President’s Column, September 2006

We did not have any Chapter events scheduled since my last column, but several CVC members made the trip to Grand Rapids, MI for the annual Oktoberfest.  Those who have ever attended an Oktoberfest may recall that they post a U.S. map and ask all attendees to place a colored stick pin on the map to represent their home.  Chapter member Jack Jones pointed out that, aside from Michigan and the states immediately surrounding Michigan, Connecticut had the greatest number of pins on the map.  All seemed to find it quite an enjoyable event.

Of course, one of the things that occur at Oktoberfest each year is that the winners of the BMW CCA Raffle are announced.  It is always quite exciting when one of the O’fest attendees is called as a winner.  Although that did not happen this year, two members from CT were among the ten winners.  Congratulations to Len DeCaro of Seymour and Gary Dilalla of Shelton.  Another thing that I am quite proud of is that the Chapter received a check for $300 from ZF Industries for our participation in the ZF Public Service Awards.  The award represented a 15th place.  I’d like to see us move back into the top 10 where we were perennial finishers back when it was the Pirelli Public Service awards a bunch of years ago.

After an extremely busy September, we had planned to have a Kart Night in October, but event organizer Steve Wasley has selected November 4th as a date that would work out better.  Our karting events in Windsor, CT were always quite popular, but this time we are moving to a new facility that has opened in Wallingford, CT.  There is an article in this issue with details about the event. 

On November 19th we will be holding a TSD Rally.  Ev Newton has details about this event if you’re interested, and I hope that you are.  December 2nd will be the last Chapter event in 2006 as we will hold our Holiday Party/Yankee swap in Stevenson, CT.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on our new e-mail bulletins, now that you have had a chance to see a few of them.  If you haven’t received one, it may be that you did not provide National with an e-mail address when you became a member or at renewal (for those of us who have been members since way before there even was e-mail!).  Contact Dave Rich if you are not receiving the bulletins and would like to be added to the list.

While we’re on the subject of hearing from members, we’re still very actively trying to find a suitable location for our Chapter to host a Street Survival Teen Driving School.  If you can think of any place, perhaps where you work (?), please let us know so we can attempt to contact them.

Unfortunately, the F1 program was still showing more life during practice than in the actual race in Germany, where both cars retired, Villeneuve after an accident and Heidfeld with brake problems.  However, between Germany and Hungary, Villeneuve was sent packing and the young Pole, Robert Kubica was promoted from Friday test driver to Sunday race driver.  While Kubica has been terrific in practice, he looked good in the race and actually took the car to a 7th spot, but was later disqualified due to the car failing to meet minimum post race weight.  However, Quick Nick Heidfeld brought the second team car home on the podium with a nice 3rd position.  Things are definitely looking brighter!  There’s a three week break before the next race in Turkey, so we’ll see if the BMW Sauber boys can make any progress in the interim.   

In News From National, membership continues to grow, albeit at a slow pace and now stands at 75,762, up .92% over last year.  The results of the membership contest were announced at Oktoberfest and 1200 members participated and signed up a total of 1825 new members.  The BMW CCA bylaws change allowing the Club to consolidate its corporate responsibilities by operating as a South Carolina entity passed by a landslide.  Save March 22 -24, 2007 on your calendar as the dates for Techfest 2007 in Tacoma, WA.  The next National election will include candidates for Treasurer and Secretary as well as some of the Regional Vice-Presidents (but not ours).  Nominations for Treasurer or Secretary must be submitted to National Office by 5PM EST October 31, 2006 if you are interested.

That will have to do it for this month as Nancie is going to be getting pretty upset if I don’t get this to her soon.