Happy "Give Thanks for Driving Day!"

Robert and Brian, AKA NMS-North and NMS-South
Kind of like "Shake and Bake"

The NMS team wishes you the best Give Thanks for Driving Day ever today! We hear that some people celebrate a more generic "Thanksgiving" Day for families and friends, but we've pretty much narrowed down the day to being thankful for driving! We've been able to meet a lot of people, visit a lot of places, and have a lot of fun with various family and friends through driving.

NMS-SOUTH

Keep safe on the roads and at home out there, keep your car in good driving condition, and stay tuned for more updates from the NMS team in the near future. Soon we'll be holding a lot of press conferences to reveal our plans for driving in 2019, some new PROJECT X car work on a soon to be revealed racecar on tap, a full replacement for the mighty Camry brakes all around, and just maybe our end of the year for 2018 look back on top events in this year's highlights of driving. There's still a seat left in Formula 1 for next year, so you just never know! Thanks for reading!

NMS-NORTH

BMW Ultimate Not Driving Experience

FIAT ABARTH IN SNOW

This week I'd signed up for another round of the BMW Ultimate Driving Experience, to be held at CitiField, home of the New York Mets. Yeah, it was going to be a fun filled time to drive some new BMWs on an autocross course, and that means having fun. Then the weatherman predicted some snow turning into rain. Then the storm shifted a bit, and we got several inches of snow. Now I don't know about you, but I think driving in a few inches of snow is big fun, and I would imagine driving someone else's new BMW in several inches of snow, in a controlled environment in a big old parking lot would have to be one boat load of fun!

SNOW
That bus isn't moving, so I had to back up and go another way!

However, there was too much snow to run the event and the BMW folks sent us would-be drivers an email a few hours ahead of time to say that the event was cancelled. Nothing against BMW or the weatherman, but that's the way it goes sometimes on our planet. At least it wasn't cancelled due to a meteorite wiping out the sun or something really bad! I'd gotten to drive this event earlier in the  year at the New Jersey version, held at MetLife Stadium, so if you want to hear what that was like, check out this earlier blog post:  BMW POST

EMAIL

I can't really blame them, but it was too bad to end the day with a drive home in the snow without having tried out some BMWs again. Oh well, maybe next time. Hey, and one more thing, be careful out there driving in bad weather. In rain or snow, number one, slow down, make sure your windows are clear, and TURN THOSE LIGHTS ON so I can see YOU!

WHAT'S THAT SNOW COVERED RED THING?

To tell the truth, the short drive home in the snow was pretty tough in the FIAT, the roads were covered in slippery snow, and the traction control was working over time, along with the ABS brakes. The evening news was nothing but talk about weather and terrible commute all over New York, so at least I got home OK! Still, those BMWs are mostly made in Germany, and based on my three years of living there I know it snows, so the BMWs would have been a blast in the snow. Maybe I can find a nice ice driving school in Scandinavia to try out!

Lemons Cars

Team Altimate Driving Experience.
This is a Nissan Altima, themed as a BMW, with team members wearing German
Oktoberfest hats and shirts. Confused yet? It all makes sense for a Lemons Race!

Besides the two teams that NMS joined at the recent Lemons race, we thought we'd share some photos of the other crazy cars that actually made it to South Carolina, got on track, and tried to race for 14 hours. Even in REAL racing like NASCAR or IndyCar, cars don't always finish, things blow up, and cars collide, so it should be no surprise that this Lemons race with a total of 80 crappy $500 crappy cars had all those crappy issues too! The big difference I saw for us as Lemons racers was that we were all having fun even WHEN the cars blew up! Only three teams out of the 80 won any prize money (like Team Coronautski), but of course the prize money comes nowhere near the amount we spent to enter, race, equip the team, or even cover the cost to get to the race and put tires and gas into the car. I guess we do it for the fun! LEMONS HOMEPAGE

Hey, and speaking of fun, NASCAR driver Greg Biffle was at this race and drove with one of the other teams, so I bet he had fun too!

More Awesome 70s US Power!

This actually looks like a race car!

Silver Bullet themed car

Mustang

Police Car theme

This awesome car got a lot of attention, as I recall it's an early 50s Plymouth
body on a 70s Ford Fairmont or some other such ridiculous Ford. Amazing!

Friday night block party in Camden, lots of fun to hang out with the
teams, drivers, and local friends. Hey, a skeleton always comes in handy!

GI Joe from South of the Border!

Take a Ford Mustang, remove the back window, and add a truck camper shell,
and you've got the general idea of having fun at a Lemons race!

Lots of super heroes on this car, we'll say it's a tribute to Marvel Comics
founder Stan Lee. 

How do you make a Kia interesting? Add astro turf, a goal post
on the back, and make it a football field!

Can any car race? Yes, even a Ranchero!

Can trucks race? Yes, but I think this vehicle started as a car and
was modified into a truck look-a-like. 

Race a food wagon? No, this is just the delicious Italian
food vendor at Carolima Motorsports Park for the weekend. Lots
of Lemons racers camp at the track, and you get hungry!

It took me a while to notice that this was a right hand drive salute
to the US Postal service mail vehicles, but I didn't get the full story on this one!

Lemons cars are more fun with a crazy theme. Or if they're pink. Or both. 

Police car, "Boy, don't you know what yellow means?"

The Knoxvegas crew have been racing Lemons for a while. Spoiler alert, if
you didn't notice the huge wing on the back. This was taken at mid-day on Sunday. 

Bengal tiger maybe?

Racing a Buick Roadmaster station wagon? Yes, but there's more to the story.
This team won the award for epic fix, by breaking down, and then to find another '
motor that fit, bought an old hearse, went and got it to the track, and then
transplanted the motor into this Buick and got back on track during the weekend.
Or was it the transmission? Either way, it was epic!

Here's the Mercedes with the huge wing later on Sunday. Unfortunately there was a
collision of three cars and two of them were towed off the track. A good example of why
even Lemons requires all the safety gear from cages to helmets and full driver fire gear, harnesses,
fire extinguishers, and lots more. Even cheap crappy racing can get bumpy with 80 cars on track over 14 hours and many first time racers driving. I believe that all the drivers were not injured, and NMS fully supports all the safety gear as a mandatory part of any racing.