24 Hours of Daytona Report

Kyle Ray-Smith and Brian Nixon check out the cars on pit lane before the race. 

We went to the 24 Hours of Daytona Race, and here's our observations: 

    -During the first hour, the cars drove laps. 

    -For the second hour, they did the same. 

    -During hours 3-24, ditto.  

The end. 

One of the drivers of this Ford Mustang was Romain Grosjean, former Haas F1 and IndyCar driver. A few hours before the race, they put all the cars on the pit lane, and you can walk around to check them out! This was very cool, even though it was very crowded. 

Oh, here's a few more specifics! The Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona is a BIG DEAL. I mean like with BIG CROWDS, one grandstand that holds over 100,000 people, BIG CROWDS, BIG INFIELD, BIG TRACK, and pretty much everything is BIG! One thing that is NOT big enough is close and convenient parking, so for most of us that means parking at a mall across the street and hiking about a mile to get to the track. Oh well, it was a good workout. 

Our view at the start. Two Navy jets flew over at the end of the National Anthem, the 2nd time was REALLY LOW AND LOUD!

Lower left is where the cars leave the main oval and turn left to the infield. On the right is where they come out of the infield, and turn left back onto the banking. Grandstand seating is open, so you can sit anywhere you want in the 100,000+ seats!

This was my first time at this event, so I can only share a few impressions, or else I'd have about 40 normal sized blog posts to try and cover everything. We had great warm weather with no rain, although there was a LOT of fog that rolled in, probably due to the big winter storm up in the rest of the country! There was so much fog overnight during the race that they threw out the yellow caution flags for over six hours on Saturday night, which I believe is a Daytona record. If you attend the race, check the weather so that you're prepared for sun, rain, cold, heat, or all the above!

Saturday night, it's cooling off and the fog is rolling in. You can see some headlights approaching from the left, and this is also a good view of the pit entry. 

Later on Sunday morning the fog cleared enough with the sun up to go racing, and things were good after that. The race runs from 1:40PM Saturday to the same time on Sunday. 

Night time pit stop. Even with cars zipping by at the bottom of the shot, you could hear the wheel guns over there in the pit!

Photo op back behind the garages. When a car is in the pit lane for damage during the race, if it's bad they have a bit of a distance to go to roll it back to the garages. 

One highlight was sitting way high up in the grandstand above turn 1 for the opening few hours, and we got a GREAT view of the first lap incident. About three cars tried to share the same space, went off track, and several other cars went off track to avoid them. That is probably not too unusual in the first corner, but then two of those cars hit each other just trying to get back on the track. It was crazy! Oh, and that 2nd collision was when the 2nd pack of racers was heading into turn 1 for the first time, so it could have been a big one! Here's my video of the incident on YouTube: 

2026 Rolex 24 Hour Start

After watching from that spot, we walked thru the turn 1 tunnel to the infield, and man we walked another mile to do that. Big infield crowd, lots of RVs, fancy cars, campfires, vendors, manufacturers, etc. We walked by the garages, saw the spare pace cars standing by, and picked up various free t-shirts and keychains too. 

This graphic sums up the four classes of cars racing on track at the same time. The GTP is the fastest class, and they are constantly passing the slower cars. The LeMans Prototype 2 or LMP2 class is unique, because all the cars use the same engine, and basically the same body from one of four manufacturers. In other words, they don't have Porsche, Ford, Corvette, Acura, BMW, Aston Martin, and brands like the other classes. 

Brian and I needed some dinner, so we walked another mile out of the turn 4 tunnel to an Olive Garden across from the track, ate some dinner, and went back in to watch the racing under the lights. This time we sat down close to the track before the start/finish, and from that up close and personal I can verify that those cars were MOVING FAST! Amazingly enough, even with the noise of cars going by, we could still hear the wheel guns in the pit lane when some cars were changing tires. Those mechanics have some industrial strength earplugs I'm sure!

We did not ride the Ferris Wheel in the infield! Other than the huge number of people and RVs, the infield pretty much smelled like wood and charcoal fires, with lots of folks camping there all weekend too!

The bottom line is that if you like race cars, then a 24 Hour Daytona is a great experience! Oh we didn't stay at the track the whole time, so you can rest easy knowing we were back at a VRBO house sleeping during the yellow flag!  

Acura on display in the infield. All the major manufacturers had various displays, contests, giveaways, etc. 

Ford probably had the largest display, like this GT. They also had some simulators if you wanted to stand in that line in the background. 

Brian and I took a break in the Porsche Club of America tent. While I was expecting fancy champagne and caviar, we did get a free soda and a bottle of water. The race was on the big screen there too. 

Pre-race, cars and opening ceremony stage are set on the pit lane. To go out there you get to walk across the track at the start finish line (right half of photo) and baby, it is STEEP on that track!

The South Carolina "Bunch of Idiots" Lemons Racing gang, waiting for the race to start. 

New Year? New Car Museum Visit! The Brumos Collection

1970 Porsche 917 K. The answer to "What car is in the Steve McQueen movie LeMans?"

On the drive from South Carolina to Daytona Beach, we happened to go by Jacksonville Florida and visit the Brumos Collection. What's that all about? It's a car museum. It's a car museum with cool cars. It's a car museum with cool RACE cars! It's a car museum with some cool PORSCHE and other brand race cars! Here's their website too:  

        THE BRUMOS COLLECTION

Jerry Seinfeld had a Porsche 917 racecar until he sold it last year. Estimates are that it sold for "around $25,000,000." (cue the sound of jaw-dropping)

The museum is mostly in two sections (old non-Porsches, and newer Porsche racecars) with a bonus small workshop and overflow kind of large room.  The old racecars started with an 1894 Peugeot, and included a variety of cars like a Locomobile, Duesenberg, Packard, Miller racers, a 1939 Alfa Romeo 8C, some AJ Foyt owned racers, a Bugatti too, so pretty much a you-name-it!

1894-95 Peugeot 

1929 Duesenberg Model J

1926 Bugatti Type 35 GP

1939 Alfa Romeo 8C

Next up, a short visit to the work shop and overflow area! We talked to a technician that was freshening up a 90s NASCAR racer, which I believe he said was a Mark Martin car, but don't quote me on it. Just sitting around in this big room was a 1930s Mercedes, 1930 Bentley, a 50s Porsche Spyder, a Porsche Indy racecar, Porsche 959, Porsche 918 Spyder, and a Porsche Carrera GT. If you aren't familiar with all of those, that's OK. Only a few of them would be worth over a million dollars, no big deal! 

1930s Bentley on a 1950s Bentley frame. 

I wanted a photo of this detail on the Bentley, and noticed the reflection of the car body hanging up on the wall. 

Workshop at the Brumos Collection

Mercedes and NASCAR, together again?

1955 Porsche 550 Spyder

Porsche 959

Brian checks out the 1990 March Porsche Indy Car

I know you can read, it says 918 Spyder

Carrera GT

We give this museum two thumbs up. WAY UP!

Stay tuned for a visit to the more modern Porsche racers in another blog post. Thanks for reading. 

Guess the Top Selling Cars/Trucks/SUVs of 2025

SPOILER ALERT: 
The Honda Accord and the Honda Civic are on the list. 
The other 18 are listed below too. 

The final sales numbers are in, and we're going to count down the TOP TWENTY USA SELLERS for 2025. This includes cars, trucks, and SUVs. Sure, it would be fun to know the top selling bicylces, motorcycles, chicken sandwiches, and wrenches, but we're sticking with vehicles here. Not long ago we talked about the top 10 over the first three quarters of the year, but what the heck, let's live it up and expand to the top 20 this time. 

NMS did NOT buy all of these new cars last year in an effort to review them all, but, we reserve the right to buy one of every car sold in America if we win a big enough lottery jackpot. Furthermore, we reseve the right to test drive any car that any manufacturer sends our way for free too! PRO TIP: Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen!

Speaking of buying cars, did you know that the AVERAGE retail price of new vehicles is now OVER $50,000? Since we don't make pennies anymore, I don't know how many pennies that would be, but it IS over 50,000 dollar bills! As much as I like cars, I can't imagine paying that for a car. So, NMS would like to recommend what many other people recommend, and that is to fix your current car. Beyond that, if you have to replace it, buy a 3 year old used car and let someone else take the hit on the depreciation. With the number of used cars, certified pre-owned ones available, you can save a lot of money compared to buying a new one. 

There might be some even bigger sellers in China, India, or on Mars, so this list is for the USA, and includes car, trucks, and SUVs. It does NOT include the Tiny Tikes Cozy Coupe, any Matchbox or Hot Wheels cars, and also does NOT include any cars found inside a box of Cracker Jack or cereal. 

Before going to the list, I guess I was surprised that there are NO German cars on the list! German cars like BMW, Mercedes, Audi, and Porsche seem to filling the streets of America, but they aren't in the top 20. The top BMW I could find on the Internet was the X3 that sold 76,546. For what it's worth, Porsche sold just over 76,000 TOTAL in the USA among all their models. Mercedes? They sold less TOTAL than just the Toyota Camry. 

20. Kia Sorrento 94,772  Kia is Hyundai's slightly cheaper brand, more to come from this brand further up the list. 

19. Ford Escape 139,387 OK, another small SUV, the Escape has been around a long time, and NMS had a couple of the earlier versions. More SUVS and Fords coming up too. 

18. Hyundai Elantra 148,200   Yep, you see a lot of these on the road. 

17. Honda Accord 150,196  Here's our first Japanese brand, although I believe the Accords are built in Indiana. But this isn't even their top selling car on the list. 

16. Nissan Sentra 152,578  Another Japanese brand, Nissan has a couple of vehicles on this list. 

15. Jeep Wrangler 167,322   Well, well, well. Jeep is still selling! Will they have any more on the list? 

14.  Jeep Grand Cherokee 210,082   JEEP! That wait didn't last long! 

13. Nissan Rogue 217,896   Back to Nissan, and it seems like everyone has a Rogue. My only experience inside a Rogue was replacing a cabin air filter, which according to the book meant to REMOVE THE GAS PEDAL to gain access! I managed it without taking the pedal off. 

12. Ford Explorer 222,706  The Explorer was born way back in 1991, so I guess it's old enough to drink and vote. The guy that replaced an NMS windshield this year said that new Explorers have some common problem with their windshield trim, but Your Mileage May Vary. 

11. Honda Civic 238.661  Ah-ha! Here we go! Another Honda, and I have to say that NMS-South is VERY happy with his Civic Hybrid getting over 50MPG!

10.  Toyota Corolla 248,088   Toyota hits the top ten, and this is not their only vehicle!

9. Chevrolet Equinox 274,356  I've been surprised at how many Equinoxes (Equinoxi?) are out there driving around. Not everyone wants a Corvette from Chevy, and a LOT of people want the Equinox. I'm not if they all SOLD, but Chevy BUILT over 25,000 Corvettes last year!

8. Toyota Tacoma 274,638  Another big hit from Toyota is the "TACO" truck, the Tacoma. These have a great reputation, have been around a good long while, and you probably can't really go wrong with this truck.  I should probably point out that this midsize truck tops the full size Toyota Tundra, and continues to sell more than any other midsize or small truck. 

7. Toyota Camry 316,185  Top selling CAR in America, the Camry. All Camrys are now Hybrid, and based on our experience with hybrids, they are great. 

6. GMC Sierra 356,218  GMC full size trucks here in 6th place is amazing, considering that they are a part of General Motors/Chevrolet. I still say that if Chevrolet would combine these sales with the Chevy Silverado they'd be #1. 

5. RAM Pickup 374,059  From our friends at RAM (Stellantis), guess what? It's another full size pickup! 

4. Honda CR-V 403,768  Back in the SUV battle, here's Honda's top contender. The CR-V has also been around in the USA, since 1997, and it's still the brand's top selling vehicle of any kind. 

3. Toyota RAV4 479,288  As good as the Honda may be, the Toyota RAV4 takes the SUV title for 2025 with over 70,000 more sales. I can't really picture 70,000 SUVs, so I like to think about how many per each of the 50 states. In this case, that's 1,400 brand new RAV4s in each state. In the state of SC where I live, we have 46 counties, so that would be 30 new RAV4s right here in York County. I can kind of picture that, and 30 in EVERY county in the entire country is a lot of SUVs. 

2. Chevrolet Silverado 588,709  Enough with the cars and SUVs, Americans want to buy new full size pickup trucks. Here's the Chevy Silverado in 2nd, with over half a MILLION new trucks sold!

1. Ford F Series 828,832  Ford again takes #1 in sales with its big range of F Series trucks. Maybe the Tiny Tikes people sold more of their little toy Cozy Coupes, or even Hot Wheels had a bigger seller, but for real cars and trucks, it's the Ford trucks again on top. 

2026 Autocross Schedule

What's the 411 you say?
It's a 2009 Cayman!

This time of year is very exciting as various car clubs release their schedules for the new year, so Happy New Year! The Carolinas Region Porsche Club of America has released their autocross schedule, so we're filling in these dates on the NMS calendar and planning to attend. Depending on what else is going on in the wide wide world of sports I might drive at some other events with other clubs like the Triad Sports Car Club in NC, but the Porsche season is my main focus. There are six events being held at three different locations, similar to most years for this club. 

Last year: Greensboro Coliseum Parking Lot

Also like last year, the club will kick off the season with a meeting/lunch to also hand out awards from 2025, and introduce new drivers to this season's autocross events! The tentative date for the kick-off is in March, so we're counting down the days. 

The club is still negotiating to hold another event at the former NASCAR track Hickory Speedway in November, so more to follow on that one too. 

1-March 22nd Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro NC

2-April 19th Michelin Proving Grounds, Laurens SC

3-May 31st Winston-Salem Fairgrounds, Winston-Salem NC

4-June 28th Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro NC

5-September 20th Michelin Proving Grounds, Laurens SC

6-October 25th Winston-Salem Fairgrounds, Winston-Salem NC

Michelin Proving Grounds 2025

If you're interested in autocrossing with the Carolinas Region of the Porsche Club of America, you don't need a Porsche! You can find these and other events on the website below. You just have to create a free account for this website to search for events and sign up. 

    CLUB REGISTRATION LINK

Moving on to the Triad Sports Car Club, they also has a big year of autocross scheduled, and since their events don't  conflict with the Porsche club, just maybe I can sneak in most of those! Here's their TENTATIVE schedule, event registrations will be on 

     MOTORSPORT REG LINK

Beyond that I'm looking at other clubs like the Clemson University Sports Car Club too. There's just too many races, and not enough days!

2026: NMS Targets 24 Hours of Daytona!

Brian at Daytona in 2019. 

Yeah, well, we won the big lottery, bought a fancy racing team with some amazing bazillion dollar cars, and now we'll both be driving at the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona this month! YAAAY!!!! One of the prizes if you win this race is a Rolex watch, so that would be cool too!

OK, we didn't win the lottery, and didn't exactly buy a race team, but, we ARE going to Daytona! Not to drive, but to WATCH the 24 Hours! Since we won't be driving on track, we probably won't stay up for all 24 hours either, but that just means we can have a fun weekend, hang out at the track, walk through the infield, see what's going on in the race team garages, and soak up as much race car stuff as possible! As far as I know you don't win a free Rolex just for going to the race, but if they're handing them out we'll be sure to let you know!

While Brian and his friends have been to the 24 Hours before, this will be my first trip, so I'm looking forward to it. Man, the things you can do when you're retired! Here's Brian's blog post about his visit seven years ago. 

NMS LINK

NMS Garage Update

Plain white walls NOW upgraded with some car related decor!

It's a new year, and we have a few new items in the NMS garage. Nope, not new cars, just other stuff! In the interior decorating department NMS-North has thrown some more car posters and flags on the garage walls to go with the garge painting job from last fall. There's a few new tools in the drawers too, so things are keeping busy here. 

Holy posters Batman!
Even the far wall by the hidden water heater got some stuff on the walls!
The Alfa Romeo flag on the top was a freebie from the F1 race in Austin. 

Once upon a time I won an auction on some government surplus tool boxes from Fort Jackson SC, and ever since then every once in a while I'll check out cars, trucks, tools, and all kinds of stuff that gets sold on auction websites. This is one of those fantasy wish things, like winning the lottery, or finding a first year Fender Stratocaster for a dollar at a yard sale! None of those things will ever happen, but it's fun to imagine. 

NMS-South still uses one of those surplus auction tool boxes in the garage too! Just last month I saw some handy garage goodies up for auction, and managed to have the winning bid for two school library audio-visual carts. You know, like when you were in elementary school and if the teacher ever brought in a TV, or an overhead projector thing. Those carts make GREAT rolling storage spots for working on cars!

New black cart!

We had some of these carts at York Tech in the auto shop, and I always liked using them to hold removed parts, or even support a drain pan if needed, or put my laptop on for working on assignments in the garage. One of my favorite YouTube mechanics (The Car Wizard) uses AV carts in his business that he bought from a school! As an extra bonus, these two carts came with an electric power strip, so that will also be handy for any electrical needs. 

Black cart at NMS-North. Pretty exciting eh?

Now I have to make a big decision on whether or not to spray paint the carts RED to match the tool boxes in the garage. Life is full of choices I guess. 

New Front Rotors Day

OK kids, it's NEW FRONT BRAKE ROTOR DAY!

The biggest news during this off-season at NMS-North in the "Make the Car Go Faster" Department is new front rotors on the 2009 Cayman. Well, maybe brake components don't exactly make the car go faster, but they can make the car stop faster, which means you can STAY faster before braking, and ideally get back to going faster QUICKER. In other words, given two identical cars, the one with better  brakes will go faster on a track than the other one. 

Jack up the front, use jack stands, and remove the wheels for access to the rotors and etc.
For this job I just replaced the front rotors, and left the "etc." as is! 

Old drilled rotor about to be removed. 

With over 64,000 miles, and several years of autocross and track days, I'd say the (presumably) original rotors lasted a long time. While the originals were drilled, our new front rotors are slotted. If they last another 60,000 miles, that would be great! 

Pulled out the brake pads and removed the caliper. 

Old rotor is off, that just required removing two small screws and then SMACKING the old rotor to loosen it and pulling it straight out/off. 

Why just replace the fronts? Because the rears still look good and do NOT show the signs of wear like up front. Say, how DO you tell if your drilled rotors are worn? Well, without measuring thickness, you can look for cracks from the drilled out holes, and especially look for those cracks growing out to the edge of the rotor. The Cayman has BOTH of those symptoms up front, so that's why they're now going off to the big rotor pile in the sky. 

Caliper removal: The two T55 bolts circled in red come off, and the 10mm bolt that was in the green circle loosens the brake line (green line) bracket so you can remove the entire caliper. To the left of the red circles is where the two brake pads have been removed. 
Most cars have the caliper bolts (red circles) 90 degrees different than this Porsche set up. 

Some cracks out of the drilled holes, and that one BIG CRACK that has reached the edge of the rotor over there about 3 o'clock. Any crack hitting the edge of the rotor says it's time to replace it. 

LOOK! A shiny brand new slotted rotor. The left and right side rotors are specifically for each side, so I was careful to install them on the correct sides.

Overall, the rotor job was on the easy side, providing you have some experience and the right tools. My favorite part of this, (other than hopefully driving faster on track) was smacking the old rotors with a hammer until they were loose enough to come off. Sometimes they come off easy, but I remember a brake job on our old Camry that took a lot of serious pounding to get the rotors off. I'll get a bigger hammer next time! The right tools included: 

    Car jack, jack stands, socket and impact to remove lugnuts and take off wheels. 

    Hammer, punch, needlenose pliers to remove brake pads. 

    T55 and 10mm sockets with wrench to remove caliper. 

    Jack stand or hanger/bungee cord to hold caliper. 

    Impact screwdriver and hammer to remove old calipers. 

    Torque wrench for proper assembly. 

Afterwards, I pumped up the brake pedal, drove the car a bit, and all was good. The rear rotors really don't have any cracks, so they are OK for now, but I'll likely switch them to slotted in the near future.