AACA Museum Hershey PA, SWEET!

 

Over the holidays we were travelling in PA, and after seeing some of Gettysburg, well, we modernized things a bit and headed to the AACA Museum in Hershey. AACA is the Antique Automobile Club of America, and you can find the museum website at: AACA MUSEUM

I really enjoyed the museum, so if you're near Hershey, there's more to do than eat chocolate and go to the amusement park! Here's some cool cars you may not see every day!

First up, a display of three Packards and some related items you might find at a Packard dealership. Their hood ornament is a classic!

Believe it or not I saw a DeLorean on a trailer the day before, cruising through South Carolina, but it was still cool to spot these two DeLoreans in the museum. The one on the left was a 1981 production model, and the one on the right with the gull wing doors open is a 1976 prototype. From reading about these two cars I was reminded that they are rear-engine cars, although John DeLorean had planned on them being mid engine. 

Even I'm not as old as this next car, a huge finned monster of a 1957 Chrysler New Yorker. The size of these older cars is still amazing, and I promise that coming up will be some late 50s Cadillacs, just in case these fins aren't big enough for you! Julie pointed out that the CHRYSLER lettering on the front of the car is also concave sculpted, if you can tell in the photo. 

As a car fan, one of my goals is to some day own a car that was built the year I was born. Without giving anything away, well, this 58 Buick is now one my options. Before there were SUVs, there were mini-vans, and of course before that, there was the station wagon! And naturally a late 50s wagon also had tail fins! The two-tone color just shows you how the more-things-change-the-more-they-stay-the-same, since there are several cars you can get with a contrasting hood color like this today. 

Here is an ebony and a Kensington Green pair of 1959 Cadillacs. Even with the enormous tail fins, the front grill of the green one and the rear of the black one both have so much chrome you could almost get the front and rear confused! If planet Earth ever runs out of chrome or tail fins, just hop in your time machine and go back to 1959!

Finally, here's two all-American muscle cars, a 1969 Camaro and a 1974 Plymouth Road Runner. The orange Chevy and blue Plymouth help make these cars stick out, right along with the graphics and just how cool these cars were back when they were new. As part of the museums "Survivors" exhibit, keep in mind that these cars have not been restored, they are still in their original condition. 

NMS-North 2021 Review

New Year? New Helmet!

Happy New Year to one and all! We're going to look back at the last 12 months and look ahead at the next 12 months on the blog. Thanks for following along, because against the better judgement of our lawyers we WILL be continuing blogging here in 2022, with or without the dumb Covid pandemic!

Overall, 2021 was another fun year of automotive activities around NMS-North, despite the Covid pandemic, and despite a heart attack, and despite the first ever tornados in November on Long Island in history! All in all, it wasn't quite the end of the world, not quite worthy of a major novel or motion picture, so here's just some motoring highlights from the now passed year. Besides driving, we still did some Cars and Coffee events, visited some automotive museums, and worked on the cars. Some things never change!

Another day, another BUGATTI spotted on Long Island, here at an Autosport Design

sponsored Cars and Coffee event!

With 2021 being my first full year in the German car (AKA: built in Finland) Porsche Cayman, I was having fun early in the year doing some minor maintenance and basically figuring out how this mid-engine car works! Basic stuff like oil changes and changing filters and wiper blades I can handle, so getting familiar with how Porsche does those types of things was very educational. Thank goodness for books and YouTube videos! With the car in pretty good shape, including new wheels and tires, as well as new race strength brake pads and doing my own brake flush, I was hoping for a lot of driving this year. While I'm no professional, and don't have any fancy endorsements, I will recommend a few businesses that have given me great service this year. For European car parts, check out FCP Euro and ECS Tuning on line, and Rock Auto for just about anything for any vehicle. Here on Long Island, if you need anything for your Porsche, I had a great experience with M-Chanics, and would suggest you join the Porsche Club of America if you own a Porsche. 

Track driving wise, I had a blast with the Porsche Club of America (PCA) over a big three day weekend at Watkins Glen, as well as weekends with NASA-NE at New Jersey Motorsports Park (AKA: NJMP) on the Lightning course and back at Watkins Glen for another weekend on my now favorite track.  During my first ever visit to NJMP I moved up from beginner level NASA  HPDE 1 (with an instructor) to HPDE 2 (instructor not required.) That was a good way to kick off the year, so the next NASA event I drove at Watkins Glen was solo on track. The Porsche event was my first on track with that group, and I was lucky enough to have a great driving instructor, Steve Drgon.  The PCA  ran a very well organized and fun event for all the drivers. Between that, and hitting Watkins Glen on two different weekends, it was a great year right there! Other than buying some gas (OK, a lot of gas) and several sets of front brake pads, what a lot of fun! With those 3 events I hit my goal of just doing more track events, driving on a new-to-me track, and hitting Watkins Glen again with the PCA, so I'm checking those goals off my list!

Welcome to Watkins Glen, my favorite track!

Autocross wise, I managed to get to most, but not all, the PCA Metro NY Region events, so that meant driving at two different locations, Tobay Beach on the south shore of Long Island, and at the Nassau Coliseum. My autocross goal was to finish the year in the overall top ten PAX for Porsche cars, so I'm happy to say while this is not official, it looks like I accomplished that! So, in October I was sitting in the top 10, and got to compete in the Just-For-Fun top 10 run-off. That was a lot of fun, with the top drivers all driving 3 runs in the exact same car. Well, the driving part was fun, even with my lower-down-in-the-Top-10-performance, but after driving at that event and then helping pick up a few cones,  I started feeling really bad. After managing to drive about 40 minutes to get home, and then going go an urgent care place, I ended the day in the hospital getting a stent put in for a heart attack. On the bright side, I'm still alive, and as Gomez Addams would say, "I'm feeling much better now!"

One last thing; at the end of the year the Metro NY Region Porsche Club of America awarded me the "Autocross Enthusiast of the Year" award, so that was a great way to wrap things up. I've had a ton of fun with the club, and all the members have been very friendly and always ready to help a fellow driver! Thanks to Autocross Chairman Dan Fishkind for handing me this cool trophy, Mitch Hackett for being an all around good guy, and Steve Drgon for being the best instructor at Watkins Glen. 

While I'm not a doctor or anything, take my advice: take care of yourself and your family, keep on driving, and have fun! See you soon for some new goals for 2022!

Endurance Racing, It Ain't Easy

It was a long, difficult year for the #287 Miata and the Bunch of Idiots team. We started the year by heading out to Sebring, Florida for the furthest road trip we had done as a team. After 9 hours of travel, we started our race Saturday by forgetting to connect the fire extinguisher system and got a late start to the race. Mid-afternoon we flung the main crank pulley and had to send half the team on a 8 hour round trip to find replacement parts. Sunday we were back on track but the notoriously bumpy 1940s pavement shook loose the exhaust bolts and we were back in for repairs. After a few hours more on track I had to bring the car back in when something felt really bad in the back end. The paddock analysis determined blown differential and we ended the race early to start our long trip home. 

Sunrise over Sebring. The calm before the storm.

Over the summer we began to pull the car apart and find out what all damage we had incurred. The car was making a worrying grinding sound when it was rolling. The hasty exhaust repair looks like it had nudged the hot pipe onto the rear differential. The overpowering smell of burnt gear-oil confirmed we had over-heated the fluid and the differential gears were worn down. We swapped in another differential we had. One issue down but the grinding noise was still there. 

On track at Sebring International Raceway.

Taking the rear hubs apart we found the driver side had probably also succumbed to the excess heat and vibration and the sudden feeling of "something is broken" I felt on track that Sunday. Some of the bearings had blown apart. Time to replace the rear wheel bearings. While waiting for the wheel bearings to show up we thought it might be worth sending an oil sample out for analysis to make sure we didn't do any big damage to the engine by losing a pulley. 

Oil analysis say, "Time to replace engine bearings!"

Extracting one of the broken main pulley bolts while the guys go find a replacement part.

We pulled the engine back out of the car and sent the crankshaft out to be cleaned up. A few weeks later we had bearings and a crankshaft again. It all went back into the car along with a new exhaust system that would hopefully stay more clear of stuff under the car that doesn't need to be red hot. We went all out and put high end racing fluid in the engine and differential to do everything we can to keep us on track. 

The bearings surrendered.

We had just enough time to get in a short test day with NASA at CMP in November before heading to our final race of the year at Road Atlanta. Everything seemed to be lining up again. 

Saturday our race was delayed by almost an hour due to heavy fog. The damp track sent tons of cars spinning. We saw more yellow flag track time than green, but I kept us going near the top 10. After three hours I finally handed over the car to Luke, who also got caught in lots of double yellows. Not much racing going on. Mid-afternoon the clouds let loose some seriously heavy rain and we pulled the car in for our wet weather tires just prior to a black flag period to keep the workers safe from the lightning. 

Me, about to take a nap on grid, waiting for the fog to lift.

By the time Luke got going again he was slicing through the field like he was the only one on dry pavement. We were quickly moving up the field but continued to get hit with full course cautions that held us back. We had just crawled back into 9th when we had to pull the car off on the last lap of the day due to a coolant hose getting caught by the serpentine belt and springing a leak. Back to 11th, and time to find some replacement hose to get us ready for Sunday. 

Luke wheeling the car on a wet Road Atlanta.

Sunday we finally got sun and a dry track. Kyle got behind the wheel and started giving the top 10 a run for their money. We were looking good to make a come back. Nearing the lunch hour break we got the radio call that he had to pull the car back off track due to dropping battery charge. We hadn't flung a serpentine belt in a few races, but we grabbed tools and belt and got ready to make a quick repair.

Cruising up turn 1 at Road Atlanta.

We watched helplessly as the tow truck driver took nearly 15 minutes to pick him up and drag him over to us. Popping the hood we saw our worst case scenario. Another main crank pulley, freshly installed, freshly discarded. No spare parts, it was time to pack it in early again. 

Crank pulley resting comfortably on the car's undertray when we popped the hood.

Between fixing the racecar Kyle came to help replace the fuel injectors on my truck so we could keep safely towing to events. Heading out to a NASA weekend at Road Atlanta for time trials I managed to blow out one trailer tire on the way there and another on the way home, so all four tires got replaced this year as well. Even the tow rig isn't immune to a tough year.

Two dead trailer tires.

In 2022 we kicked things off on the first of January by replacing the main crank pulley (again) and taking an oil sample (again). Let's hope everything comes back positive. We're going to try to compete in a new series for us, Lucky Dog   RACELUCKY.COM at CMP and AMP, then possibly an SCCA endurance race at VIR. Lemons returns to CMP in the Spring, so we're hoping to do something for that event as well.