SteveJ

Sorry, Mike. My camera has been stowed away for a lot of ZCON. I had to lock myself in my hotel room to get some of the background work done for the convention. However, I'm glad to hear that most people seem to be happy about how things went.

I haven't had the camera out too much this week. I knew in my heart it would be that way, though I didn't want to be. However, I made up for it other ways. 1. I got to work with a great team that no matter what disagreements we might have had, we put differences aside and worked together. 2. I had the privilege of assisting Matsuo-san put together the slides for his presentation. 3. I got to spend some more time hanging out with John & Sylvia at the track. I leave John alone. He has plenty of other people bothering him. Sylvia is a hoot. 4. Johnnie Gable shared some of her stories with me. There isn't much that can slow her down. Organizing a ZCON is a wonderful experience that I hope never to do again. My hat is off to the ZCCA directors for putting the effort into making it happen year in and year out.

Please remind me to go into more detail about what Peter and John said. I am busy with preparation for the closing ceremony today and tomorrow.

Tonight we had the presentations by Matsuo San & Peter Brock. Randy Jaffe and I joked with John Morton that he could just correct Pete where he was wrong. Matsuo San approached me about two hours prior to the session for help with his pictures, so I made a quick and very dirty powerpoint for him to show his pictures and tell his story. Of course, I made a copy of the picture folders after asking his permission. He was was talking to me about a couple of the photos, and I was able to tell him the terms used by Americans. He mentioned the option for the rally clock, and I opened up @zclocks website. Ron - He asked me to print a copy of it for him. I need to remember to give it to him. Eiji Hosami said that Matsuo San loves coming to the conventions. Back home he is just another grandfather. Here, he is a rock-god! He entertained us with stories about his early design work with Nissan on the 410 and 510. He followed up with his presentation on the 240Z that I helped with. He OWNED the house. It didn't hurt that Eiji did a fantastic job of translating for Matsuo San. @Diseazd- I didn't have a chance to thank Eiji afterward. Please send me a PM with his email address so I can craft a proper note of appreciation. It was a tough act to follow, but Peter Brock isn't your typical following act. You could hear the emotion in his voice as he talked about Mr. K and what he did for Peter. I sensed the pain one feels when recalling a lost friend. It was great to hear about how they developed the Z for SCCA racing and how they managed the 70 campaign to keep John eligible for the championship despite the teething pains of breaking in a new car. John didn't say much, but I have learned that it's good to pay close attention to what he does say. He elaborated on what Peter said about the challenges of the crankshaft, mentioning the patch added to the early oil pans to compensate for the issues with the harmonics. After that John, Peter, and Matsuo San sat for an autograph session. I showed Gayle where registration was, and joked around about them not bringing merchandise to sell. She told me about Peter's travelling schedule, and I replied that it made me appreciate my anonymity. Finally I ended up talking with Johnnie Gable about the video she shot of the Atlanta convention in 1995. There are many Easter eggs in the videos that I have to look for. It's track day at Road Atlanta tomorrow and the People's Choice/Z Nationals show on Saturday. I expect in excess of over 400 cars for that show.

The weather is fabulous. Wish you were here. ?

Like a bowel movement?

Here's proof that preparing for the Judged Car Show can make you dog tired.

I should add that there was some very light rain at the car show, but that did not dissuade any of the participants. We had about 100 cars entered into the show. The judges were busy...and thorough.

You can see people were really hustling to get their cars ready for the Judged Car Show. Video courtesy of Split Frame Studios (http://splitframestudios.com) who is one of the companies providing video and photo services to ZCON this week. Judged Car Show Prep.mp4

Nice job with the photos, Pat!

We had a torrent of people coming through for registration today. It was nice to see many familiar faces going through the line. I had the privilege of escorting Johnnie Gable over to the registration tables today. She was smart and arrived after the rush. The opening ceremony was tonight. Aside from the usual announcements and descriptions of events, we were treated to clips of videos shot by Johnnie Gable back at the 1995 convention in Atlanta. Also "Mad" Mike Taylor held a charity auction for someone to do three hot laps at Road Atlanta in the passenger seat of Randy Jaffe's BRE car. The driver, of course, would be none other than John Morton. Bidding escalated to $3000, and someone came in over the top with a $3500 bid just before "Mad" Mike could say, "Sold!" Randy was talking to the losing bidder who said that he just couldn't go higher than $3000. Randy responded by donating his car for another 3 hot laps. So, by Randy's efforts, ZCON 2018 raised $6500 for Make a Wish and Hurricane Michael Relief, in addition to our other charity efforts. I can't tell you much about the chili party because I needed to help back in registration after the opening ceremonies. When I got out of the hotel, I could see it had rained, though I don't know when that happened. The water patterns on my car caught my eye, and I had to stop and take photos. I plan to be at the Judged Car Show tomorrow.

I saw on FB a couple of hours ago that he is on his way.

Well, I saw the Jim's today. We're still dotting the last couple of "I"s on convention prep tomorrow so we are ready for the flood on Tuesday.

The drives were $10 per car. As far as I know, the drives were sold out. I think there will be maps for self guided drives.

Have you thought about doing some that would fit Konig Rewinds? That might be popular.

Argh! A spring broke on the garage door today. The Z is trapped for now. The repairman should arrive between 4 & 8 today. I can't complain about that. It just delays my final prep on my car.

If you can get it on Monday or wait until Sunday. I'm thinking I'm going to be in crazy mode most of the week.

The problem is that the ZCON organizers have a spy somewhere around here...

I will be doing my best to do photos and hopefully video with regular posting.

You guys who aren't coming will definitely be missed. Branson is the 2019 location, and I believe it will be in Nashville for the 2020 edition. I will definitely be at Nashville. I just hope that they take a cue from us and schedule during cooler weather. It's no coincidence that the celebration of the 50th anniversary will be at HQ Nissan NA. Nissan supports the Z car. I'm not sure the North American market supports the Z car...Heck, aside from the pony cars, I'm not what the North American market supports in the way of sporty coupes.

Unless you install the sensor at a water passage, that temperature will probably exceed 185, so you would be running your fans more than you need to.

Worst case scenario is that I'll be staying across the street from the Sonesta if you want to work on the headlights.

Unless there is a tornado, I don't expect any adverse impacts on any of our selected venues from Michael. He's in a hurry to go somewhere, and we're not going to try to stop him around here to chat a while. The 10-day forecast keeps changing every time I look at it, so it's hard to tell how the end of the week will be for ZCON. Ironically the car show days are the only ones with rain in the forecast.

We're less than a week away from the start of ZCON 2018. Registration for the week will close on Friday, 10/12, at midnight Eastern Time. If you are only planning to go on Saturday for the People's Choice/ZNationals show, online registration will remain open for a couple of more days after that. Please note that while you can still pay at the gate for People's Choice/ZNationals, lunch is an additional charge above admission. I hope to see you in Atlanta...well, make that Duluth, Braselton, Dawsonville, Buford, and Lawrenceville. ? Go to http://zcon.org/conventions/2018/?page_id=132 to register before it's too late.

Someone more familiar with pipe threads than myself will have to confirm, but I don't know if the thermostat housing used any NPT fittings.