President’s Column, July 2006
by Bob MorinMay 21st was Mike Zarolinski’s first attempt at organizing an event and the new kid did good! The Bring More Wax Show & Shine was a terrific event. I don’t know how we let Wickham Park go all these years, but it proved to be a great location and in spite of the weather which threatened rain all day and finally hit us after most of the festivities were over, we had a pretty nice turnout, with some regulars and some new folks. Thanks to all on the board who helped by bringing all the food and beverages and to Ev Newton who acted as a mentor for Mike on this event. Unfortunately, Ev was not feeling well that day and was unable to attend. Too bad, too, Mike would have made you proud. On June 4th, several Chapter members formed Team YeeHaw and participated in the MS Bike Tour. Participants could elect from 10, 25, 50 or 100 miles. Our little team raised more than $1000 and we were already talking about doing it again next year. Thanks to Eric Newton for acting as Team Captain and to all who participated. The entire event was a tremendous success. The June 24th E90 Tech Session scheduled for New Country BMW in Hartford, CT was canceled due to a lack of participation. Frankly, this one surprised me. Was it the subject? The time of Year? The location? It couldn’t have been much more centrally located than Hartford. The 3 series would seem to be the most popular BMW among the car club members. How could there have been so little interest? We haven’t had a tech session in a while. Is it just there isn’t any more interest in what makes the cars tick? Please contact me if you have any thoughts on why this event didn’t fill up to capacity, because I’m at a real loss to explain it. After O’fest, our next event will be the Fun Rally on August 20th. Sheila and I are organizing this one and we hope you will give it a try. September 3rd, 4th and 5th will be the Vintage Fall Festival at Lime Rock and BMW is expected to be a real presence again this year. September 10th is our ’02 Fest East, also at Lime Rock Park again this year. In between the Lime Rock portion of our calendar, we will be holding an informal bike trip on September 17th (for details). Back to Lime Rock on the 22nd, our next event is the final Driver’s School of the year. We are trying a new registration procedure for this one, outlined in last month’s DZ. Registration is already open and you can register on line and you may also use a credit card to register now if you use the on line registration. As of this writing, we have about 60% filled the school and it is still more than 3 months away. Two days after the school, we finally travel somewhere besides Lime Rock and head to Glastonbury, CT for the Humpa Picnic on September 24th. This is always one of the best social events on the calendar, so plan to attend and you won’t be disappointed. Since last month’s column, The BMW Sauber boys have continued to show some progress. The home team has actually scored points in seven out of nine events and Nick Heidfeld continues to outpace his more experienced teammate. Although, they are still only fifth in the Manufacturer’s Standings, they are only 10 points out of fourth and are beating both Williams Cosworth and Toyota. As we plan for our Indy trip again this year, we’re just hoping for an actual race and not expecting too much, but Robert Kubica has been outstanding on Fridays of each race weekend and the team has been looking better in practice as well. Now if they could just convert that to better qualifying so that their race results could improve another couple of positions, they just might be able to move past Honda and take fourth place in the Manufacturer’s Championship. In News From National this month, membership continues its turnaround with another month of increases at 75,697, up .66% over last year. If you’d care to visit the National website (www.bmwcca.org) National is conducting various polls of the membership. Check often as the question keeps changing. Techfest 2007 is scheduled for March 22 – 24, 2007 in Tacoma, WA for those who like to plan ahead. That’s about it for this month. Try to stay dry; it’s got to stop raining sometime.
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