Dear members,  

Welcome to Summer!

I can’t believe we are nearly at the end of 2023. It's been such an eventful year.

On 7 November we held what would have been one of our biggest drive events ever, with over 80 registered and 50-55 cars attending.  We met up at the clubrooms in Hastings, leaving in two groups. The first were all those doing the Cap Schanck Lighthouse tours, the second followed about 15 minutes behind, these members choosing not to do the tour. We all met up at Cape Schanck then toured on to lunch at T’Gallant Winery, where we had a delicious lunch and frivolities waiting for the Melbourne Cup to be run. We had so many there we had to have three sweeps for the Cup. Was a lot of fun and a great day out with a bunch of our wonderful members and friends. Thanks to Peter Williams’ drive instructions not one car or group got lost, even though we criss-crossed the Peninsula on some great driving roads.

We were blessed with the weather, as at 4am the heavens opened up and we in Hastings and on the Peninsula had a dreadful storm, but we woke to blue skies and sunshine in time for our drive and lunch.

If you have not been to Cape Schanck Lighthouse, it is well worth the drive and make sure you do the lighthouse tour as it was very informative.  We were lucky to have one of our own members Phil Gleadhill take us all around the light house and I think we all learnt something from his very informative tour. 

On 11 and 12 November we had cars on display at the Sandown Historics.  Both days had great numbers, we went on Sunday and were a little luckier with the weather being not so windy and nice and warm and sunny.  There were plenty of different cars from different clubs too, it's a great event and if you have never been to a Historic racing meet. I would advise you to go check them out at Phillip Island, Winton or Sandown. Thank you to all who turned up with their cars looking so nicely presented.

Sadly, our last Simulator Challenge needed to be cancelled due to a low attendance which was a shame as these nights were a lot of fun throughout the year.  The championship was very close, and the winner will be announced at our presentation dinner next year.

17-19 November saw some of our members attend the last round of E30 Racing.  Again, we were blessed with blue skies, maybe a little too hot for some of the old E30s who had some overheating issues but great racing right through the field.   Out youngest and one of our oldest members in E30 racing were battling for the championship and I am still not sure if the final decision has been made with a count back but there was a draw for the year with young Royce Lyne and Brian Bourke coming equal first on 152 points.  This is what you call good close racing.  Thank you to our members who came up to watch and help out over the weekend, was great to see you all there supporting the E30 Racing Club and our members racing.

Jo and I took our caravan up with us and used it as an office over the weekend and with the aircon, drivers were able to cool off between races.  Jo as Jo is, worked most of the weekend on 2024 events, so watch out for new emails for some great events coming up next year.

We were lucky this round as we didn’t have to tow any of our customers cars up, so a week before we realised we could make a slow trip up to Challenge Bathurst which was on the next weekend.  This is a first for us as you know both Jo and I don’t do anything slowly! We are normally always on the run, but this came as a well need rest for us. After Winton we travelled to Lake Hume and set up camp for the night. Then took two days to get to Bathurst ready for five very busy days, three officiating and two running the DCM group of 55 cars.

21-26 November was Challenge Bathurst. This year we had a group of 55 BMWs which was a huge honour for our club.  We had members from seven different BMW clubs from all around the country. There was a great range of cars too.  What I am most proud of is the volunteers who gave up their time to help run this event. Jo of course who gave so much of her time before during and after this event.  Without her we would not have been able to do this. We also had drivers give up their time before the event and volunteer on flag points on Thursday and Friday and partners join the flagging team on Saturday and Sunday to volunteer.  BMWDCM had many volunteers who came up  just to help. They selflessly gave up their time to help out running the event, but mainly help our team run this event.  Thank you all for the time you put in to give the drivers the opportunity to have fun on the track.  Jo and I are very passionate about volunteering and within our club we encourage members to join our events as much as they can. It is a great way to be involved in motorsport, and generally officials get treated pretty well. At this event officials received free camping, free breakfast lunch and dinner, shirts and hats and even hot laps on Sunday afternoon in a V8 Supercar.

For all who entered this year and are reading this message, if you are attending next year please bring along some volunteers because at the end of the day it is for your safety. The more volunteers we have out there the safer you will be.

I would like to congratulate the winners 1. Brenton Hammond from QLD, 2. Grant Bray from NSW and 3. David Bushby from Tasmania (who I believe will be a new DCM member in the new year)! Well done ato you all.  Some of the other clubs took the regularity part of it more seriously that perhaps any of our members did and tried pretty hard to match their times. For most of our members the thrill of driving Bathurst was all that mattered. Maybe next year we will run an information night about what the regularity part of the event is all about and how to go about trying to win it.

I hope you all made it home safely and are now enjoying telling your loved ones your great stories of the weekend.  Remember we would love you to share your tales so please email v.president@bmwdcm.com.au with any articles and photos to photos@bmwdcm.com.au with your on and off track photos.

On the same weekend we also had a group displaying their cars at the Geelong Revival. We were lined up along Eastern Beach Road and the display looked great.

December events 

December is here and we have some fun events to finish off the year.

• 3 December the last round of our Traction Tyres/Yokohama Drivers Championship at Phillip Island.
• 3 December is also a drive to Marysville which will be led by Jen and Martin.
• 6 December is the Geelong Area drive led by Shaaron and Lawrence.
• 10 December is our Christmas Show and Shine and picnic, which is again at Cruden farm.  Lunch pack orders close very soon, so please get you registrations and orders in as soon as possible.  We have some raffle prizes at this event so be sure to bring cash, all money raised at this event will be going to the Peter Mac Foundation.
• 12 December is our final event for the year, being a workshop visit to CoolDrive Racing, to be given a tour of their facilities and check out their great Supercars and meet some of the team.

We'll have our driver training, come and try, motorkahana, hill climb and sprint dates up on the website soon. Check back over the next few weeks for all of the dates!

I told you Jo and I have been busy!  There are more dates that will be released on our calendar very soon. With the heavy workload we have all had this year, these are all the events we have been able to get out so far, but believe me, there a lot more to come.

We are doing Tasmania again over the week prior to and over Melbourne Cup weekend.  Watch out for the event notice as this will be different driving roads and area to our last trip down South.

We have formed a Nationals Committee for our 2025 Nationals, so you will soon be seeing updates regarding that.  We have a logo which is yet to be approved by Munich but with Jo’s ideas and Fiona Cooper’s talents, it looks fantastic. We are all pleased with the results, which you will see this in the new year when we launch the Nationals 2025 website.

We are still looking for a webmaster to drive the Nationals website too, so if you or anyone you know can help, please let us know.

It is also getting close to getting the next idrive ready, and we need feature articles.  Please send all your articles to editor@bmwdcm.com.au with photos for Jess to be able to use in next year’s magazine.

Remember this is your club and your ideas, help and articles are needed to keep this great club ticking along.

We are so close to Christmas now and I hope you all have a safe December in the build up to our festive season. I don’t know where this year has gone, so enjoy the last month of events for 2023.

Take care out there and I hope to see you at an event somewhere soon.

BMW Drivers Club Melbourne Inc.

PO Box 81, Tyabb VIC 3913
Incorporated in Victoria #A0102695G
BMW Drivers Club Melbourne Inc is a member of: BMW Clubs Australia and the BMW Clubs International Council
Motorsport Australia Affiliated Motorsport Club