Volunteering at Roebling Road Raceway

Roebling Road Raceway, almost as old as me!

The NASA driving group offers a great opportunity if you are willing to volunteer and work at their race weekends. If you volunteer and work two weekends, you then have earned a FREE DRIVE at another two day weekend! Well, I do like free stuff, and I'm retired and can pretty much go volunteer on the weekend! Here's how my first volunteer weekend went. 

Adam Powlas brought the BUNCH OF IDIOTS Coronet to do some testing prior to the April Lemons race at Carolina Motorsports Park. 

On a Friday afternoon, I drove down near Savannah Georgia to Roebling Road Raceway, just a bit west off of I-95.  While I had never been to this track, NMS-South has driven there multiple times, so I guess that makes Brian the NMS lap record holder at RRR (like every other track we've both visited.) I like the triple-R name too, maybe there is a Triple-R ranch out west somewhere! 

Waiting to enter, one unique feature of RRR is that the entry road crosses the racetrack! Here I'm just waiting for a driving session to end, so we can get into the paddock inside the track. 

Track walk heading to turn 1. The brake markers count down from 5 to 1, and I adjusted the #4 sign since it had come loose. You're welcome. PRO TIP: ONLY do the track walk when there are NO CARS ON TRACK!

Typical part of the track, heading into a corner. Note the worker station on the right, and the high sand berm straight ahead to keep you from running into a tree if you go off course. 

Scenic tree trackside. 

I travelled in the Maverick hybrid truck, so let me just point out that a hybrid car or truck gets pretty darn good gas mileage. In the spirit of low cost track weekends and saving money, my plan was to camp at the track for two nights, and then drive back late on Sunday. Hey, that way I could go to work bright and early on Monday. Nah, I planned to stay retired on Monday too!

Front left racecar is a Radical. Makes a great birthday present!

Also in the money saving department, the NASA folks throw in your lunch for free every day, and Saturday night's awards event included dinner! That left me on the hook for a couple of breakfasts and a bit more, so one package of EVERYTHING bagels, a jar of peanut butter, and some bottles of water pretty much took care of that!

You can park on the grass anywhere, or spend a little cash and stay in a covered garage with electricity. 

So I drove down, set up my tent, and had plenty of time to walk around and check out the cars. Shoot, I even went ahead and walked the 2 mile track when it was quiet in the evening, and got a good look at all the corners. After that, unfortunately, I woke up in the middle of the night and felt very sick, so long story short, I came home on Saturday morning and missed out on the rest of the weekend. Sometimes stuff just happens! 

More racecars!

Hopefully sometime I'll drive at Roebling, because the track looks to be a lot of fun, very flat, and with plenty of run-off area. It's mostly gradual curves, so not too tough on the brakes and tires.  

Wrapping up the track walk on the finish straight, maybe next time I'll drive it!

Best of Britain Car Show

1948 Rolls Royce Wraith Sedanca, and yes, it's right hand drive. 

Rock Hill SC was the scene of a recent Best of Britain Car Show, so we had to check it out. Oddly enough, all the cars on display were British. Funny how things work like that. 

1972 Jaguar E Type

Vehicles were displayed on a grassy area at Winthrop University on a clear Sunday morning, and there was a display from the folks at Hagerty's, and a pizza food truck as well. Judging by the numerous new Land Rovers, I'd say they were from a nearby dealership, but I'm sorry to say I don't know which one. 

1997 Lotus Esprit, 6 cylinder. Some of these had 8 cylinders also. You might remember seeing one in a movie that James Bond drove underwater!

Here's some of the sights, with brands such as Rolls Royce, Bentley, MG, Triumph, Jaguar, Land Rover, and Morgan. 

Land Rover Defenders

Land Rover with Marshall speaker. Yes, Marshall the guitar amp company is also British. 

Land Rover rear seating, ready for safari. I guess if you are doing serious off-roading you don't worry about head restraints.

Jaguar E Types

V12 powered Jaaaaaaaaggggggggg!!!!!

1958 Jaguar XK150! I'm putting this on my list of "Cool Cars That Are As Old As I Am."

Triumph TR8, with a V8 in there!

1967 Morgan +4

MGB GT

Similar looking Bentley on the left, and Rolls Royce on the right.

1938 Rolls interior. The driver compartment is open, but the folks riding in the back are covered. 

Rolls Royce

The classic Rolls Royce Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament. 

Two colors of Triumph TR6. 

2024 Aston Martin

Jaguar in line 6 cylinder.

Looking down on a newer Jaguar door handle, with the brand name visible when it's open. When closed it's flush with the door.  

NMS Project TUNDRA THUNDER!

Reliable brand name? Toyota!
Is it a truck? 2000 Tundra SR5 1st generation!
Does the truck have power? V8!

Project TUNDRA THUNDER? Are we going to Alaska to study the weather? Visiting the far north of Russia? Nah, it's a Toyota truck project we just started. It's about 100% positive that you've heard of the Toyota brand, and just as likely you know their full size pickup truck is the Tundra. So what's the deal with this one? Glad you asked!

Tundra SR5 with the small rear seat came with these wheels...

And then Brian added these wheels. 

When this truck became available, the NMS Acquisition Department quickly concluded that it would be even more reliable and suitable for a new driver than the 2002 PROJECT INFINITI. So, the INFINITI was sold to a new owner, and the TUNDRA THUNDER TRUCK will be our project to give to a young relative that just got their learner's permit! 

Ready to do some towing almost.

On a related note, the younger NMS-South wanted a truck when he started driving in high school, and his thinking that a truck holds up to other young drivers around a high school parking lot better than anything else, so there's some great thinking there! That was the NMS Ford Ranger that is now long gone, but man it lasted a long time!

Mileage? Only 166,000 miles!

This is a 2000 Tundra SR5 with 166617  miles. Unfortunately the owner passed away recently, and the family put it up for sale. It needs a little work, but this generation (2000-2006) of  Tundra trucks has a great reputation. They also have a reputation for a not-so-great lower ball joint design. Knowing this ahead of time, we checked it out and sure enough, Brian at NMS-South went ahead and replaced those ball joints with new Toyota OEM parts. This is a known issue on these vehicles, and as long as you replace them every bunch of thousand miles, you should be good.

New Toyota OEM lower ball joint. 

What happens if you don't maintain those lower ball joints? BIG PROBLEM. Like, the ball joint loosens/drops and your truck comes crashing down to the ground as the wheel falls off. With preventative maintenance, you can avoid the BIG PROBLEM. 

Creature comforts and modern technology? AC, along with CD player AND a cassette tape player baby! What could be more modern than 2 basically obsolete music systems?

Class Victory in Greensboro!

Driver meeting

The Carolinas Region of the Porsche Club of America returned to autocross for this year up at the Greensboro Coliseum. Let me update that first sentence and call it the First Horizon Coliseum, since it was renamed just over a year ago. OK, we're all up to date, so, how did it go? It went just like in this video of one run:

YOUTUBE VIDEO LINK

I hope you liked that video, because it was from a new GoPro camera! When I bought my used Cayman, the previous owner had stuck a GoPro mount on the dash, and even the latest cameras still use the same mounting system! 

A Ferrari owner with a sense of humor, they picked #911 to drive with the Porsche club!

NMS in 6th overall, you can see all times for the 10 runs

Earlier, before everyone drove, I was briefly in 1st place!

Boxster #16 waits to drive, Autocross director John Kelly takes photos. 

Overall, the NMS #77 won the S03 class of three drivers, finished 6th fastest overall from 38 total drivers, and was the 4th fastest Porsche out of 26 P-cars. In case you are wondering, the fastest overall car was a Lexus ISF! We had a couple of classic cars, Miatas, an older Camaro and Trans Am, as well as a Porsche 914. Shoot, there was even a recent Ferrari!

Waiting on my first run, 10:13 in the morning, it's 72 degrees, and my tire pressures are at 29psi. The car calls for 30 front and 31 in the rear, but I've found that slightly lower pressures work better on this car. 

The weather was great, and all the drivers had five runs in the morning, and five runs in the afternoon. OK, the weather warmed up to the hottest day of the year so far, so I drank five bottles of water and used my sunscreen. Shoot, I bet all that extra weight in the water slowed me down by the afternoon! 

Afternoon session at 1:41, the temp is up to 85, and I lowered the tire pressures to 27/29. 

Driving wise, I managed some pretty good times in the morning, but struggled to improve much in the afternoon, and only dropped another tenth of a second from the morning. I tried lowering my air pressures, and that wasn't any faster, so on my final run I pumped the pressure up to normal, and that wasn't any faster either! I guess I just need more experience, so look for more autocross action in April! 

NMS flies the Ohio flag on the helmet. 

Rotate Those Tires, Change That Oil!

2023 Ford Maverick Hybrid. Ask me about getting 40+ MPG!
Don't ask about the Aston Martin F1 flag, they aren't looking too good this year. 

Car manufacturers always recommend rotating your tires and changing your oil, so recently that's just what I did on the Ford Maverick. The truck just hit 30,000 miles, so whether that was due to hitting that number, or that I was 7,000 miles past the tire rotation, my Ford app told me it was time to get to work. You can always do this the easy way and just take your car to a shop and have them do it, but what fun is that? You'd hardly get dirty and have to spend money!

Well heck, with the wheels off, go ahead and inspect the shocks and brake pads. 
This one has the coil over the shock. They're still there!

I admit that I did check the owner's manual to make sure I was rotating in the right direction and got the right type of oil, so other than that, it was straightforward. Ha, ha, just a little tire rotating humor there, "Straight Forward!" Only the rear tires could possibly get rotated "straight forward" if you think about it! My little book said that the rears move straight forward to the front, but that the fronts crisscross and go to the back. 

In the wheel well on the driver side rear, what's that green thing?
It's the backup fuel door opener, if the regular door opener button on the dash doesn't work, so you can still put gas in the truck. Some cars will have a backup thing like this in the trunk, or even in the door jamb area close to the fuel door. 

At first, this moving tires was very difficult, so let me give you a PRO TIP: JACK UP THE VEHICLE FIRST! Hey, that's two hilarious jokes already, you're welcome! Yes, jack up the vehicle safely and use jack stands to make removing and installing the wheels easier. It really is a great tip!

When the wheels were removed, I checked the suspension, brake pads, and just kind of in general looked for any problems. This also let me measure my brake pads for wear, and measure the tire tread depth to see how they are doing. As far as I know a lot of cars come with cheaper tires if you buy them new, so I'm curious how much mileage these Continental tires will last. With 30,000 miles, they are all around 5/32nd, so I'll keep watching them and replace them down around 4/32nd. 

Sometimes the shock and coil are separate.

Brake pad wise, things are still good there, although I noticed the rears were down to 8mm and the fronts were better off with 10mm. Normally this would be all backwards, but with hybrid vehicles that use regenerative braking, it is common for the rear pads to wear faster than the fronts. That's just some good to know info. 

Oil change, and showing off my nifty cart!

Another excuse to write on my truck, reminder on what size the drain plug uses.

 

Removing the oil filter was also easy, but sure, I dripped a little bit on the garage floor, so no world record there! The Maverick came with the first oil change included for free, so I've now done two others. The easiest part of this oil change is going to the dashboard and changing the oil change setting, since it's very user friendly with the computer menu. No tricky "hold the key with your toe, stick out your tongue, turn the key 27.5 times, and say There's No Place Like Home."

In the NMS Oil Change Department (OCD I guess!) we tied a WORLD RECORD by draining the oil with exactly NO DROPS of oil on the ground! This was easy with the truck jacked up high enough to get a 5 gallon bucket right under the oil pan, remove the bolt, and BOOM the oil just flowed into the bucket. 

I was going to remind you to SPRING ahead, but that's just too corny.