COCOA Concours de Nice

Sunday, June 14, 2009 - Costa Mesa, CA

2009 Concours de Nice winner: Best of Show

Earlier today Les and Chad showed off Dr. Miller's Thunderbird racecar and the Falcon at the Cobra Club's annual Concours de Nice car show at Park Mall in front of the Westin Hotel across the street from South Coast Plaza. The Thunderbird was up against some stiff competition in the Competition class which included a '67 Cougar, and a couple of late model Mustangs. I thought the T-Bird had a good chance, but Stockwell's '65 Shelby Mustang Replica took home the trophy. The Falcon on the other hand has a tradition of receiving second place to a Thunderbird in the Special Interest class. This year one of those Thunderbirds was entered again along with a '65 Galaxie, but none of us gathered enough votes. Instead second place went to Tom's green '66 Fairlane GT, and a beautiful red '40 Ford with ghost flames and shiney flathead in the engine compartment. It was another tough loss for the ol' Bird of Prey which pulled out all the stops this year: clay bar treatment, waxed all the way around, and longboard prop (of which it did receive an Honorable Mention for best use of a surfboard).

Although we didn't win any trophys or raffle prizes, it was a good day: it didn't mist on the morning drive over like it usually does, it wasn't too hot or too chilly, there were lots of beautiful and unique Fords, as well as great people to hang out with. Then, to put an exclamation point on the day, the Los Angeles Lakers won the 2009 NBA Championship! The Purple Reign is back!

Team Jerome Sets Record Time at TTC

Thursday, June 11, 2009 - Hollister, CA

Travelling halfway across the country from his home in Blue Springs, Missouri, Les' nephew Brett Jerome is currently in Hollister - a town known more for motorcycles than rock-crawlers. Brett was selected as a finalist in the Four Wheeler Magazine 2009 Top Truck Challenge taking place June 8-12. His 2008 Jeep TJ buggy was the #2 vote-getter. On Monday, Brett and his team won the Frame Twister event, and today they set a new course record of 6:08 minutes in the Tank Trap event. Congratulations Team Jerome. Keep up the good work.
Click here for more details and updates on the Top Truck Challenge.

A Racecar-Themed Birthday

Sunday, May 31, 2009 - Costa Mesa, CA

Party guests pose with a real racecar

Les spent part of the afternoon today at Heller Park in Costa Mesa adding some "vroom" to a racecar-themed birthday party. Jett, the young birthday boy, celebrated his fourth year with a racecar bounce house, a Lego car building station with mini ramp to race them down, face painting, and cupcakes each with their own plastic racecar topper. Rounding out the theme was a real racecar! That's right, the Nimmo Machine Mustang was the hit of party... well, after the bounce house at least. All the party guests got to take the checkered flag while sitting in the racecar to have their picture taken, and some even wore Les' helmet. Jett's mom celebrated her "labor" day by jumping in the car for a picture too. We hope all the kids had a fun time (especially our neighbor Blake), and wish Jett a happy birthday.

Fabulous Fords Forever

Sunday, April 19, 2009 - Buena Park, CA

This particular Mustang really stood out amongst the others

Today we walked around an overflow parking lot for Knott's Berry Farm and looked at nothing but Fords, Lincolns, Mercurys, and other Ford-powered cars at the 24th Annual Fabulous Fords Forever. Although it seems to always be extremely warm at this car show, it was un-seasonly hot this year, reaching 100° in neighboring Anaheim. As always, the Mustang and Bronco sections grew the most. With so many Mustangs, it's easy to get sick of looking at them, but there are always some that standout more than others, and those are the ones that keep you looking. There were some great individuals cars in the class, but what really caught my eye this year was the eight or so real '80s CHP Mustang Interceptors parked together. Let me tell you... that is a bad ass vehicle there. Not too many get away from them. The Ford Racing booth was showing off their modular crate motors, and had a hotrod sporting an aluminum Cammer engine. I was also able to grab a poster of their 2002 concept car FR100. We found a Saleen Focus ZX5. I didn't even know they made a Saleen Focus. At the end of our walk, the Ford booth was showing a new Focus coupe wearing a 3dCarbon Euro-styling kit. They may be on to something here.

Overall, the show seemed smaller than previous years. Some groups of cars were set up in the main lot instead of the side areas they usually are. And even though there were more Mustangs than ever (it was an anniversary year), some cars were way under represented. I saw only one Cortina, and do not recall seeing any Merkurs, Edsels, or even '50s-era Rancheros. It was odd, but maybe I just missed them. There were a lot of cars.

Cal Poly to Compete in Eco-marathon Americas

Wednesday, April 8, 2009 - San Luis Obispo, CA

A team of students from Cal Poly SLO, Chad's college alma mater, will be competing in the 2009 Shell Eco-marathon Americas at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana on April 16-18. This year the Cal Poly entry, known as Black Widow, will attempt to top its 2008 second place finish of 2,752.3 miles per gallon. Wait… that was second place?! The "Supermileage" team is up against 51 other high school and college teams from North and South America. Go Mustangs!
Click here for more details on the team and the event.

That Guy Can Go; That Cat Called Domino

Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - Costa Mesa, CA

This past October, the Falcon was used as a prop for a film student's class project. His project was making a music video for the Roy Orbison song "Cat Called Domino". The Falcon worked two days of principle shooting; one in the parking lot of the Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa, and one driving around Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach. I recently found the finished video on YouTube.
Watch the '64 Bird of Prey in action here.

Model A Club Pancake Breakfast

Sunday, March 29, 2009 - Orange, CA

Today instead of our traditional Sunday morning waffles, we headed over to Hart Park in the City of Orange for the 48th Annual OC Model A Ford Club Pancake Breakfast. It was pretty crowded with approximately 240 Model A's, about 20 Model T's, and around 60 or so other classic Fords. There were coupes, sedans, panels, trucks, hot rods, stocks, flatheads, OHV 4s, and everything in between (check out the "car shows" photo album to see a few of 'em). And you couldn't beat the price; the car show was free and breakfast was only $5. It wasn't the best breakfast ever, but hey, you're paying five bucks to a car club, what do you expect... Eggs Benedict and Momosas? Some of the other classics that were there included a few Thunderbirds, some '50 Fords, '40 Fords, '34 Fords, and '30s-era Lincolns. It could have been a touch warmer, but regardless it was a pretty good start to the day.

COCOA Driver Training at Willow Springs

Thursday, March 26, 2009 - Rosamond, CA

This past Tuesday, Les participated as an instructor at the COCOA Open Track and Driver Training Day. It was a beautiful day at the "Fastest Track in the West" with clear skies and no wind (which is rare at Willow Springs). After a morning classroom session where the drivers were giving safety information and shown the apex of each turn, it was time to put the new-found knowledge to work out on the track. Les did ride-arounds with Don in his Mustang, and Jeff and Delvin in their respective Cobras. Overall, it was a fun day with lots of track time, a few spins, some engines problems, and everybody eventually clipping the dirt in the turns. No late braking in Turn 1 though; the teacher doesn't reveal all his secrets.

COCOA New Member Cruise

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - Costa Mesa, CA

The Thunderbird and the Falcon participated in the Cobra Owners Club 2nd Annual New Member Cruise this past Saturday. The cruise was established to celebrate and introduce any recently joined members to the guys that have been around for awhile. The Club met in the morning at the Main Place Mall in Santa Ana, and after the route maps were handed out to everyone, we headed up the 55 Fwy to catch the 91 Fwy over to the 15 Fwy.

Filling up the Parking Lot at Tom's Farms

Off the 15 South we made our first pit stop at Tom's Farms on Temescal Canyon Road in Corona. After a quick walk through the candy shoppe, produce market, and wine & cheese store, the club filed out of the parking lot and back onto the freeway making our way to the Ortega Highway. Winding up the Eastside of the Santa Ana Mountains, past the famous Lookout Roadhouse and through the Cleveland National Forest, we eventually arrived back at the ocean and our second pit stop at Mariner's Village near Doheny State Beach in Dana Point. We were running a little behind schedule, so once everyone regrouped we were off again for a short stint up Pacific Coast Highway, eventually turning East and making our way to the 5 Fwy.

The San Diego Freeway North to the 405 Fwy completed the cruise with the final stop at club member Paul Westberg's "clubhouse" in Costa Mesa. All the cruise cars were on show along with some others that were already there including a racing Cougar, pristine Candy Apple Red T-bird, a custom-built Cobra Daytona Coupe, and an overhauled original Mini Cooper. The hosts were serving up hamburgers and hotdogs, salad and soda. There were awards for the "Black Glove" car show, and competitions around Willow Springs in the two state-of-the-art racing simulators (I wish they'd had a post-mortem Riverside Int'l program; that would have been cool). And of course there was plenty of car discussion. As the afternoon wore on, the shop was set back to normal and the cars in the parking lot slowly dissipated back their garages. Some louder than others.

Website Gets a New Paint Job

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - Costa Mesa, CA

Original layout of nimmo-machine.com

The official website for Nimmo Machine Vintage Racing (or as I like to call it: dad's race car), has been overhauled! A new design, new layout, and new features (with more to come). As you can see by the picture to the right, the previous design was a little old and stale. I've used my recent "time-off" work to learn new techniques for improving the site. This is a soft launch as I work on adding archive and videos pages, as well as RSS and comments features. Right now you can check out the updated 2009 schedule, an all-new photo gallery with pictures hosted on Flickr, and a tribute to Chuck Daigh (an underappreciated fabricator and racer of his era, and a friend of Les' for over 20 years). Oh, and as you may have noticed, the site is in a blog format now, so check back to read about what's been going on with the race car and the family's other classic Fords. Thanks for your support.