Masters Miata Club

New Look & On Again, Off Again Rain

With what should be self evident, I am pleased to announce that there is a new look here at mr-miata.net. It is the same theme, Atahualpa, just with a new shirt. And because of what the topics have been during this past week’s posts you would have thought I would have gone with a Hawaiian theme, but to tell you the truth, I just thought of that right this minute, or I might have.

Last night I gave the Emperor a sponge bath in the garage and I put the top boot on in preparation for today’s MMC Breakfast run. Got up this morning and it was raining! On Friday when I checked the weather they were calling for 30% chance of afternoon showers. This morning the 30% had changed from afternoon to all day and we were apparently in the middle of that percentage. So, off came the boot and the top went up.

By the time we got to the meeting place the cloud cover was still there, but the light rain had stopped, so we put the top back down. The rest of the cars either arrived with their tops down or put them down once they arrived. We were at a gas station off Exit 1 of I-20 and we were going to a small cafe off Exit 22. Most folks would get on the Interstate, go 21 miles and get off, but we drive Miatas. I mapped out a convoluted 30 mile trip with 12 turns and crossed over or under I-20 five times.

The rain held out for the whole drive and the whole time we were in eating breakfast. It didn’t start raining again here in Aiken again until the late afternoon.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1396

Peach Parade

Destination - Parade

We had a dozen cars show up to be in the parade and that I think is a record for Club participation in the event. Donna took a couple of pictures for the Parade Destination of the Motoring Challenge with all of us were lined up on both sides of the street.

Donna was not going to ride in the car with me and was going to try to get an “action shot” as I drove by in the actual parade. She was standing at about where the parade started and took one photo with me moving, but you couldn’t really tell I was in a parade as there was no crowd in the background. She then moved up to the first turn to get another picture, but I was in the outside lane and didn’t hear her yelling at me to hold up the challenge poster, so we missed a second chance at the action shot. Oh well, the line up photo will have to count.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1383

MMC Tech Day

Tech Day
The Emperor with his hood up prior to getting his fix, Rudy’s Mazdaspeed Miata and some joker’s car with a Ferrari body kit.*

Today was the annual Miata Club Tech Day where some of us head over to Kurt’s Garage-mahal and do some maintenance type stuff, that some could do in their own garage (not me), but would rather have help, have someone kibitz over their shoulders or just have an audience. Some show up to offer to help or to just hang around and talk Miatas or just cars. There were doughnuts in the morning and lunch was going to be wrangled later.

While I was there changing out my leaking valve cover gasket, there was Dave’s car in one bay getting a timing belt changed and Stacey’s car was getting an oil change and tire rotation. Clunk & Thunk doing a bunch of helping and doing and there were at least three other guys just hanging about.

*It is an actual mid 80’s Ferrari 328GTS and is Kurt’s latest toy. We tried to talk him into letting us each take a spin around the block, but he wasn’t going for it.

That Looks Familiar

After the evening news I like lighten the mood a bit with a bit of sophomoric & crass comedy. Back to back episodes of old Two and a Half Men on the local FOX affiliate. Recently they have added the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail of Alabama as a sponsor and I get to see two of their commercials in each half hour. Tonight I really noticed their logo at the end the ad and it looked very familiar. It reminded me of another logo, one I designed about 14 years ago. I wonder which was first and who influenced who.

RTJ GolfLogoMMC Logo

That’s Fair

Fair

We started the day with breakfast with the MMC at a Steak and Shake in Augusta and we’re ending it on the couch watching the FRS play playoff baseball. In between we walked around downtown Aiken to pay our bills followed by lunch on the porch of a small restaurant. This afternoon I finished up my center console modifications by installing a lighted push button that operates the garage door remote in the old cigarette lighter spot.

While I was in there I tried sliding the top of the upper shift boot up the shifter some. I mentioned a couple of posts ago that shifting into 1st and 3rd required a bit more oomph than it did with the old torn boot, well today, shifting into 5th was met with progressively more resistance. So much so that on this morning’s post breakfast drive the shifter popped out of 5th gear about three times just because of the tightness of the rubber boot wanting to force the shifter into neutral.

After dinner we took in the sights at the Western Carolina State Fair. It was a beautiful night for it as it actually felt like fall. They had quite a few awesome looking rides and that is pretty much all we did was look at them because even if we did want to try one out the lines were very long. The only thing we bought was a 1/4 pound of fudge from a vendor after 2 failed attempts to buy an ice cream cone from an outside cart.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, up again, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1268

Breakfast at Betsy’s

We had 4 Miatas and a Bug-Eyed Kia Soul meet Donna and I at Greg’s Gas+ in North Augusta this morning. Dennis & Karol Mason were waiting with John Haff for us to arrive and then not too much later Rudy rolled in followed by a Kia Soul containing ex-members Jim & Judy Creer who were visiting Augusta from their current home in Florida. The lure of seeing Jim & Judy even brought founding member Anita Wylds out to join us at the start too.

It was kind of like old times as everyone stood around in the parking area chatting to well past the scheduled departure time. The only thing missing was Jim Creer’s hood up. When we finally got going, luck was on my side as we made the 20 mile drive with all six cars together in spite of having to navigate 10 traffic signals, arriving at Betsy’s on the Corner only about 10 minutes late.

The entire Aiken Wing of the Club (the Woomers, the Dyers, the Ormerods and Tom Varallo) were inside waiting on us at the traditional Master’s Miata Club long table consisting of several separate units all pulled together. Whoever did the joining, the Club members or the restaurant staff, they were very in tune psychically as there were exactly as many chairs needed to seat both groups.

We then spent the next 1-1/2 hours talking, drinking coffee, ordering breakfast, talking drinking coffee, talking waiting, redirecting mis-delivered meals, correcting the oversights of our ordered meals, eating, talking, drinking coffee, eating, waiting of the waitress to figure out all the separate checks, talking, waiting, talking and then paying our checks.

The above photo was taken by a random patron, who volunteered to take a shot of our whole group and promised that it would come out great, as she was the daughter of a professional photographer. I was a little worried at first as I had to show her which button was the shutter on my camera, but by golly she did pretty darn good.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1245

Not A Lot Of Bugs, But A Big Surprise

Big Bug SlayerLast night was the 10th or 12th Master’s Miata Club Bug Splat that Donna and I have organized and while it won’t go down in history as a very buggy event, I predict it will be the most remembered.

We start at the south end of Whiskey Road in Aiken at the Red Bowl and finish up on the south end of Martintown Road in North Augusta at a Sonic. Both ends of the trip are definitely “in town”, but in between I try and get as rural as possible, both to avoid traffic and to increase insect impact chances.

Usually there are about 6 cars that show up, including us, so I printed out 8 maps in a fit of optimism. I should printed at least one more. We had nine cars run the route, including some brand new members, some hardly ever seen members and a previous member couple who had also previously won the Biggest Bug Trophy. But no worries, the maps are usually not used at all because Donna and I in the Emperor lead the train of cars along the route.

About half way through the trip, in the middle of a 3 mile section of a very backroad road I had to slow way down as there was a stopped vehicle in our travel lane. The 9 Miatas that started at about a 1/4 mile long line quickly tightened up because of the obstruction. As I got closer I could see that it was a PT Cruiser convertible with its top down. There was a man standing on the back seat facing the side of the road. At first I thought he was looking for a stray dog or something, so I checked the oncoming lane and proceeded to pass. As I started around I realized I was wrong, he was letting loose a mighty stream of urine out onto the side of the road.

Yes, you read that right, while his wife, girlfriend, possibly date sat in the passenger seat he decided to stand in the back of a PT Cruiser convertible and relieve himself.