M Day USA report (long)

["Frank Massaro" <fmarch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hey everyone,

I cna't believe I'm scooping y'all about M Day!

But then again with all this Kibortian BS on leaf blowers consuming
bandwidth in wholesale fashion, there's no room for any content between '='
signs and drivel.....Jim C., please do us a favor and nuke this guy's
house...soon....

That webpage on the W.A.S.T.E.O.F.T.I.M.E. is a classic, BTW.

Aaaannyway......

Just got back from M Day USA at 11:00pm after a harrowing 4.5 hour drive in
a near *downpour*.  Matt Yip and I caravanned together (me in my lowly 325is
and him in his E28 M5) and about scared the bejeeezus out of ourselves on
the way home.  MXX3's are *terrible* in really wet conditions.

Aaaannyway......

The event far exceeded my expectaions, in all forms.

We began Friday morning with a special factory tour, covering areas of the
plant that normally wouldn't be seen, with a special treat: we saw new X5
bodies (Sport-ute) in the paint shop, and a complete chassis awaiting mating
with a body.

The driving event on Friday was a ball.  We each got 4 fun runs with a Derek
Daly Driving Academy instructiod, and two timed runs.  There were two run
groups, and each group ran similar mirror-image courses in new M Coupes.
That car is a blast to drive with a nice weight advantage over the M3, and
it does *everything* well.....goes, stops, and turns.....all amazingly

(read: must have new M Coupe<----use Homer Simpson voice for best effect)

I forunately used my untimed runs to make all my mistakes, and turned a
decent time which qualified me for the tag-team auto-x relay.  The 13
fastest finishes from each group got to 'co-drive' with BMW racing
personalities....Our group had Hans Stuck, Dieter Quester, and Davy Jones,
and the other group had Mark Simo, Auberlin, and Boris Said.

All these guys, including Derek Daly, were real approachable, and real easy
to talk to.  Mike Wendell and I had a couple of fun conversations with Derek
Daly, and I chatted with Mark Simo for a good while back at the hotel later,
over a beer.

The M Day event proper on Saturday was also memorable, in spite of the
uncooperative rainy weather.  Several M1s were in attendance, along with
many other beautiful M Cars of all sorts.

A highlight of the day was the History of M presentation, with The New M
Brand manager Scott Doniger, and several M Folks, including an engine
engineer and the head suspension engineer at BMW M.  The PTG guys also had a
real neat Q and A session for all us Bimwads.

The 100.000th M car was given away that day, the losers only got regular M
Roadsters....awwwww......so sad....;)

After the concours awards, the car giveaway, and talks from Vic Doolan and
The President of BMW M for Germany, we were treated to something really
special.  BMW M brought an E39 M5 to the event!.....The car is amazing in
the flesh....sounds very understated for a V8 with 400 hp.

Met a lot of familiar digest names, including Chris Brennan, Scott Blazey,
and Keith Wollenberg (sp- sorry Keith), along with all the CCA officers and
'powers that be', and Wynne Smith from the national office...who we all call
and bother whenever we need something...

Thanks to BMW NA, the USA M folks,  (we know you're out there) and all the
CCA folks that put this together.  I got a lot of once-in-a-lifetime
memories and enjoyment out of this one event!

I'm sure there'll be more to follow.....;)

Frank Massaro
BMW CCA Tarheel/ NCC

'92 325is
'83 533i

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End of bmw-digest V9 #519
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