Ferrari Stock Symbol: RACE

The FIAT Chrysler Automobile company is spinning off their Ferrari brand into it's own company today, complete with the stock symbol "RACE". In case you didn't know, the Ferrari company was started by a gentleman in Italy by the name of Enzo Ferrari. Mr. Ferrari wanted to build racing cars, and as a side business he made enough road cars to make money to pay for the racing. That is the heart of Ferrari, which today mostly means their Formula 1 team the Scuderia Ferrari. His son Piero Ferrari is still involved with the company, and owns 10% of Ferrari.

Business wise, the big news in the past week has been that the initial offering price of Ferrari stock (symbol RACE, in case you forgot already), will be $52 per share. Now I'm no business expert, but I know that the odds of the average guy on the street buying any RACE stock today at $52 is about zero, so if nothing else, it will be interesting to see how the stock price performs in both the short term and long term in years to come.

You can certainly do an internet search and find all kinds of information on stocks, Ferrari, and Formula 1, so I'll just highlight that this weekend is the F1 race in Austin Texas.  Like all other racing weekends, Friday will have two practice sessions; Saturday morning is a practice session followed by the all important afternoon qualifying for grid positions, and then Sunday afternoon will be the race.
You can find the race and all practice sessions on the NBCSN app "Live Extra", and hit the highlights with race coverage on NBC TV. More info at the F1 website: F1 LINK

Also of note this weekend, American driver Alexander Rossi will be driving for the Manor team, so this marks the first American driver in the US Grand Prix since 2007. Good luck to Alex!

Gentlemen, start your engines, and RACE!

Yesterday's Results, Victory!

FIAT VS. FORD...NAVY BASE SHOWDOWN!

Over 100 drivers competed in auto-cross yesterday in Virginia, and some of them were victorious in the different classes, in RAW time, and in modified PAX time. You can find the link to all results at the bottom of this blog post, but for the NMS squad, the Victor was Brian Nixon in the Fiesta ST. Brian clearly set a faster time than Robert, so he's our NMS Driver of the Day.

Course walk before driving, all smiles!

It was a chilly day with temperatures in the upper 40s when we drove in the morning, and the breeze coming off the water made things even chillier. After four runs on a really fun course, the bottom line was that the mighty NMS FIAT took another first in GS class, while Brian's Fiesta took 4th out of 5 drivers in HS class.

Fuel stop before driving

In the overall results, Brian took a solid 23rd place out of 104 drivers, so clearly in the top 25%! Robert was way back with 72nd place out of 104, so nothing to write home about on that one! When interviewed after the event, the FIAT driver pointed out that he was driving on his regular slower  street tires, it was cold, the sun was in his eyes, he forgot to turn off the ESC control in his car on every run, and about 10 other reasons for going so slowly.

When informed of his team mates reply, Brian stated that "the only thing that matters is how fast you go, and my car went faster than his", so we'll leave it at that until the next event!

Can you spot the slightly battle damaged cone?

Thanks again to the Tidewaters Sports Car Club for putting on a great event! We've enjoyed driving with them for a full year now, and look forward to November's year ending event at Pungo! You can learn more about TSCC at their website: TSCC LINK

NMS South-winner of the NMS showdown!

The full results from yesterday's auto-cross are at this link: TSCC October 18 2015 LINK

Autocross Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY!!!!!!!!!!

This weekend the NMS team will be competing with Brian driving the Fiesta with the South Carolina Region at DARLINGTON on Saturday, and then both of us on SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY on the Chesapeake Bay in autocross competition with the Tidewaters Sports Car Club TSCC LINK.  If you'd like to see who is registered for this event, check out the driver's page on Motorsport Registration Motorsport REG LINK.

(and if you are a careful, literal, and smart-alecky reader, go ahead and ask us "do you  mean you're driving ON the Chesapeake? Like, you dudes invented a car that goes on WATER?)

One thing that is NEW AND IMPROVED on MotorsportREG is that each driver can enter their photo and a car photo, just to make it look cooler on line. You'll see both NMS drivers have updated their photos, and Brian's new Ford Fiesta looks something like the following:

We have a cool clear day predicted for Sunday, so we're anticipating a chilly morning in the 50s and then a high around 60 degrees (Fahrenheit, not Celsius in case you were wondering). We will report later on who won the battle of North and South, Fiesta and Abarth, FIAT and FORD, and see who takes the bragging right for fastest raw time, and fastest PAX adjusted time.

My prediction is that of course the FIAT will be fastest in both categories, AND hit fewer cones that the orange Fiesta driver from South Carolina named Brian. (I also predict that I'll find a way to cleverly turn his number sign upside down so that his car reads "SH 98" just for fun, but don't tell anyone!).

Have a great weekend whatever you do, and drive safely!