Category Archives: Trip Report

Friday at TMS with Chevrolet #ChevyTMS

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Chevrolet was nice enough to invite a friend and I to come out to spend the afternoon Friday at Texas Motor Speedway, then stay for the Rattlesnake 150 ARCA race Friday night.  After a conflict nicely cleared up, my friend Rick Barr was luckily able to join me for the afternoon.

Rick Barr test driving a Chevrolet Camaro

Traffic was light and we arrived early, so we headed over to test drive new Chevrolet models first.  They had a short course setup and you were invited to test drive any of several Chevrolet models, including several Camaros with V6s and V8s in the mix.

I think this is a great low-stress way to expose people to the current Chevrolet models.

Next we checked-in and went on a tour of the tire facility, then the transports and garages behind the scenes at Texas Motor Speedway.

Rick considers which tire to pick for racing

There were stacks of Goodyear tires waiting to be called into action. The race teams lease tires from Goodyear for the weekend. Each tire has an identification chip, so no one can sneak ‘special’ tires in, and none wander off to be resold for another venue.  Goodyear actually tests, in concert with selected Drivers, tires for all of the cars in the series to use at each venue.

Goodyear tire mounting stations

Our next stop was a trip to the race transports. Each transport carries 2 race cars, primary and backup, tools, and spares parts and equipment to assist with repairs, as well as food and snacks for the race teams.

Backup race car stored in the attic of the transport

It was quite interesting seeing what the racing teams travel with and the garages.

Tech Inspection

We also saw the cars undergoing technical inspection.  This was a prime opportunity to see a lot of behind the scenes things that one does not get to see normally when attending the race.  I like all the details and insight on how the teams prepare, technical inspections, and fueling, so it was all interesting to me.

Photo of the author during a lull in the proceedings

After a deluxe dinner of Pizza out of the bed of a couple of Silverado’s, we headed in to the infield drive opportunity.  For this event we each drove a Chevrolet Silverado pickup trucks on the actual Texas Motor Speedway, with one of the Racing Drivers for the evening’s race standing in the bed of each Silverado waving to the crowd.    The truck I drove was brand new, with 2.5 hours of operation time and almost no miles on it before this weekend.

Finally, we attended the Race itself.  The Friday night race was the ARCA Rattlesnake 150.  After we got some ear plugs it was a fun race to watch.  In fact, my number one input for NASCAR would be to consider muffled vehicles, but many perhaps feel that the roar of the cars is an important part of the experience.    Easy enough to bring or buy hearing protection I suppose, but since they have to throttle the cars anyway, why not require mufflers?

Texas Motor Speedway

All in all it was a remarkable day.  I was very glad of the opportunity at the ride & drive for some hands-on seat time in the Camaro, and in the displayed cars some opportunities to examine trunk space and other details.  The behind the scenes tour of the hauler and garages was unique, as was driving a lap of the raceway with a Driver in the bed of the truck.

All of the Chevrolet staff were friendly, nice, and efficient.  The entire day was well planned and coordinated without seeming stressful or strident in the least.  I definitely recommend bringing a guest or a friend to the event, as there were a lot of opportunities for discussion / visiting throughout the day.  One reason I wanted to attend the Friday session was that traffic was light going in and out of the TMS area, and we had no problems whatsoever with the commute there or back.

I would like to see more Cadillacs at this event, but it was very much a Chevrolet Event, and I appreciate them inviting me.  Do we know the lap time for a non-speed limiter equipped Camaro V8 or for the 2010 Cadillac CTS-V at TMS?  Don’t we want to know?

Chevrolet Malibu Driving Impressions

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Just a quick note on the Chevrolet Malibu, a National Rental Car example I am driving this week.  In the Chevrolet range the Malibu slots between the Impala and the upcoming Cruze, or the current Cobalt.

The current Malibu is on the GM Epsilon midsize FWD platform.   This is a good thing, because it is a very good platform.  GM has continued development of the Epsilon as the Epsilon II.  The upcoming Cadillac XTS is likely to be on the Epsilon II platform.  Epsilon II is adapted for FWD or AWD.

Rear:

This Malibu is a flex fuel vehicle, which means that it can run on E85 Ethanol Fuel.  E85 is 85% renewable Ethanol, and only 15% oil based Gasoline.  I think we could get people much more interested in E85 cars if they were rated by only the gasoline portion.  The Malibu using E85 for 100 gallons for say 3000 miles would only use 15 gallons of ‘gas’, for an effective 200 mpg of actual fossil fuel used.

Engine:

This Malibu has the LZ4 3.5L OHV V6.  Retail Malibus come with either the Ecotec 4 cylinder or the 3.6L DOHC V6.    I really have enjoyed the similar 3.6L LY7 V6 in my CTS, and I am a big fan of the Ecotec 4-cylinder series.  No bad choices here.

The 3.5L V6 has aluminum heads, an iron block, overhead valves, and limited variable valve timing. The 3.5L V6 was offered as an upgrade for special order fleet vehicles, (like National) to replace the Ecotec 4 cylinder engine, and generally was not available for retail customers.  This is the current example of the OHV V6 series that have largely been replaced with the 3.6L DOHC engines.  In the Malibu it makes a respectable 217hp and 220 lb-ft of torque.

Interior:


Overall the interior is well laid out and functional. I like the contrasting colors quite well.  The Malibu seems like a very good value.

Driving Impressions: The Malibu has very good low end torque, as you would expect from the OHV LZ4 3.5L  V6.  It is very maneuverable and responds well as I found since it seems everywhere I need to go on this trip requires a U-turn or two.  The controls are well laid out.  It is not a Cadillac, but I think this would be a good choice for most families for a family car.

Online Success Hints over Dinner

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I had a nice dinner at Mimi’s Cafe in McKinney with Sweetie Berry of She’s So There and her traveling crew last night.  Sweetie was in town as part of the Thelma Wells Ready to Win Conference in Grapevine, Texas.  Luckily, she is also my younger (as she points out frequently!) sister, so she was kind enough to slow down for dinner on the way out of town.

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L to R: Les, Bruce, Sweetie, Madison, Merrill, Robert

I’m afraid we bored everyone with website/networking talk, but I wanted to hear about the exciting things she has been up to in marketing and branding, and to get her input on some things I have been considering here at CaddyInfo to try to reach more Cadillac owners.  She had some plain talk about things I already knew but had not gotten around to fixing (so I went home and got started on those!).  But some of the things that she is consulting/coaching/enabling right now — marketing, branding, image, product development — are things that I need  to learn to do better to help Caddyinfo.com develop more ‘reach’.

I am ALL about talking to people who know how to do stuff you need to know how to do.  Especially if you know them lol.

Sweetie also some suggestions about how to organize and energize regional get-togethers for our CaddyInfo Readers.  I hope to put some more thought in on that and try to do more in this area.

One of my resolutions this year was to get our forum ‘up to speed’ — we had simply outgrown the hardware we were on (yay).  So the new hardware setup is a leap more expensive, but it was well past time for us to upgrade in order to match the 125+ simultaneous Cadillac lovers we are running lately on the forum.

I should also mention that my brother Robert also joined us for dinner.  Robert is an accomplished blogger.   He is a great model of how to maintain a consistent ‘voice’ across multiple media & platforms.  He is also doing some interesting things at ccmixter.

Mimi’s Cafe was good as always, and the service was excellent.