President’s Column, February 2008

by Bob Morin

There were no events held since my last column, but as I write this, I’m looking forward to our Annual Dinner on January 26th and hoping that the weather will not be a problem for anyone planning to attend. It has not been the best Winter for weather so far, that’s for sure.

In last month’s column, I mistakenly mentioned to be sure to save your February ROUNDEL mailing label so that you could complete and mail your ballot. That should have been your January label, so I hope no one threw theirs away because of me. And please do be sure to vote as we have some contested positions this year.

We’ve got some tentative events coming up, but until the dates are firm, let me just mention the April 19th Top Gear Party at our home in North Granby, CT. We’re planning to share some of our favorite episodes of the show seen on BBC America.

We hope to have some firm Driver’s School dates soon, so we can start to plan the new format that will be required by Lime Rock’s new Club and its impact on our events.

In last month’s column, I mentioned all of the new models that BMW of North America is expected to launch this year. Well, by now many of you may know that there was an accident with one of the super ships that transport BMWs and other cars across the Atlantic and apparently among the casualties were many of the launch 1 series coupes and launch M3 vehicles. No word yet whether this will delay the launch or not, as BMW likes all BMW Centers to have their cars on the same day, so no one has any advantage over another Center. Many of the vehicles were a total loss and others are expected to be repaired at the port in NJ.

In F1 news, BMW Sauber has launched their F1.08 and say what you will about flame surfacing, it’s one beautiful race car. Nick Heidfeld said it was the most beautiful race car he had even seen, although he admitted that they don’t give points for looks, so we’ll see how it performs. BMW Sauber are quite optimistic that they will be able to step it up another notch and possibly stand atop the podium once or twice this season. Lewis Hamilton has announced that he will race with McLaren through 2012, and although contracts don’t seem to mean much these days, I suspect he is cut from a different mold and that he will be there at least until then. Renault is all excited to have Fernando Alonso back, but their car had better be improved over last year’s car or I think it will take more that the two-time World Champion to help them back to the top. On track testing of each team’s 2008 car is only just beginning as I write this, so it’s too soon to get a feel for who may have shown some improvement with their design.

In News From National, membership is now at 76,184 down .16% from last month, but up .30% over last year. BMWCCA 2.0, the new version of the www.bmwcca.org website is due to launch shortly, although it is a bit behind the original schedule at this time. We had an opportunity to preview the new version as a beta version at Oktoberfest in Fort Worth and it looks like it should be much improved over the current version, with many new features. There will be discussion forums and tech talk for all BMW models, a gallery for member photos and videos, BMW news and reviews, enhanced classifieds and an electronic version of ROUNDEL. There will be a logon procedure to improve security when it is up and running. Here’s how it will work: Go to www.bmwcca.org. Register, choosing a username and password, then hit Submit. When you get an e-mail from the club, click on that to activate your Website Membership, which is available to all BMW fans (though some of the best stuff will be BMW CCA-member only). CCA members should continue on with a final step of linking their Website Membership with their BMW CCA membership information. The three groups on BMWCCA.org will be unregistered Guests (browse, not post), registered Website Members (browse but not all areas, post), and paid BMW CCA Members (browse all areas, post). Contact Bill Howard, if you would like to offer feedback at bhoward@bmwcca.org. The webmaster/newsletter editors conference will be in Salt Lake City, Utah the weekend of April 4 – 6, 2008. If you’re really organized and marking your calendar far in advance, write down Oktoberfest 2008 in Watkins Glen, NY, September 23 to September 28, 2008. He is the schedule as it is right now:

That should do it for another month.

Bob Morin