BAMD was officially dedicated on November 15, 2009, so as of the 15th we've been in business for six months. Of course that doesn't compare to some of the anniversaries being touted by older Miata clubs in the area, but we're actually pretty happy to be such a young group. Like dogs, clubs age quickly. 20 is about 140 in club years.. . .   More

Having been back in school now for a couple of months, I would recommend to anyone to take a welding class at your local community college. Even if you think you'll never do any actual welding, or think you wouldn't trust anything you welded personally, a class in welding demystifies the whole process and really builds your confidence.. . .   More

You may have noticed the website is changing a lot these days. The main reason for this is that I'm never satisfied with how it looks, or how helpful it is, or how easy it is to navigate through it. As I suppose most webmasters do, I often wander through other websites trying to figure out why everyone else's site looks better than. . .   More

I'm really starting to enjoy our welding class. They're finally letting us melt metal. Half the class is using arc welders, while our half works with oxy-acetylene rigs. We'll switch in a couple of weeks. We're not actually welding things together yet, just making puddles on flat steel. It's great practice. I'd imagine that learning. . .   More

About four years ago I ran across a thread on miata.net about a sports car you could build from scratch, using parts from other cars. The car was called a Locost. It looked like a Lotus 7, cost next to nothing, weighed around 1200 pounds, and most importantly was a blast to drive. The first Locost was designed and built by a British. . .   More

The weather has not been kind lately. When it's too wet for a spirited top-down drive, and too cold for a major component overhaul, I sometimes resort to one of my other favorite automotive activities—tinkering. Tinkering involves work on your car that's intended to make it a little bit better-looking, a little bit faster, or maybe. . .   More

As we start a brand new year and decade, it's hard to believe that BAMD has only been around for six weeks. We welcomed our 100th registered driver on Christmas, and a dozen more drivers have signed up since then. In this short time we've already added more than a dozen features to the website and held four BAMD events. Of course. . .   More

We've added a private message system to the forum. I don't expect messages to start flying back and forth between drivers, but there always seems to be an occasional need to PM an individual, as opposed to blasting something out on the forum for everyone to see. Using PMs you can contact another driver without an email address, and. . .   More