Coca-Cola 600 Report

Garage and Pit Pass, just one of our passes!

No, I did not just drink 600 Coca-Colas, but I did attend the NASCAR Coca-Cola 600 race at Charlotte Motor Speedway! Here's how that happened!

Kevin before the Drivers Meeting. This place was packed later! We sat in the 3rd row. 

Bob, Billy, and Kevin!

Oh yeah, Brad Paisley played a pre-race concert!

Brad Paisley PA speakers on wheels!

A month or two ago, an Army friend Billy Green called me up and asked me if I wanted to go. Specifically, he asked if I wanted to get infield/pit credentials, and hang out with him and his fellow Army Warrant Officer Craig Morgan! Mr. Morgan was going to be the National Anthem singer for the race, following a pre-race concert from another country music star Brad Paisley! 

I went in the Goodyear tire tent and talked with one of the head tire guys! They had 6 tire machines and 6 tire balancer machines. 

NASCAR uses 365/35R18 slicks, those are WIDE! Teams are free to use any tire pressures they want. 

Each team got 14 sets of tires for Charlotte, and Goodyear mounts them all. After that, the teams use power tools to make sure the mounting surfaces (circles above) are all cleanly drilled. 

Prepping the wheels. 

I'd like to think that mom and dad Nixon didn't raise any dummies, so I said YES to the invitation, and put COCA-COLA 600 on my calendar as fast as possible! 

It takes some gas to run in NASCAR!

Practice run for the National Anthem flyover. 

Walking the pits. Thousands of tires!

Craig Morgan served in the active Army and Reserves in the past, and came back on duty with the Reserves in 2023. For the past two years he's been a part of the Army Reserve Band in Red Stone Arsenal Alabama, and that's where my friend Billy Green got to know him. Billy is the commander of that band, and basically assists Craig with gigs like the NASCAR race! How cool is that? Anyway, I'd known Billy for a good while, and was really happy to hear from him, much less get an invite to the race! Billy had another set of passes, so another Army retired Bandmaster Kevin Pick came along too!

Practice for a military demonstration, there are soldiers on the rappelling lines hanging from both helicopters!

Just walking around the garages while the cars get pushed to the pit road. 

Time for a break with some free food! I even ate some asparagus, along with Bulgogi and rice dish. 

#88 is Connor Zilisch, a 19 year old young driver to watch, although he clipped a stopped car and got knocked out of this race. He drives for Trackhouse Racing.

Checking out the garages, team haulers on the left. 

This is on a Brad Paisley semi, so I'm guessing it might be his cowboy hat box and guitar case!

Kevin in the orange hat, and those folks sitting over there are the drivers at the Drivers Meeting. We were behind some politicians and the senior enlisted advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. 

The Drivers Meeting introduced some NASCAR and sponsors, included a salute to Kyle Busch, and then actually had a short video for the drivers to highlight the Charlotte specifics on pit-in, restarts, and cool driver stuff like that! Kevin and I were fully briefed, and ready to drive if needed!

Man, I'd hate to brag, but we got some serious VIP treatment! Free admission, infield parking, free food and drinks, access to the garages and pits, great views from the VIP rooftop just behind the pits! Along the way we met Craig Morgan, saw the inside of his bus, attended the Drivers Meeting, heard the Brad Paisley concert,  and saw a bunch of drivers and other dignitaries like Lee Greenwood inside the Driver Meeting! 

#33 was driven by Austin Hill, to take the place of Kyle Busch's #8. Kyle passed away just a few days before this race. 

Instead of a car number, Cole Custer's team uses this banana as a pit sign!

#24 William Byron of Hendrick Motorsport. 

Katherine Legge in the black baseball hat. She drove the Indy 500 earlier, and made it to Charlotte for the Coca-Cola 600!

#67 Corey Heim of Michael Jordan's 23XI team. 

Pre-race broadcast! They didn't want to interview us for some reason. 

We had a blast, so thanks to  Billy Green for making this possible! He and Craig had to hit the road right after the Anthem, and get up to Washington DC for a Memorial Day event the next day. 

Kevin and Bob do NASCAR!

May Autocross Report with NEW TIRES!

Did NMS just buy a classic Porsche 911? 
Nope. This is someone else's car at the Darlington autocross. 

It is now the month of May. Many people say it's the Merry Month of May, but I think they're just big fans of the letter M. Like James Bond's boss, you know, "M."

NMS Porsche Cayman: 2nd in B Street.

Anyway, after a bunch of autocross events and six track days, the Continental tires wore out, so NMS is now happy to be competing on Hankook RS4 tires. Out of the last five different sets of tires we've tried, the Hankooks lasted the longest by far, so we're looking for an excellent return on investment here. Or maybe they'll just last longer! The Continentals wore pretty well, but it looks like my car could use more negative camber to get more mileage out of the tires. The Contis were great in the wet too. 

Saying goodbye to these Continental tires. 

So, with the new tires, we headed to the first event of the year with the South Carolina Region of the Sports Car Club of America down at the parking lot of Darlington Raceway. This was where NMS started autocrossing, and it's the first autocross by the SCR for a few years too. 

There were just a few bits of rain when I got to the Darlington Speedway, and about as quickly as I put on a rain jacket it stopped, so the little bit of rain had no impact on the driving. The course was basically a series of slaloms, a big turnaround sweeper at the far end, and then some more slaloms and offsets coming straight back, including the world's largest Chicago Box bunch of cones. Mostly this event was fun just to be back at Darlington, and running with the South Carolina Region again!

After six runs on a very nice day, NMS came home in 2nd place out of 3 cars in B Street. A Honda Civic R took the victory, with a 2000 Porsche 911 in 3rd place. On the good news side, I was less than half a second behind 1st place, with my best time on the final run of the day. That always feels good to improve all day. 

Porsche 911: 3rd place in B Street

My best time came with lower tire pressures in the afternoon, the traction control turned off, and a different approach to the big sweeper turn. Unofficially I took 20th fastest time out of 70 drivers, so not too bad. There's always somebody faster out there!

Honda Civic: 1st place in B Street. 

The South Carolina Region has five more events scheduled for the year, so we've got them on the schedule!

Lotus cars always look cool!

NMS Adds DAYTONA to the Calendar!

For the first time, NMS will be driving on track at the famous Daytona International Speedway. Well, it's not quite NASCAR, or the famous Rolex 24 Hour race, but we will be driving on the ROVAL course at a Track Night in America (TNiA) event. With the TNiA  format, you get three driving sessions during a weekday, so it's perfect for drivers that like to skip work. Or drivers that don't work. Whatever!

NMS visited the track in January to watch the 24 Hour race, so we know some important information to help us navigate the course:

 1: It's in Florida! Pretty sure that is south of South Carolina and Georgia. 

2: It will be hot. 

3: The track uses a bunch of the big steep banking, but also uses the infield twisty bit, which all adds up to 3.56 miles per lap. 

4: If Brian doesn't go, I can set the internal NMS TRACK RECORD AT DAYTONA! That would be fun, because he's faster than me at every track we've both driven!

5: There is a Buc-ees at the next exit!

6: It's not a race, there's no prize money, so we'll be strictly limited to driving just to be HAVING FUN!

Look for a report from Daytona late in June. 

NMS Back on Track at CMP

Photo 1: Ready for the Side-By-Side drill with Scott in the Corvette. 
No rain on Sunday!

Photo 2: Rain on Saturday. 

During the first weekend of May, the NMS squad returned to Carolina Motorsports Park in search of faster lap times. Or maybe just more fun driving laps and not worrying too much about our times? Either way, we  drove on track and have fun! Brian mostly instructed in Driver Education, so that's a lot more time on track too. Oh, his student had a new Nissan Z car! More description below, but here's 4 laps on Sunday when the track was dry!

FOUR LAPS AT CMP

At NMS-North, we prepped for the track by checking the car for tire wear, brake pad wear, and double checking the coolant, brake fluid, and everything else. I got the car up on all 4 jacks to check things over and take care of business like BTO.  

Brian signs in on Saturday. Did we mention it was rainy?

SPOILER ALERT! RAIN!

NMS at CMP. We do acronyms. 

With a new upgraded to Castrol SRF brake fluid, the brakes were great.  After Saturday's sessions, I checked the brake pads and they were getting to that point where they should be replaced. So, Saturday night I put on the new Ferodo pads, and they were also great on Sunday! 

Porsche GT4 RS. He kept passing me! See the blog post from last week about driving one!

We don't run on race gas 100 octane. It's $11.49 if you do. 

Do Corvettes go on track? YEP. 

One thing that's fun about going to the track is seeing other cars, talking with other drivers, and of course trying to improve my driving skills. The weather comes into play, since driving sessions are held rain or shine, and only stopping for dangerous conditions like thunder and lightning.  

This Mazda was driving in my group!

Brian in the instructor seat.

Speaking of other cars, since Brian was instructing in the DE 1 group, here's a look at them heading out on track. Pretty much any kind of car can drive on track, as long as it's in good shape, and the driver has a helmet. What are you waiting for?

HPDE 1 GROUP VIDEO

Nice hauler!

My DE 3 classroom instructor Mike. 

Do Mustangs go on track? YEP!

Sunday was dry all day, so other than some concern for one of the front tires showing a lot of wear, things were good. Brian and I swapped the fronts left to right, and went with an increase in air pressure to try and avoid having any wear issues. This got the car through the day, lots of fun, but resulted in the NMS Chief Mechanic and Financial Departments ordering some new tires. 

One of the Spec Racer cars. 

If you're on track, there is a fleet of emergency, medical, and tow trucks and crew ready to support anything that happens. 

At the final session on a beautiful Sunday, Brian hopped in the right seat and coached me for 20 minutes. Well, when he wasn't laughing at how slow I drive he was coaching me. My driving group included the fastest group, the DE 4 drivers, and it felt like there was always people passing me up. That's part of the deal with Driver Ed, and it is all prep for any real racing on track, so just good experience. 

Spotted this Ford GT replica on Sunday, wasn't sure if it was going to be on track. 

YES! It was on track in my run group! Here's the view from my seat, waiting to go out. 

Also, with just the DE 3 group I'm in, we had sessions where we worked on our skills. In one drill, the idea was to do a lap side-by-side with another student. This forces you to be on different parts of the track, much less the spatial awareness of not hitting the other driver! I was driving with Scott in a fast Corvette, and it was a good exercise. Hey, here's a video! WARNING: it does include faster cars passing us and interrupting our actual side-by-side, but that's life too! SPECIAL BONUS: Starting about 1:55 of this video you can see the Mazda that passed me and had flames shooting out on the shifts! It smelled great too!

SIDE BY SIDE DRILL