Summer Reading!

New book from F1 mechanic Calum Nicholas

It's summer time, I'm retired, so I'm finally reading Dr. Zhivago, Ulysses, and War and Peace. Nah, none of those! I don't have any Shakespeare, romance novels, or X-Men comics to read either, so here's a list of two books I recently bought. Believe it or not, they both have to do with cars!

First up is a book about being an F1 mechanic. Oddly enough, it was written by an F1 mechanic! This book by Calum Nicholas just came out this year, and I really enjoyed hearing his point of view of  how he got into F1, and the challenges of being a minority member of a traditionally very white industry.  Seven time F1 champion Sir Lewis Hamilton has been very active in working to make the industry more open to all people too. 

7th edition. We use the digital version for school. 

Next up, I bought the hard bound copy of my Automotive Technology text book! This one is NOT going to be on any best seller lists, but it covers a lot of territory when it comes to working on cars. For my school work we use the online version, but just for the heck of it I figured it would be cool to have this massive book too. Go ahead, call me old fashioned, just don't call me late for lunch! While this is not a specific manual for repairing a certain part on a specific auto or truck, it's a big overview of all the systems on a vehicle and how they work. 

This book has EVERYTHING! Words! Pictures! Diagrams!

Final Prep for Barber

Shiny new rear rotors with "we just rebuilt these gold guys" Brembo calipers!

With just one week to go for our next track weekend, NMS tackled just a little bit of work on the 350Z. On top of the following highlights, Brian was taking the car in to a shop for a real alignment, which of course we'd recommend for any car going on track, but especially when you've replaced some front suspension parts. 

New front rotor with much larger "we just rebuilt these gold guys" calipers.

Old front upper control arms. Maybe not the hardest bit of car work, but certainly not the easiest to get these things off. 

Also a front rotor and caliper, with new brake lines too!

Why, that looks like a new upper control arm! BAM!

SPOILER ALERT: NMS Targets Trip to Barber!

Here is a great example of an old, ripped, and no-good brake caliper piston outer seal. If only there was a way to rebuild calipers!

1: It's summer, and the hair is getting long, so it's time to go to the barber. 

No, wait, that's not right. 

2: It's summer, and time to visit the summer opera Barber of Seville!

Nah, that's not right either. 

3: OK, how about this...there are several musicals and operas with barbers in them! Besides The Barber of Seville, how about Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street? Oops, wait, he's the guy that sells meat pies made out of, uh, customers. We're not going to his shop!

4: Last try! In July, NMS will be driving on track at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama! 

Yeah, that sounds right!

In this case, both drivers will be taking turns with the NMS Nissan 350Z, driving with the NASA organization, and just working on their driving skills. Sure, we'd like to be considered the top two candidates to drive for the new Cadillac Formula 1 team in 2026, but for now we're keeping our options open. Like REALLY, WIDE, WIDE, OPEN. As in "Will drive for food" open!

If you're not familiar with the track at Barber, here's a short video of the highlights from last month's Indy Car race! I'm sure we'll be going way faster than those drivers!

    INDYCAR BARBER 2025 HIGHLIGHTS

Track prep equals new rotors, brake pads and brake fluid.

One bonus of going to Barber, is that we will also visit the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum. How does the largest motorcycle museum in the world sound to you? We'll visit and give a report! You can read about the museum on their webpage: 

    BARBER MUSEUM

Got old used front brake calipers? Rebuild them with new seals.

Anyway, back to driving, one of our assumptions is that it might be a little on the warm side, driving a hot vehicle in Alabama. In the summer. On hot pavement. Wearing a helmet. With no air conditioning. You know, it sounded like a good idea to make the car lighter when I removed the AC system last summer, so hopefully we'll live! No, I'm not putting it back in either!

Rear calipers get the refresh spa treatment too!

Our plan for beating the heat is to drink plenty of refreshing water, and to fire up our NEW Cool Shirt Driver Cooling System. What is a cool shirt? Is it really a shirt? Does it really keep you cool? How many dumb questions will there be before we get an explanation on this thing? Glad you asked!

The Cool Shirt (and other brands with different names) is basically a cooler filled with ice that melts and then gets pumped through a hose into your Cool Shirt. Basically a fish aquarium pump is sending that nice frigid water to keep you cool! The Cool Shirt is basically a t-shirt you wear next to your skin (and/or under a racing suit if you're wearing one) and the shirt is covered with tubes for the cold water. I've worn it a couple times, and I can guarantee you that on a hot summer day in places like South Carolina in a hot car, it feels pretty darn good!

Bottom line on this report is that we might not be fast, but we'll be COOL BABY!