Rocket Scientist and Race Car Driver Goes Electric and Joins Mach-E Family!

[Reiko]

Good afternoon all!

Just joined the MME family with my new 2023 GTPE in vapor blue with the night pony package. Ive had many cars in my life so far, including several sports cars, and this is by far my favorite across the board!

I've worked on and off for NASA for the past 20 years doing projects like Space Shuttle, JWST, Dream Chaser, and several lunar missions. I say that to quantify my option that is a very well engineered car. I knew a few engineers that helped develop it as well and I’m impressed to say the least.

I also spent 2 years racing for GM in various Corvettes and Camaros including on the Nurburgring in Germany. Brought home a few ladies class titles and one overall award. It was a blast driving those cars, and to have the MME be so responsive and able to really grip the wild Colorado mountain road turns, it’s a total blast to drive!

This is also my first Ford product and everything from the service team at my dealer to the responsiveness of the Ford care folks has been so refreshing.

I’m only a few weeks in and have had my MME ceramic coated and my windows tinted with the UV blocking ceramic film.

I’m so in love with this car! Can’t wait to take her out to a local autocross event and see how she does!

Feel free to toss me any questions I might be able to answer about space, cars, or life in general!

Thanks to the team who put these forums together, I hope my future contributions will be helpful!

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[LordWino]

Welcome! Great shot of the car too!

 

[DugthePug Dad]

Welcome to the MME family

 

[VaporTrails]

Welcome to the group! Excellent choice in vehicles!

May your charges be fast and your HVBJB last the life of the car! Start saving tire money now.

 

[Rocket Man]

I'm sorry but the wording of this post seems like AI at it's finest. Pics of any of your racing activities?

 

[Snakebitten]

Welcome to the Mach-E GTPE honeymoon.
I too am in such a state for the last couple of months.

So I know it might be rude to ask, but you mentioned lunar missions. Was that Apollo?

I remember the whole family sitting around a less than impressive television with dad outside turning the antenna pole with mom yelling "right there".
Dad ran back in and we experienced collective awe at what the world witnessed.

I was in the second grade, I believe.

 

[Rocket Man]

Unless the OP is over 75 years old, I doubt they had anything to do with Apollo engineering.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Welcome!

I have a similar amount of time doing NASA contracting (~30 years), much of it on the science side, but some in engineering (instrument calibration, smallsat design).

Colorado has some of the best roads for this car!

 

[Reiko]

I'm sorry but the wording of this post seems like AI at it's finest. Pics of any of your racing activities?

Nah, just years of writing boring government documents. Have a pic! Is there a way to upload more than one at a time?

 

[Reiko]

Welcome to the Mach-E GTPE honeymoon.
I too am in such a state for the last couple of months.

So I know it might be rude to ask, but you mentioned lunar missions. Was that Apollo?

I remember the whole family sitting around a less than impressive television with dad outside turning the antenna pole with mom yelling "right there".
Dad ran back in and we experienced collective awe at what the world witnessed.

I was in the second grade, I believe.

I’ve worked with Apollo folks as consultants on modern lunar missions, but that’s about it with Apollo. I worked missions for both Astrobotic and Masten on their bids for commercial landers on the moon. Done some work on the Gateway station as well. Helped design the Orion capsule as well.

 

[Reiko]

Nah, just years of writing boring government documents. Have a pic! Is there a way to upload more than one at a time?

Put this together for an intro slide a few years back.

 

[YunniorO]

Good afternoon all!

Just joined the MME family with my new 2023 GTPE in vapor blue with the night pony package. Ive had many cars in my life so far, including several sports cars, and this is by far my favorite across the board!

I've worked on and off for NASA for the past 20 years doing projects like Space Shuttle, JWST, Dream Chaser, and several lunar missions. I say that to quantify my option that is a very well engineered car. I knew a few engineers that helped develop it as well and I’m impressed to say the least.

I also spent 2 years racing for GM in various Corvettes and Camaros including on the Nurburgring in Germany. Brought home a few ladies class titles and one overall award. It was a blast driving those cars, and to have the MME be so responsive and able to really grip the wild Colorado mountain road turns, it’s a total blast to drive!

This is also my first Ford product and everything from the service team at my dealer to the responsiveness of the Ford care folks has been so refreshing.

I’m only a few weeks in and have had my MME ceramic coated and my windows tinted with the UV blocking ceramic film.

I’m so in love with this car! Can’t wait to take her out to a local autocross event and see how she does!

Feel free to toss me any questions I might be able to answer about space, cars, or life in general!

Thanks to the team who put these forums together, I hope my future contributions will be helpful!

welcome and hello fellow Coloradoan!

 

[Rocket Man]

Nah, just years of writing boring government documents. Have a pic! Is there a way to upload more than one at a time?

Nice. I retract my statement and apologize. Z06 huh? What kind of Ring times could you get with that? Low to mid seven minute area? Please upload more. I would love to see them.

 

[HuntingPudel]

Welcome to the forum and congrats on your new Mach-E GT-PE. It’s a fun car with its limitations (as one of my engineering mentors used to say, a portion of engineering is about compromise) and a couple of foibles. The major one for the 2021-2023 is the High Voltage Battery Junction Box, which has undergone two revisions since introduction on the 2021. The most recent revision was November of 2023. On a GT that’s going to get a lot of WOT the likelihood of failure is high.

Having been involved with various high-performance and racing cars over the decades, I find the damping settings on the GT-PE to be too soft for daily driving. The steering is kind of numb and even in Unbridled it’s over-assisted. A lot of us have also increased the roll stiffness of the car as well. That said, the big front brakes are excellent and the rear power bias makes the car drive more like a RWD car.

Oh, and the frunk is made for chilling.

 

[GreaseMonkey]

Vapor blue is the best color on this car in my opinion. Like others said, there are many issues and limitations with the Mach-E and fords dealer network is not great. But it’s still the best electric suv out there and worth the time to tinker with and fix the small issues that will eventually pop up.

Welcome and look forward to interacting with you on this forum.

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