President’s Column, August 2008

by Bob Morin

On June 29th we held our second Street Survival teen driving school. This event was a huge undertaking as we expanded everything over last year’s event. Rentschler Field in East Hartford, CT was used this year, with multiple lots and exercises going on at all times. Last year we had approximately 15 instructors and 23 students. This year we had 37 students and about 40 instructors, so their combined total was about doubled. Additionally, I’d say the number of volunteers who assisted the day of the event about tripled. Add to that, coordinating coffee and donuts and enough lunches for everyone, handling traffic control and making sure that non-participants were not allowed on the grounds. Classrooms and meeting spaces were needed and the courses all needed to be laid out for each exercise and it took a tremendous amount of coordination. Jim Merriman is quite passionate about this program and has been working hard since early this year to make it happen. Although there were many frustrating moments leading up to the event, he hung in there and it turned out terrific.

There were far too many people involved for me to get to everyone, but besides the tremendous effort put in by Jim, I’d like to thank Steve Wasley who acted as instructor registrar the day of the event, assigned instructors (many of whom he was responsible for getting) to students and then on the day of the event, took pictures of each student doing an exercise, photo-shopped them so they looked great, and then printed them and presented them to the student at day’s end as a memento to go along with their certificate of accomplishment. Thanks also to jerri & Willy Wiley for hauling the Chapter trailer, bringing all the needed pylons, getting the water, which was very needed on that hot, humid day and also coordinating with the East Hartford Fire Department so that we could have access to water for the wet skid pads in the afternoon. Lastly, Sheila Morin coordinated getting all the lunches to the event so that we had the energy to continue the afternoon sessions. To all the others who came and stood out in the heat and sun all day long, just to shag cones and offer encouragement, thank you so much for making this event a success. Hopefully, there are now a few safer drivers on the roads of CT.

Upcoming events include our second Driver’s School, which sold out even quicker than our first, on August 22nd and then over Labor Day weekend the annual ’02 Fest East will be held in conjunction with the Vintage Fall Festival at Lime Rock Park. Another annual event occurs on September 21st; the Humpa Picnic at Williams Park in Glastonbury, CT. This is always one of the best attended events of the year and again this year, we are going to try to raise some money for ALS at the event. Only a few days later, many of you will be heading to Watkins Glen for this year’s national Oktoberfest. The lure of the Watkins Glen track, along with the location in the Northeast, where there is a large BMW CCA membership concentration, should make this a well-attended event and a great chance to get together with fellow bimmerheads from all over the country.

The Grand Prix calendar moved from Montreal to France (I guess they figured they were used to speaking French, so why not?) and things took a turn for the worse for the BMW boys. You may recall that they left Montreal with a one-two finish; Kubica was leading the Driver’s Championship and BMW only trailed Ferrari by 3 points in the Manufacturer’s battle. Well, something didn’t go according to plan for our team. The Ferraris qualified 1st and 2nd, Räikkönen beating out Massa, while Hamilton had the 3rd best time, but was penalized 10 grid positions for his part in the pit lane incident in Montreal, taking him out of contention before the race even started. That moved a surprising Alonso in his Renault up to 3rd on the grid, followed by an equally surprising Trulli in his Toyota. Kubica could only manage a 5th place qualifying spot and even more discouraging was Heidfeld’s failure to even make it out a Q2 to line up 11th on the grid, completely failing to build on his recent success in Canada. The race results weren’t any better with Kubica finishing where he started, Heidfeld losing two more spots to finish 13th and Massa coming out ahead of Räikkönen in a position swap at the top. Hamilton could do no better than 10th, but Kovalainen managed to bring his McLaren from a 10th place starting spot up to 4th and Trulli got a podium 3rd.

Great Britain was next up and you know that image you have of England as a rainy place? You’d be right, at least on this race day. BMW’s qualifying woes continued for the second straight race as Heidfeld managed a 5th (pretty good for him) while Kubica had mechanical issues and was unable to take a lap in Q3, thus gridding 10th. This was the first race this season that Heidfeld had out qualified his less experienced teammate. Qualifying continues to be unpredictable with Kovalainen taking the pole this time, followed by Mark Webber, of all people, then Räikkönen and finally Hamilton, who must have been disappointed, being in front of his home fans. Well, the wet race certainly changed all that. Webber threw it all away by about the second turn, when he did a one-eighty and couldn’t recover to finish any better than 10th. Meanwhile Hamilton put in an amazing drive in deplorable conditions to win by more than 68 seconds ahead of Heidfeld who did a terrific job to stay out of trouble and move up from 5th to 2nd, his second runner-up spot in three races. After five (!) spins, Massa finished 13th. Rubens Barrichello finished a surprising 3rd for Honda, the last car to manage to stay on the lead lap, with Räikkönen following in 4th and Kovalainen falling back to 5th. Unfortunately, Kubica, who had moved through the field with some success early on, failed to finish after spinning off in the gravel and retiring. It’s a shame, because BMW Sauber could have had a great points day. So, how does that leave the championships? Well, Hamilton, Massa and Räikkönen are now tied with 48 points and Kubica is only two points back with 46. It doesn’t get any better than this. BMW Sauber is still clinging to 2nd in the Manufacturer’s Championship, but McLaren is coming.

Willy Wiley found an excellent article on www.wired.com that he shared with me about the scandal that occurred last year when Ferrari secrets found their way to McLaren. It was quite in-depth and informative, but my favorite part was near the end when they quote former Minardi owner, Paul Stoddart as saying that, “FIA stands for Ferrari International Assistance.” That about sums it up, I’d say.

Moving on to News from National, membership crept up to 75,978, up 28 members over last month but down from last year by .44%. Time is running out if you are planning to get tickets for this year’s Car of Your Dreams Raffle. You’d better act soon. For those planning to attend O’fest (and if you aren’t, what’s wrong?), it has been announced that Bobby Rahal will be a guest speaker. In light of the BMW M3 V8 being campaigned next year by Rahal-Letterman Racing, this could be interesting. Rahal is also, of course, a BMW Dealership owner and has a really perfect Inka Orange 2002tii, so he’s got BMW genes there somewhere.

I think Nancie is going to have to use a smaller font if I don’t sign off for this month, so let’s finish this up. Hope you’re enjoying your summer and your BMW.

Bob Morin