The 2008 FM Open House

How do you celebrate 25 years in business? By throwing a party, of course! Our 11th Open House was a big success.

Everything kicked off on Thursday, with visitors roaming the shop and checking out the new digs. And interrogating FM employees on everything they saw!

Friday was the track day. It's become a bit of a tradition to break the track record here, something we've done three out of the last four years. And so we did again. Three cars broke the record, and there was only 0.003 seconds between the two fastest cars. To put that into perspective, that's only 4" at 70 mph.
See the times here

That night, we descended on the Sonic for bench racing and free food. We're not the only ones, of course. There are always lots of cool cars. This year we got visited by a Countach.

Saturday was parade day. Someday we'll figure out how to make a marching band out of the Miatas. After the parade was the main event - the FM shop was wide open to all and sundry. We had ECU classes, cornerweighting classes and impromptu lectures on anything Miata related. That night, we had a big banquet with good food, track day awards and a drawing for various door prizes.

On Sunday morning, most of the Miatas reunited to drive up the Grand Mesa, a 10,800' flat top mountain on the edge of town. A big brunch followed, and everyone scattered for another year.

If you were at the Open House and have some good photos to share, please send them to us.

2008 Open House pictures

As always, the track day is the big start to the Open House. We had experienced racers as well as novices - everyone's welcome.
It's not always this crowded on the track. We let the cars out at 15 second intervals so nobody is pressured. Although many of the cars are pressurized, if you know what we're saying.
Sean Archer spent the winter turning this 1990 into a total show car, with a repainted undercarriage, all-new piping in the brake system and silver powdercoated subframes. It's gorgeous. And when he was done, he drove it from Calgary to Colorado and proceeded to get third place at the track. No trailer queen here!
The newest car on track was probably Jeff's PRHT.
For the fourth year in a row, the fastest naturally aspirated car driven by one of our guests was Brian Baumbauch's beautiful 2001. But it's the last year for his domination. Next year, he'll have an FM II and the rest of us are in trouble.
The coaches look on.
Sam Sharp's beautiful 2003 was built by FM to be a show car. Now Sam makes sure it gets well exercised.
We broke the track record again! Actually, three cars did. Keith was quickest in his Seven. Just.
In second place was Brandon the robot with his new robotic bike-engined car. He was 0.003 seconds behind Keith. Meanwhile, Bill was 0.115 seconds behind that. Did we mention it was a good race?
Okay, fun's over. Everyone, head for the Sonic!
Time for some free food!
The poor waitresses. "I have an order of fries for a Miata..."
Your (tired but happy) hosts, Bill and Teri Cardell.
For a drive-in, there sure are a lot of people standing around.
Skip's Caterham put down 305 hp. That's why he uses safety orange wheels.
Every single guy at the Sonic had a poster of this car on his wall in their youth. And none of the girls understood at all.
Parade time! We think parades are too slow, so we put the turbocharged Westfield in front to clear the way.
Geoff Pangrac and Molly Kehr are having fun.
Back at the FM shop, guests pretend to be interested in Keith's cornerweight class.

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