Year: 2024

25 Years Ago – Issue II 1999

When we purchased our first Miata in 1989 I was just in my infancy of becoming a “Car Guy.” When the OEM tires on that Smurf Blue car needed replacing I really didn’t know what to buy. One of the first ads (maybe even the inside cover) in the early Miata Magazines were for a Dunlop D40 tire that came in the stock size of 185/60 x R14. So that is what I bought, and after reading this I now know the person responsible.

Member Spotlight

Dunlop Dave Shelton

How does Dave Shelton know so much? Because he’s not just a dinner speaker, he’s also a member.

David Shelton didn’t become “Dunlop Dave” until coming to an MCA event nine years ago. “When I first came to Dunlop we’d gotten a letter from Barbara Beach trying to get us involved with the magazine,” Shelton recalls. “I said to Woody Arnold, our VP of marketing at the time, ‘This club is in its infancy. Let’s be the one tire company in there.’ So we took an ad.”

“Well, you know Barbara’s level of enthusiasm; the next thing I knew she was inviting me to an event! I went, and it just felt good—I felt good with the people, they felt good with us. The Miata folks seemed like they were really thirsting for knowledge, thirsting for fun, so I just kept coming back. I don’t exactly when it was that she finally introduced me as ‘Dunlop Dave,’ but once she did, it stuck.”

That it did. Mentioning “David Shelton, Performance-T1re Marketing Manager” to the average Miata fan gets you a polite look of interest. Mentioning “Dunlop Dave” starts stories and memories flowing. In nearly a decade of MCA events, Dunlop Dave has probably taught more Miata owners to drive, given them more tech briefings, and helped more of them get the most from their roadsters than any other person.

Shelton brings a long history of testing, teaching, and performance driving to these events. “Two decades ago I got out of college with a BBA in accounting. Then one day I looked at it and said, ‘Wait a minute—I don’t want to sit behind a desk all my life.”

“So even though I’d just taken a job putting together a wholesale parts system for a megadealer, I wound up building racecars for him instead. After that I joined the National Academy for Police Driving— now it’s ‘Professional Driving’—and did driving schools and product launches for another 13 years. Essentially, we taught people to be at one with their cars—how to enjoy them and drive more efficiently. I worked with the RX7 club, the Corvette club, the Porsche club, some vintage-racing organizations, Audi, Chevrolet, Mercedes-Benz, the Z-Car club…just about everybody.”

“Then, after moving to Dunlop a decade ago, I continued to have the privilege of playing around with enthusiast-based car and light-truck clubs. And out of all of that, the Miata Club seems to have the people and the car that I feel most akin to.”

“I can drive the Porsches and the RX7s, but the people and the Miata are truly fun. I just enjoy being around ’em.”

“Plus, this is really the first time since I got out of college that I’ve had a car that’s just for me. As you go through the family thing you need a passenger car for one thing, a pickup for this, a van for that. Now that my daughter’s off in college I have a chance to reclaim some of the fun I had with sports cars when I was growing up.”

But while that’s all well and good, don’t most professional performance drivers buy that 911 or Ferrari when they finally come of age? “Well, when I was young it was neat to lean across the fender and have to gap the points and clean the carburetors and all that. But you know what’s really nice about the Miata? You just stick the key in and it goes. You flog the heck out of it, and it’s still smiling at the end. It does everything you want, and then you just wash it. It’s like getting the pleasure without the pain.

“I bought a black ’94 with tan leather and all the deluxe stuff. The old owner lived in Dallas and got transferred to Chicago. He didn’t want to take the car, so I bought it and took it back to Buffalo NY to be my everyday driver.”

How’s that worked out? “Actually, it’s been great. The Torsen diff is fabulous in the winter. I can do things in the Miata that four-wheel-drive owners wouldn’t attempt.”

“I also learned that you should read the Magazine, particularly that part about not touching the plastic rear window when it’s two degrees outside. Other than that it’s simply been wonderful. While you can watch other cars rusting away from the salt around here, it hasn’t even started on the Miata.”

Of course the real question is whether owning an MX5 will change Dave from a speaker to an attendee at the next MCA event? “I’ll keep going officially as long as I can, but whenever that runs out I’ll start doing it personally. One of the things my life has developed around is wanting to help people enjoy their cars by safely getting the most from them. Whether I’m there as a participant or to help with the event, I get a lot of gratification. We’ve got all the support we could want for Dallas, but I’d be there no matter what.”

Copyright 1999, Miata Magazine. Reprinted without permission.

 

Heaven on Their Minds?

Today’s movie was my annual tradition of watching the 1973 Jesus Christ Superstar. The first song in the movie is “Heaven on Their Minds” song by Judas Iscaroit while he sits on a rock watching what’s going on.

When I saw the framing this it reminded me of a scene in another movie I watched earlier this week, The Martian, with Mark Whatney sitting alone looking out over the Martian landscape. Do you think he has heaven on his mind?

I like this movie enough that it could become an annual tradition too, if I only had a date to hang it on. Wait a minute, I just Googled ‘Mars Day’ which led to a page on nasa.gov that says that ancient Babylonians considered Tuesday as Mars Day. It also links the month of March to the red planet too. And I may have actually watched the movie this past Tuesday. Now I’ll just need someone to remind me on a Tuesday next March.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Gray Scale Wagonesque Edition of SORT
As of Monday, March 25, 2024 at 9:00 AM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1999 BMW M Coupe 1974 Toyota Land Cruiser ICON FJ44 2020 Jaguar XF
Sportbrake Prestige
I think these particular vehicles jumped out at me because their colors mimic the typical Portland sky colors for the last 4 months. Posting a little early today because the power company is going to have to shut off power to the community to upgrade our wiring.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sport: 1958 MG MGA 1500 Roadster Sold for $24,500 on 3/20/24
Off-Road: 2024 Porsche 911 Dakar Bid to $350,000 on 3/22/24
Touring:1977 Alfa Romeo Alfetta GTV 5-Speed Sold for $80,000 on 3/23/24

Heat – Fuel – Oxygen

The 55+ community we live in has a nice little clubhouse where there are all kinds of interesting events planned for each month, from every Friday’s coffee and doughnuts to weekly Bingo to pot luck dinners for the big holidays.

Donna and I usually try to make the Friday coffee and doughnuts at least every other week, but have missed the last few because of the bathroom remodel, so we decided to head on over and attend a Fire Safety presentation given by the local Fire Department. There probably wouldn’t be any doughnuts, but they always have snacks of some sort available at these events.

Their prepared demonstration was mainly about kitchen fire safety because that is the place where far and away the most home fires start. Someone brought along their 6-year old granddaughter and she was what you would call very precocious. While most of us old folk sat and stared at the two Assistant Fire Marshalls that were giving the talk, she was peppering them with on-point questions.

At the end there was a little 5 question survey on how they did (not bad) and a giveaway of these papercraft tetrahedrons. On the bottom of the image above was the fourth thing needed for a fire, REACTION.

So wouldn’t you know it, tonight while making our dinner we actually violated one of the kitchen rules they preached, keep all flammable items away from the stove. We laid a couple of wooden trivets on the glass stovetop to place the cookie tray of Tater Tots from the oven on top to divvy them up on our plates. One of us had left a burner on medium that was used to cook the fish. Smoke started to waft from under tray. Luckily the thing didn’t actually ignite into flames.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Erin Go Green Edition of SORT
As of Monday, March 18, 2024 at 9:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1958 MG
MGA 1500 Roadster		 2024 Porsche
911 Dakar		 1977 Alfa Romeo
Alfetta GTV 5-Speed
Family lore has it that I’m 1/8 Irish and I did have a distinct reddish hue to my hair back in the day. Maybe one day I’ll do a DNA test and see if there is anything to the story.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sport: 2023 BMW M3 Sold for $90,000 on 3/14/24
Off-Road: 2020 Rezvani Hercules Bid to $190,000 on 3/14/24
Touring:1971 Citroen DS20 Sold for $26,250 on 3/15/24

Fire in the Hole

In the early seasons of Justified this was Boyd Crowder’s favorite saying. It comes from an Elmore Leonard short story that served as the genesis for FX’s series Justified. I have watched all 6 seasons of the show a few times now and I also recently watched the new Justified: City Primeval. But this post really isn’t about that, it is more about the last couple of days where I have been sucked into an Elmore Leonard movie hole.

While stumbling around looking for something to watch on Peacock I saw the movie Out of Sight from 1998 and thought, “Ooh, I remember that. Might be fun.” How is i that Jennifer Lopez does look and any older after a quarter of a century, but George Clooney does?

I wondered if I could find some other of Mr. Leonard’s work. Nice, Get Shorty from 1995 is available on Max. This is a masterpiece of casting, all the actors totally inhabit their characters and the comedy tamps down the violence just the right amount.

There was a sequel of sorts 10 years later called Be Cool that had John Travolta’s character, Chilli Palmer breaking int the music business like he did the movie business in Get Shorty. I seem to recall that I did start to watch it on DVD back when it came out, but quit part way in because it was disappointing compared to the first flick. Hey, it is available on Max too, maybe I should try it again. Maybe.

I found the much newer Life of Crime on Frevee and once again I’ve seen it before, but is worth a watch again, if just for the big switch at the end. And Switch is the title of Elmore Leonard book that the movie is based on.

Another late 90s gem of an Elmore Leonard movie is Jackie Brown. A somewhat restrained Quentin Tarantino directed it, but it is only on Netflix and that is one of the streaming service I don’t subscribe to, so I can’t rewatch it.

Doing this research I discovered that Elmore is also responsible for 3:10 to Yuma. Wow, I have a digital copy of the 2007 version with Russel Crowe and Christian Bale. I have also seen the 5 decade older version with Glenn Ford and Van elfin. I’d rewatch the 1957 version if I didn’t have to pay $4 to rent it on Amazon.

No Snow…Tires

I put the snow tires on the car back in early November and never really had a chance to use them for their intended purpose. There was one snow “storm” in January that dropped an inch on the ground and then we got lots of ice so we just never went anywhere until the ice was gone.

A warm sunny spring started yesterday afternoon, it continued today and will supposedly continue for the next couple days before typical Portland weather returns. The sunny low 70s will run until Tuesday and then the normal cloudy/rainy upper 50s return. This afternoon I took the snow tires off the Mini and put the regular touring all-seasons back on.