On my way to Mazda Headquarters in Irvine, Ca for Sevenstock!
The World’s Largest Rotary Show will be featured on Saturday, September 18, 2010. Come join over 5000 Rotary enthusiast from all over the world celebrate the little motor that can!
I was planning on taking Roy to the Duel at De Anza. but he wasn’t drivable since the accident; however, Brian was nice enough to let me use his Miata! Here are some snaps:
Papa Smurf (sans red hardtop)
Gallery of more:
A few weeks ago (May 5) Roy was backed into by an SUV (not so shocking, is it?!?!) while in a parking lot. Long story short – our insurance companies decided on 50/50 liability because determination of who backed up first or who initiated the accident was not determinable. I was pretty bummed and felt that it even if I saw the SUV backing up what more could I have done to prevent it? The driver of the SUV admitted to me that she didn’t see me when she was backing up; therefore, if I stopped or moved forward/backward Roy would have still gotten dinged.
I was distraught at the time of the accident and this tarnished my clean driving/accident-free record! After a few days of having Roy just sit in the garage and not looking at the damages, I had the other insurance’s estimater come out and the damage didn’t seem as bad anymore. Here are some snaps of what happened when an SUV backs into a Miata. And FYI – the SUV sustained literally NO damage to its bumper.
Yep, nothing to see here…
Left rear quarter panel.
Such a clean car (was!).
The lip of the fender(?) was bent outward so it was making contact with the tire when driving home. Luckily, I didn’t need a tow because I was able to “roll” it back up a little bit. Today, I changed back to the stock BBS wheels and no rubbing driving around the block, so now I can drive him to local bodyshops to get an estimate. The estimater said that the dents can probably be pulled out and then the panel would have to be repainted. Let’s hope that’s all I really need done.
My lesson that I learned – don’t park close to the entrance because that’s where all the idiots park.
Yesterday, I went back to Pro Tech to pick up the hardtop after having it repainted a second time (yeesh!). I spoke with Anthony on Friday to meet at 10am; well, on Saturday he thought we agreed on 11am and waiting at a shop that’s next to Recology (aka garbage disposal) is not very pleasant.
Got the car home and I decided to detail Roy’s exterior with help from Justin. Clay bar, swirl remover, polish, wax…all done in about 5 hours (yikes!).
Here is Roy’s before – swirl marks all over and lackluster black paint:
Spot check with the swirl remover – what a difference!
This is a snap of the trunk after some of the swirl remover was wiped off – like a mirror, the garage is reflecting off Roy.
Reflection of Moss on Roy’s rear panel.
About 1/3 complete.
The day went dark and we finally finished; unfortunately, I couldn’t take a better finale picture since it was too dark and was raining practically all day today. I really like how the hardtop looks! We’re almost ready for Laguna Seca.
Thanks Justin for helping~
I just ordered these lovelies -
I’ll be picking these up at the event next week! I’ve been dying to get these and I don’t know why I’ve taken so long to order them, but this is such a cheap mod while improving the stiffness of the car noticeably. From Flyin’ Miata’s website – “These braces slide over the factory frame rails and stiffen the car dramatically.” Sounds good to me.
Look for the installation and results in a couple weeks =)!