday’s breakfast, because we were riding the tandem to work.

As we prepared to leave I eyeballed the radar and wondered out loud if we would make it over there before we got slammed with a line of thunderstorms. The very tail end of the storms that wreaked havoc over the rest of the south on Wednesday afternoon/evening was making its way through the CSRA. Donna asked, “Should we stay home and eat?” “Nah,” I said, “We’ll be fine.”

As we loaded up the Sonata it was just starting to sprinkle. That was fine, I stayed dry, because the car was under the little tarp over metal frame “carport” we put up for Donna’s mom’s Civic when she moved in with us back in 2000.

About 4 miles into the 6 mile trip I started to regret that offhanded, we’ll be fine, comment. The bottom fell out and it poured and poured and poured. The wind whipped around and driving was limited to under 25 MPH with your fingers crossed that you wouldn’t run off the road.

We did arrive safely and ate our meal while reading the paper sitting on some stools at a counter near the front window. In hindsight this was probably not a good idea as it turns out we were in our own little tornado watch. We dallied long enough that the main part of the storm passed over us and it was raining just enough to make me keep the wipers on intermittent during the drive to The Valve Store(TM).

The wind and rain kept up for most of the day, but by the afternoon the sun was out making for an uneventful drive home. As I pulled into the driveway and headed for the “carport” I noticed a decent sized branch had pierced the tarp and was standing straight up. It was held up by the foot or so of the branch sticking out of the top of the tarp though large tear it made on its way down.

Had the Sonata been parked under there, the branch would had hit the edge of roof and slid down the side of the car along the door and rear quarter panel, maybe busting the little opera window. Yikes.

So now the question is when did the branch fall, during the storm? If it did and if we had stayed home for breakfast, we could have been sitting at the table and heard the crash, bang noise of our 8 day old car being skewered…I guess that, “We’ll be fine,” comment meant us and the Sonata.

Old School Fish Dinner

A while back on a Wednesday evening we decided to go to Captain D’s for dinner. Turns out Wednesday is senior night where the local restaurant offers several options for meals at the $4.99 & $5.99 levels, including a drink. Needless to say we came out happy for around twelve bucks, telling ourselves that we needed to remember that on haircut night.

Tonight was haircut night, so guess what we had for dinner? And, even at 55, guess who were the youngest folks in the room?

Night Riders

There was a barely audible clunk as the stuck pad released its grip on the rotor. Twenty years of recall memory allows a smooth clutch engagement as we back out of the garage. At first, the air feels heavy and stagnant, but as we turn the first corner, the nighttime cool surrounds us. We are lucky that in less than a mile we are are barreling down some lightly traveled two lane blacktop.

On the final leg of our journey Donna, says, “I’m sure glad we didn’t trade this in.” I replied, “That was really never an option.”

While the Sonata is an awfully nice car, it will never be able to hold a candle to the Miata in pure driving fun.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1006

Love Shack Bay-bee!

With appologies to the B-52’s:
I got me a car, it’s as big as a whale
and we’re headin’ on down
To the Love Shack
I got me a Hyundai, it seats about 20
So hurry up and bring your jukebox money

The dealer is taking care of titling and registering the car, but I have to pay the Personal Property Tax on the car in South Carolina. I called the Tax Auditor this afternoon and asked how much the tax would be and after I gave him the VIN number he told me it would be $420. Which is about what I expected (the last record I have for the Emperor is $303 in 2006.) When we got down to the Auditor’s office after work the Clerk who entered my information and generated my bill, said it would be $330 and pointed me down the hall to the Treasurer’s office to pay it. Why the $90 discrepancy in my favor? I didn’t question it, but had it gone the other way…

After dinner we drove over to Augusta to drop off the tax receipt at the dealer so they can do what they need to get me a plate. When I got back in the car I noticed my zipper was down. Fortunately my un-tucked T-shirt hung low enough. Donna asked did I think anyone in the dealership noticed, she was worried that they might have thought we were fooling around in the car. Maybe I will call the Sonata, Love Shack instead of Purple Whale.

Wash Day

We did three loads of clothes and I did two cars. The Miata has needed a good washing since before pine pollen season, but I put it off until everything pollen-wise has dropped or drifted around. Then I washed the Sonata to get the north Georgia (where it is still spring) pine pollen off of it. Thankfully there is that shark fin satellite antenna in the middle of the roof so I could judge if needed longer arms or step stool to get the whole car clean.

And while that should have been today’s ?Holy Crap This Car Is Big? story, it was trumped by our filling up the gas tank tonight. We had filled it up Friday when it was still half full, but it was now getting down to under an 1/8 of a tank. It holds 17 gallons which is 1-1/2 Miata tanks, so this time it was the most we had ever spent of gas ever. The 14.77 gallons that went in there came to over $50.

I didn’t pay attention to the mileage at Friday’s fill up, but today I did. It took 10.1 gallons then and now it took 14.8, there were 753 miles on the car, and I’m going to assume that they topped the tank when they sold it to us at 29 miles, so the gas mileage was 29 MPG. Not bad for a car rated at 22/35 (26 combined) considering it spent quite a bit of time being slogged through curvy mountain passes.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1005