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BMW Drivers Club Melbourne

  • 1 Jan 2021 11:00 AM | Anonymous


    MONTH IN REVIEW 

    Dear Members

    Happy New Year!

    December was a very busy month.  We started off with two events, with some of us heading down to Phillip Island for some much-needed track time. On the same day we were also invited to Mornington BMW for an exclusive pre-launch viewing of the soon to be launched M3 and M4. We also provided a fantastic display of M cars from our members' collections.  It was fantastic to see over 50 members come for the 'quiet' launch, especially since none of our attendees knew what they were attending for!

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    Our next event was our final Zoom meeting for 2020, it was a casual meeting with a Christmas theme.  Many wore their best, ugliest, Christmas jumper for a little bit of fun!  It was a lots of fun to see all the different outfits members had put together!

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    On 13 December we held our last cruise event for the year, a drive and lunch to the Great Ocean Road Chocolaterie. 


    The weekend also saw a number of members opting to go trackside and have their last race for 2020 at the Shannons Motorsport Australia Festival at Sandown. It was great to see so many members either racing or helping in the pits for the last time this year. Like our 2020 Traction Tyres/Yokohama Drivers Championship, the E30 Racing Championship had been cancelled for the year, so this event was a non-championship race meeting for E30 Racing spec cars plus invited BMW race cars.

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    In exciting news, during December BMWDCM also reached 500 active members!  We are so proud to see our membership grow so much in our short few years. 

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    QR CODES FOR EVENT REGISTRATION

    From 1 January (today!) we will be using QR codes for check-in at all events.  Once you register for an event, you will receive your event confirmation email with a QR code at the bottom of it.  You will also receive the code again in your event reminder email.

    Please ensure that you can either show your QR code in your registration confirmation or alternatively print the email with the QR code to present it when you arrive at the event.  if you have the Wild Apricot members app, you can also show the QR code from your event registration within the app (available on Android and Apple - just search "Wild Apricot for Members").

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    MEMBERSHIP UPDATE: 507 MEMBERS

    Welcome to our new members, we look forward to seeing you at an event soon!

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    Don't forget to catch up with this month's update from our President, Graeme Bell here.

    THE MONTH AHEAD

    Here's what we've got planned in January:

    Tuesday, 5 January
    Show your car off members meeting  with Jay Leno's Garage
    A casual sausage sizzle and a drink to kick off the year at Jay Leno's Garage Warehouse. 

    Wednesday, 13 January
    Mornington Peninsula Mid-Week Sunset Drive
    We'll start our evening at Mornington BMW for a sausage sizzle and then head off on a drive along some of the Peninsula's finest driving roads, finishing at Arthurs Seat to watch the sunset from the lookout at Seawinds Garden. 

    Saturday-Sunday, 23-26 January  
    Australia Day Weekend away in Beechworth Area

    Attend for one day, or stay for all three!  We will be doing some drives, lunches, morning and afternoon teas, and of course dinner around the area to explore and visit other towns too. 

    Be sure to keep an eye on our calendar for more events.

    NEWS & BLOG 

    Our Blog page on the website is constantly being updated with not just club news, but everything BMW from all around the world!  We welcome you to submit any articles of your own! 

    Club blog.

    BMW around the globe.

    MEMBER CAR OF THE MONTH

    To submit your own car, or motorbike for next month, click here.

    CLASSIFIEDS

    Did you know we have a classifieds page

    Want to sell something?  Email us today to list your car/parts/anything BMW related!

    idrive magazine

    Everyone has their own BMW story - we'd love to share yours.

    Email us to feature in our very own idrive magazine.

    CLUB PARTNERS

    Members are welcome to submit their business to be shared on the Club Partners page on our website and idrive magazine. 

    We believe in supporting those who support us.  If you would like your business listed, email us with your details!

    ____________________

    As always - thanks for reading, we look forward to seeing you at an event soon!


    President | Graeme Bell 0407 186 296
    Vice President | 
    Jo Mawson 0412 661 900
    Secretary | 
    Lawrence Glynn 0414 563 290 
    Treasurer |
     
    Shaaron Glynn

    Proudly supported by:

    Adex Detailing
    BM Tech
    Creative Custom Cars
    Mornington BMW
    Shannons Insurance
    Southern BM
    Traction Tyres
    Waters Co
    Zagame Autobody

  • 31 Dec 2020 5:00 PM | Anonymous


     

    Dear Members,

    For months this year we had to sit quietly, waiting for a release from the COVID-enforced lockdown. Forced to cancel or postpone events due to restrictions and iron curtains, month after long hard month. But once things eased up and we were able to get out and about again, no-one could ever say we didn’t offer you something to do! Starting in November, we began releasing events and by the time December started we have pretty much been doing events every weekend and even some weeknights, right up to Christmas, just to get everyone out and about and doing what we all love!

    December was a very busy month indeed. We started with two events on the first weekend, with some of us heading down to Phillip Island for some much-needed track time at what would have been the last round of our 2020 Traction Tyres/Yokohama Drivers Championship, but as we had already cancelled the Championship for the year, it just ended up being a really fun day out for quite a few members on the best track in Victoria. On the same day we also were invited to Mornington BMW for an exclusive pre-launch viewing of the soon to be launched M3 and M4. We also provided a fantastic display of Member’s M cars to help add to the festivities of the day.  It was fantastic to see over 50 members come for the 'quiet' launch, especially since we weren’t allowed to tell anyone what we were actually launching, until they got there. The show and mingle was then followed by a drive around our beautiful Mornington Peninsula, ending in afternoon tea at Steeples, back in Mornington.

    Next up was our last member meeting for 2020 via zoom, as we have done most of our 2020 member meetings. A casual meet up with a Christmas theme, where most wore their best ugly Christmas Jumpers just for a little bit of fun. I was a little late getting there, due to someone going home from work with my car keys in her handbag, but when I did get home, it was great to have a bit of a chat and catch up with everyone’s head one last time for the year.

    13 December was our last cruise event for the year, a drive and lunch to the Great Ocean Road Chocolaterie, where lots of lovely treats were consumed and a last chance to experience one of Peter Williams’ amazing drive routes too. This weekend saw a number of members opting to go trackside and have their last race for 2020 at the Shannons Motorsport Australia Festival at Sandown. It was great to have a lot of members either racing or helping in the pits for the last time this year. Like our 2020 Championship, the E30 Racing Championship had been cancelled for the year already, so this event was a non-championship race meeting for E30 Racing spec cars plus a few other E30 Race cars. Even your old President borrowed a car and went out and had some fun for a change. It was a great weekend and I loved getting out with the regulars and some new members we have joining us on track now.

    To end out the lead up to Christmas, I was back down at Phillip Island on 19 December to look after a couple of prospective members that were using one of our E30 race cars. So, for, I think, the fifth weekend in a row, we were out at racetracks doing what we love, just because we can again now, and loving every minute of it! It's funny how much you appreciate seeing people and enjoy doing the things we do, when it has been taken away for a while.

    On Monday 21 December Jo and I were invited to attend the soft opening of the new Berwick BMW Dealership. It was lovely to meet the new General Manager, Neil and Head of Marketing, Vanessa, and also catch up with some members who are now working there. It is a beautiful brand-new dealership!  You can drop in and check it out for yourself anytime. We will be running some events at the dealership and from it in 2021 and will also be invited to the actual official opening in January, so watch out for that too.

    One last exciting thing happened just after Christmas too, that I would love to share. We are now officially a club of over 500 members! As I write this, actually, now 506! I cannot express how amazed and proud I am to see the membership grow so much, that in a little over two and a half years we have grown to such an amazing size. I never, in my wildest dreams, thought this would be so successful. It just goes to show - build it, give people what they want, and they will come. You, our members, should be congratulated as well, as you have all helped to create the wonderful, friendly, inclusive, happy, amazing environment that has so many coming to join us. Earlier in the year we welcomed our #500 member, but with natural attrition, like all clubs, it took another couple of months to actually reach the magic 500 of fully paid up, current members. Truly amazing!

    We have just had our final committee meeting for the year, along with a thank you lunch for our committee members and we will now take a short break for the New Year weekend, then we are straight back into events again, with our first member meeting for 2021 at Jay Leno Products in Airport West on 5 January.

    Then on 13 January we invite you to our first cruise for 2021, a midweek early evening meetup and chat and sausage sizzle at Mornington BMW, followed by a lovely cruise to take in the sunset from one of Melbourne’s best vantage points, near Arthurs Seat. Don’t miss it, will be a lovely evening, we have ordered the perfect Melbourne summer weather for it. Hopefully it will get delivered for us. 

    Then we will have our first weekend away for 2021. Join us for the Australia Day weekend, where we will be heading up to Beechworth and doing some exciting touring and exploring around the hills and locale, again, see the web site for all the details.

    As always, check our events page on the website for more details on any of our events. 2021 will be a big year and hopefully we can keep doing things and running events for you without interruption. February sees us back on the track again, with a huge year of Motorsport, with 3 on-track driver training days, a 10 round Traction Tyres/Yokohama Drivers Championship, consisting of hill climbs, sprints, racing and lots of opportunities to get out and drive your car like it should be driven.

    Of course, we are still very wary of our obligations and precautions for the ever-lingering threat of COVID and have developed our own QR code for events. You will see the QR device on your event notices when you register, just to help us keep you safe in-case someone does come into contact with someone infected and we need to initiate contract tracing. Like just about everywhere you go now, you will be able to scan the code and as simple as that we can keep up to date with our obligations. Thanks to Jess and the committee for getting this sorted.

    Now we are back, there will be no letting up, you just never know what the new year will bring, so we will make the most of our freedom. As always, if you have an idea for and event, or somewhere you think we should go, let us know. Always happy to take inspiration from our members. We are here to give you what you want, so if you want to go somewhere, let us know and we will see what we can do to make it happen.

    From me, thank you all for being here through a very tough year, for staying or for joining us. I hope you had an incredibly Happy Christmas and you were able to see your friends and families and enjoy each other’s company, something we all missed through 2020. Personally, Christmas ended up being a little sad for me. I lost my older brother John on Boxing Day.  Some of you that have known me for a long time may remember John, he worked with me in Hastings in the early years of Bell Motorsport and was my navigator in rallies and my mechanic in the early years of my racing life. He was probably one of the catalysts that drew me to my love of cars and modifying them, from a very young age and indeed was my mentor when I trained to become a qualified mechanic in my later years. Even though we were not close the last few years, I will miss him, as all who knew him will too, after all, he was my big brother.  Rest in peace brother.

    On that note, I look forward to seeing you at an event in 2021, until then, drive safe, stay healthy and have a safe and Happy New Year!

    Graeme Bell | President
    BMW Drivers Club Melbourne Inc.

    P.O. 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

  • 24 Dec 2020 6:40 PM | Anonymous

    Welcome to the dealership network the all-new Berwick BMW.

    Soft opening today, great to see so many friendly faces and club members amongst the staff.

    Beautiful, brand new dealership on the Princes Highway. Drop in and check it out!

    Lovely to meet the General Manager Neil and Venessa from Marketing and have a personal tour of the dealership. Looking forward to a great relationship with Berwick BMW going forward.

    We will be doing a few events there, or starting from there next year, so keep an eye on the calendar and come and check it out.

    Graeme Bell | Member #1
    BMW Drivers Club Melbourne

  • 23 Dec 2020 10:35 AM | Anonymous

    Event date: 13 December 2020

    It was Maksim's 7th birthday, we found out, so I bought him a chocolate Christmas tree as a present - they did not have anything with Happy Birthday on it and no one there to add it to an existing item so that was the best I could do. He did say he would share it with his sister. - Lawrence Glynn

    Time to go for a drive in Dad’s M3. We drove to Geelong to have a hot chocolate and met the other people. I enjoyed looking at the cars.

    We went for a drive on the Great Ocean Road. We went for lunch, where I ate lasagna.

    Thank you Lawrence and Sharon for the lovely chocolate treat.

    Maksim Kay (son of Igor Kay) | Member #151
    BMW Drivers Club Melbourne

  • 18 Dec 2020 10:17 PM | Anonymous

    Event date: 29 November 2020

    Unfortunately, the NSW BMW Drivers Club did not organise a car show this year. To my delight however, BMW Drivers Club Melbourne did! Not only was it a car show, but a weekend stay at the Park Hyatt! As soon as I saw the email notification of the event I thought to myself “right! I’m going to make this happen!” I really wanted to catch up with all my Victorian friends and make this a jolly good time, especially after they had been through such a tough lockdown.

    Ironically I had just purchased a 135i from Victoria, and had it freighted up to Sydney by truck because at the time it looked as if the border would not open until close to Christmas. So the plan was hatched – get the 135i registered and drive it down to enter in the car show. Being a one-owner car that was meticulously cared for, I thought I would have a good shot at the car being competitive. Unfortunately the car had a vibration in the rear end, which turned out to be a bad wheel bearing. Replacing the rear wheel bearings on these cars is not an easy job, and unfortunately the rear half shafts were damaged when removed. This meant that the car would not be fixed by Friday when we wanted to leave. Luckily, we have car club buddies. I was driving down with my best friend Edward Forgacs, and he kindly offered that we take his reliable and trusty stead, the E39 M5. As it turned out, it is much more comfortable and thus a better choice for the long drive than the 135i anyway!

    So after a rather frantic last minute packing and planning what to take, we headed off in the peak hour Friday afternoon traffic leaving Sydney in the M5 down the M5.

    The traffic all but vanished at the Canberra exit, and we had a fast and easy cruise down the Hume to our overnight stop in Albury. The temperature was still over 30 degrees after sunset, and the windscreen was splattered with a constant stream of bugs, some exploding on impact! They were probably having their Friday night get-togethers and bug boogie woogies, and we were suddenly slamming into them at high speed with the M5. Oh the carnage!

    Albury was a pleasant surprise. We found one of the few restaurants that would take a booking after 9pm – Level One Wine Bar. They very helpfully took our order over the phone so that it would be ready upon arrival. This place seemed to be the best in town, and it seemed as half the town was there! They have a proper stock of very fine wines from all around the world, and fantastic cocktails too. The food was superb, and we had a table overlooking the main street below. This was like a time warp back to 1999! The main street on a Friday night served as a thoroughfare for the almost constant parade of local car enthusiasts showing off their metal. Amongst the many commodores and falcons, there were skylines, supras, some BMWs (including a few M2s), old 80’s Australiana and many, many lifted and loud 4x4s.

    After a Saturday morning stroll around the shops of Albury, where it seemed that half the town was about, we hit the Hume again. The change in weather was dramatic – on our non-stop journey it went from 40 degrees in Albury at 11:30am to 22 degrees on arrival in Melbourne within the 3 hour drive. When we arrived we greeted by the valet staff and helped with the luggage. We happened to arrive at exactly the same time as Jo and Graeme.

    The room was amazing, and even had a full walk-in robe, and dual sinks with a huge corner bath. A steal at only $315 for the night! After checking in it was straight to the nearest self-serve carwash, where we spent the next four hours or so working as a team to remove the remains of those boogie bugs that reveled no more. I had honestly never seen so many bugs on a car! Thank goodness for the bottle of ‘bugger off’ spray in the bucket of detailing products we brought. It was a really good feeling to roll back onto the hotel forecourt with a freshly detailed M5. It helped that Edward keeps his car in ‘almost ready for car show’ clean condition in his garage. Dinner was in the hotel restaurant with around 20 people in attendance.

    We arrived to find many of the Victorians sporting Espresso Martinis, the very ‘in’ thing these days. It was so nice to catch up with everyone at dinner, and meet some new friends and have a great old chat about all things car related (and also funny anecdotes). Our revelry continued late into the night with many jokes and stories being told, and great banter as always. It’s so great to have friends like this!

    On Sunday morning we were greeted in the morning by typical Melbourne weather, windy and light rain. At least it wasn’t the 40 degrees that Sydney was experiencing. I even had to borrow a DCM official weatherproof jacket as I hadn’t packed for the cool rainy weather.

    There were 29 cars in attendance, and quite a range indeed. From E9s to M2 Competitions. There were three categories – pre 1990, 1990-2000, and 2000 on. Lawrence approached me and surprised me by asking if I could judge the 2000 on category, to which I agreed. I had been a judge at five or so BMW car shows in NSW before, and the criteria was almost exactly the same, which made it straight forward.

    After a couple of hours of very carefully and methodically going over the nine cars in my category, the results were submitted for tallying. I was outside taking some last minute photos of the cars whilst everyone had gone inside to hear the results. I was then called to come inside for the presentation. There was a pretty clear winner in the category that I judged, and also for the pre 1990 class. However, Jo announced that there had been a three-way tie for the 1990-2000 class.

    This was quite unheard of in BMW car shows. Jo went on to say that after seeing the amount of bugs on one of the cars, and knowing how far it had come to attend, they had decided to award it to the M5! Edward and I were both surprised and humbled at this decision. I want to thank everyone who brought their car for display. It was a joy to meet and chat with each and everyone of you about your car. I am of the firm belief that it is the stories behind the car, the stories of the owners and their adventures with the car, that is of the greatest interest.

    The drive back.

    After lunch we again packed all our gear into the M5 and after saying our goodbyes we headed out of Melbourne. It was an easy drive along the Princes Highway to our overnight stop in Bairnesdale, where we enjoyed Tequilla margaritas at the local Mexican restaurant, of all places! In the morning we headed in the direction of Jindabyne. I had never driven this road across the border, and wanted to check it out. We drove through large areas of bushfire damaged forest, though there was a lot of recent regrowth.

    We drove up the scenic Galantipy road, passing through high country grazing country and then into the Snowy River National Park. We were wondering why there was so very little traffic, even for a Monday morning. Then we found our answer. The tarmac abruptly ended at the fork in the road at Wulgulmerang East, where it became the Snowy River road to Jindabyne. Luckily we still had phone coverage and could check how long the unsealed bit was! Unfortunately it is unsealed from there almost all the way to Jindabyne, over 100kms away!

    The other fork led to Bombala, but was also unsealed for the first 84km and looked quite sketchy, so we made the frustrating but inevitable decision to drive back the way we came, and head east to the Monaro highway to Bombala. Knowing that we had to be back in Sydney that night, let me just say that it was a lot quicker driving back down the road than on the way up!!

    We stopped for lunch in Orbost, which was really pretty and leafy. The snowy river was almost completely full of water, totally different to when we last saw it on the Zundschlussel drive in October 2015.

    During the day we saw three distinct types of scenery;

    • the coastal forests of east Gippsland between Orbost and Cann River
    • rolling high country steep grazing hills that could almost look like the hills district in Scotland
    • the inland section from Bombala to Cooma, which started off with rolling hills and trees, then became high treeless plains exceptionally good for driving visibility

    The Monaro highway driving to the NSW border on the Victorian side was pretty out of shape and was narrow with many blind corners and craggy rocks hanging near the side of the road. As soon as we were greeted by the giant sandstone NSW border sign, the road immediately widened, smoothed and the corners widened up. The difference was so dramatic that I actually could not even come close to doing the speed limit safely on the Victorian side because of all the ruts in the road, but the NSW side would be perfectly safe to cruise along at 130. This is one of the best roads I’ve driven in Australia, and absolutely perfect tarmac for the M5.

    We decided to stop in Canberra for dinner on the way back, and after finding a table at a very swanky new Italian restaurant about 5 mins from Parliament house, I turned around and was surprised to see none other than the deputy Prime Minister stood behind me. He went to join his QLD buddies down the back – George Christensen, Warren Entsch & Andrew Laming. Well didn’t this trip turn out to be full of unexpected surprises.

    A huge thank you to Jo, Graeme, Lawrence, Shaaron and the Drivers Club Melbourne committee and members for making this event so enjoyable.

    Until the next drive…

    Josh Davis & Edward Forgacs
    BMW Drivers Club NSW

  • 16 Dec 2020 4:00 PM | Anonymous

    Event date: 11-13 December 2020

    11-13 December was the last chance to go racing for 2020 after an invite from the organisers of the Shannon’s Motorsport Australia Festival to E30 Racing to form a grid of E30’s. They also invited other, non E30 Racing spec BMWs to join them.

    This year has been so dreadful with so many months in lockdown. When we heard that there would be one last chance to race for the year, I think most members of E30 racing jumped at the chance to get their cars out on the track, and for some of our club members it was also one last opportunity to race in 2020.

    Graeme has spent so many years mentoring and nurturing new drivers on to the track, he has not been able to enjoy the fun of being out there with all the others very often, so this weekend he did too.

    There was only one small issue, did he have a car to drive?  With one of the Bell Motorsport cars being hired for the weekend there was of course his old E30, but that has a few issues that needed to be sorted before it goes racing again but with this little notice and this close to Christmas, time was going to be an issue.  So Jess offered up Gonzales (or Kermit as I like to call it), her bright green machine, for him to drive for the weekend.  It was a great opportunity for both of them as over the summer Jess' #30 will be getting a new heart and a few other things to make Jess race ready for a full year of E30 Racing in 2021. It was good for Graeme to drive it to see what else it needed before the start of the next season.  A number change was required though, as Graeme drives under #31.

    It was lovely to have Jess there helping her dad and be his pit crew, it has been a long time since the two of them have worked together this way.

    I am so proud to be part of this team, even though at the moment I am pretty much wheelchair bound, I did still manage to get up to pit lane to watch the fun on track. I have missed this so much and even though it was not a championship round, there was a lot of fun had out there, with the lead changing quite a bit.

    Graeme’s main aim for the weekend was to train 3 new drivers and show them the race lines and help them improve, but he did manage to give the old car a good run and didn’t do too bad considering the poor old cars’ engine is very, very tired.

    I am so proud of Graeme and the rest of our team, how they drove and how they all get on and look after each other as a team. The E30 Series is a really great series and I just love the friendships that are formed through racing and also officiating too, as we also had quite a few of our members out there on the flag points over this weekend.  Thank you, guys. Without you all out there, our boys and girls would not be able to enjoy this.

    If you have been thinking about getting your toes wet and wanted to go racing, E30 Racing is definitely the series to join and with many members able to help and guide you (like Graeme), the process is made a lot easier.

    Jo Mawson | Member #2
    BMW Drivers Club Melbourne

  • 15 Dec 2020 9:15 AM | Anonymous


    Back in August 2018 at the German Auto Show when I was welcomed by a friendly bunch from a recently formed BMWDCM to display my old E12 with them for the day, I could never have imagined how many new like minded friends I would make and how many awesome events would be made available to me.

    I am very privileged to be a member of such a marvellous club and it is an honour to be the recipient of the 'New Member of the Year Award' for 2019. I look forward to seeing all my BMW mates in the new year.

    Andrew Brown | Member #226
    BMW Drivers Club Melbourne

  • 14 Dec 2020 9:06 PM | Anonymous

    Event date: 11-13 December 2020

    For those of you that haven't met me, not only am I a BMWDCM member, but I'm also a member of the VFT (Victorian Flag Marshalling Team). So, I attended the Motorsport Australia and MG Car Club Festival as a flag marshal and a part of the trackside team.

    It has been a good nine months since I was last trackside as a flaggie, although I did attend Island Magic at Phillip Island, in much cooler conditions in November. So, three days trackside in hot conditions after such a long layoff was a bit of a wakeup call on the body, but still very enjoyable.

    The whole event was a mashup of the Shannon's Nationals and the Victorian State Circuit Racing Championship categories with Excels, BMW E30's, MG & Invited British and Formula cars as well as a few prototype cars thrown in.  But there was a bigger emphasis on the Porsche's with the Porsche Payce and Michelin Cup, plus Porsche sprints.

    Because I'm involved with the VFT induction team, which is to do with new trainees, I had to check in with a few of the newer people we had with the trackside team over the weekend and make sure they had everything they needed.  We also had a couple of trainees who had finished their training and moved up to being a flaggie like the rest of us, so I also presented them with their VFT starter kit, which all new grade 4 flaggie's get on completion of their training.

    The whole event brought long days with them, but it was great to finish up Saturday and Sunday with the E30's racing! 

    Tim Oh | Member #538
    BMW Drivers Club Melbourne

  • 12 Dec 2020 8:56 PM | Anonymous




    Schnitzer is a name very closely linked with the history of the BMW brand in international motorsport. For more than half a century Schnitzer Motorsport and BMW were in action on racetracks of the world together and celebrated superb successes in a variety of categories. This collaboration also played a significant role in shaping the sports performance and momentum of the BMW brand. Now this long, successful shared journey is coming to an end.

    Schnitzer is a name very closely linked with the history of the BMW brand in international motorsport. For more than half a century Schnitzer Motorsport and BMW were in action on racetracks of the world together and celebrated superb successes in a variety of categories. This collaboration also played a significant role in shaping the sports performance and momentum of the BMW brand. Now this long, successful shared journey is coming to an end. A review of victories, titles and triumphs from the 1960s to today.

    The success story of the original racing team founded by Josef and Herbert Schnitzer Senior and managed by his half-brother Karl ‘Charly’ Lamm started in the mid 1960s. Lamm’s twin brother Dieter Lamm was also given an important role; he was responsible for the team’s technical processes and logistics until his death in 2014. In the beginning, Schnitzer Motorsport celebrated titles in the German Circuit Championship and the European Hill Climb Championship with BMW racing cars. In 1975, Jacques Laffite won the Formula 2 European Championship in a formula racing car with a BMW engine.

    And so it went on: sports cars, touring cars, prototypes, GT racing – the list of triumphs that Schnitzer Motorsport and BMW have celebrated together in international racing is long and impressive. Schnitzer was European touring car champion three times in the 1980s. That was also when the streak of nine wins in the touring car races at the ‘Guia Circuit’ in Macau (MAC) started. Between 1989 and 2010, Schnitzer enjoyed victory at the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring five times and made a significant contribution to BMW being the record winner to date in this endurance classic. The same is true of the 24-hour race at Spa-Francorchamps (BEL), which Schnitzer also won five times starting in 1985. On top of that were the titles with Roberto Ravaglia (ITA) in the World Touring Car Championship in 1987 and in the DTM in 1989, as well as with Joachim Winkelhock (GER / 1995) and Johnny Cecotto (ITA / 1998) in the German Super Touring Car Championship.

    Hands down, the major highlights of the partnership also include the overall win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans (FRA) in 1999 with the legendary BMW V12 LMR. It was with that prototype that Schnitzer also won the 12-hour race at Sebring (USA) in the same year. The team claimed the title in the GT standings of the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) in 2001. Between 2005 and 2009, Schnitzer competed as a BMW works team in the FIA World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) and celebrated a sensational 25 wins as well as a total of 57 podiums.

    2012 saw Schnitzer return to the DTM as a works team with BMW – and together they celebrated a triumphant comeback year, with the driver’s title for Bruno Spengler (CAN), the team title for BMW Team Schnitzer and the manufacturer’s title for BMW. BMW Team Schnitzer was active in the DTM until 2016, with a successful record of 25 wins and 88 podiums.

    In recent years, Schnitzer continued their activities in GT racing, contesting the International GT Challenge (IGTC) among other series. The win with Augusto Farfus (BRA) at the GT World Cup in Macau is unforgettable. It was Charly Lamm’s final race as team principal before he handed over management of the team to Herbert Schnitzer junior. Lamm passed away unexpectedly just a few weeks later.

    In the 2020 season just finished, BMW Team Schnitzer returned to the podium of the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring under new management, finishing in third place with the BMW M6 GT3. As a result of the required realignment of the works-based team structure, the partnership with BMW Team Schnitzer will not continue.

    “We are very proud of having played a significant role in shaping international motorsport with BMW for more than half a century and of the respect given to Schnitzer Motorsport throughout the world,” said Herbert Schnitzer junior. “We are also very proud of the successes and titles that we celebrated together over the decades, in touring car racing, in GT racing, at Le Mans, in Macau and at the Nürburgring-Nordschleife. We would like to thank BMW for the partnership spanning decades, and for the trust that was always placed in us. We really enjoy looking back on everything we have achieved with BMW. I think that collaboration as long-lasting and as successful as ours was with BMW is unique in motorsport. BMW was our life and our passion.”

    BMW Motorsport extends heartfelt gratitude to the Schnitzer family and the whole team for all the decades of successful collaboration.

    BMW PRESS

  • 9 Dec 2020 12:40 PM | Anonymous

    Event date: 6 December 2020

    The launch of the new M3 and M4 at Mornington BMW was a wonderful day out and a pleasure to attend for any BMW enthusiast.

    Both Mornington BMW and BMW Drivers Club Melbourne put on a spectacular event and display of M cars. Of course the G80 series M3/M4 were the stars of the show and it was a real treat especially as an M3 owner myself to see up close where the new generation of cars is headed.

    Thanks again to the club who as usual make every event fun and make it a joy to be considered a member.

    Andrew Bonaddio | Member #565
    BMW Drivers Club Melbourne



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