Dear Members,

Another month gone and thinking we were going to have a fairly quiet month (being the middle of Winter and most of us happy to hibernate), turns out the events we did do were huge!

The members meeting at SEA Electric was amazing! Seeing a little Aussie company taking on the world and building dedicated electric trucks and vans right here in Melbourne was incredible. It was an amazing facility and people with a vision for the future and building full electric vehicles. 

One of our most popular events each year is our Christmas in July Cruise and Lunch. This year was no exception. We started out with a breakfast meeting at HQ Steakhouse in Pakenham, where more than 20 of us braved a chilly early morning start to have a delicious breakfast, before heading off on another of Peter Williams’ wonderful cruises, to then find us arrive at The Outpost in Noojee.  Here we enjoyed a lovely afternoon - lots of fun and frivolity with our silly Christmas outfit parade and again lots of happy people going home with amazing hampers donated by club member Ross from Celebrations in Clarinda. Even some of the other customers joined in with our fun.

For the fifth round of the Traction Tyres/Yokohama Drivers Championship we headed up to Winton, where we took over the running of the long-held tradition of BMW Drivers Club NSW coming down to join Victorian Club members in a Sprint meeting. We also invited members from BMW Car Club Victoria and BMW Car Club Canberra to come and join us, in what will now be known as the BMW Clubs Cross Border Cup.

The NSW Clubs took home the inaugural trophy (donated by Bell Motorsport), beating the Victorian drivers by less than 100 points over the days’ competition. We had over 50 cars enter and with no incidents or hold ups during the day.  Everyone went home with lots of laps and fun had in perfect conditions. It was also fantastic to have quite a few members come up to help run the event, as CAMS officials or instructors, we do appreciate your help run events like this. It is also great to see some Members enrolling in some upcoming CAMS courses to further their training and obtain qualifications to help us in the future.

This coming weekend is a 2 day scrutineers course and we have quite a few enrolled in that. Of course, having a CAMS Officials Licence allows you to do many other events to whatever level you want to go up to. Two of us have even applied to help train officials to run the new Grand Prix in Vietnam next year, we will find out soon enough if we have been selected for that. If you would like information on anything to do with CAMS or helping run Track days, drop me a line.

At Winton, we also ran a Driver Training Group within the 5 groups on the day and had a lot of very happy new and old drivers learning some skills and gaining invaluable experience from our more experienced instructors. It was a very busy day, but one everyone enjoyed immensely. 

Our next Round of the Yokohama/Traction Tyres Drivers' Championship will be at Sandown on September 8 with the Alfa Club, running on what will be the newly refurbished Sandown Track. As I write this, Sandown has just closed for some resurfacing works and remodelling of the infamous turn 6, and we will be one of the first events to run there once it reopens.  It should be very interesting! Make sure you keep an eye on your emails, as the events at Sandown usually fill up pretty quick and with changes there, it will be very popular with people wanting to have a look at the new layout.

There are lots of events coming up that you should start thinking about too. Our members meeting in August will be at Waverley BMW to check out their exclusive body and wheel repair department, very worth coming to check out.  For something different, we are doing a Steam Train to the Snow event this coming weekend, sadly for most of you, it is now booked out, next time we will try and get more spots, as it is looking like it will be a fun day out!  Then one of the first display events for the season will be the German Auto Show on August 25, this is a huge event and one well worth coming along to, either to display your pride and joy, or just to have a look! Lots of other popular events coming soon too, Geelong Revival, Motorclassica, Sprints, Drives, lots coming up. Our first AGM will be in October, if anyone is thinking of standing for a position on the committee, keep an eye out for notices in the next few months. We will be doing the Bathurst 12 Hour trip again this year - registration is open now, if you’d like to join us at the mountain for one of the best motorsport events you will ever see. Contact Jo for details on inclusions and prices. The December weekend away with NSW and Canberra Clubs will be up soon too, again, another fantastic event that will happen every year.  Keep checking the event calendar and your emails, we often have special events and offers that come along, they are sometimes at short notice or limited in time or availability, so when you see something you like, get in quick!

Membership is still steaming along, with 26 new Members joining in July, Welcome to you all. We are very happy with the retention rate of members and the continued growth of our little Club. Thank you to all of you that continue to support the Club, I hope you enjoy everything the Club has to offer and, of course, we are always open to new ideas for events, if you have done something or have an idea or want to run an event even, let us know! This is your Club!

I look forward to seeing you at an event soon.

Graeme Bell | President
BMW Drivers Club Melbourne Inc.

P.O. Box 81, TYABB, VICTORIA. 3913
Incorporated in Victoria #A0102695G
BMW Drivers Club Melbourne Inc is a member of:BMW Clubs Australia and the BMW Clubs International Council
CAMS Affiliated Motorsport Club