ALPINA meet with track time? Feedback please.

Minimark · Post by **Minimark** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 4:03 pm

lol, who'd do my Ironing, cooking, washing, cleaning, shopping, tell me about appointments, write christmas cards there must be more.....

jezza · Post by **jezza** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 4:16 pm

I was speaking to a friend yesterday about karting as his and my son both competed in Minimax karts. He mentioned that one dad spent Â£80k in one season on his son's karting

and suddenly Â£80 on a motoring day out seemed extremely reasonable!

Myfirstbeemer · Post by **Myfirstbeemer** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 8:32 pm

in principle, count me in... I've got a busy summer lined up though, but I'd like to get some track experience before I go to the Nurburgring on the 30th June / 1st July

Goodwood may be an option for something a little closer to Surrey...

jezza · Post by **jezza** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 9:11 pm

OK, so the good news is we have enough interest for the circuit session. The bad news is that Bruntingthorpe has been harassed with noise abatement notices and as a result can no longer offer these track sessions on a weekend.

The dates offered are Friday afternoon on 2nd or 9th June.

It seems the only alternative would be something like Goodwood at Â£135 for a half day with 40 cars and 10 on circuit at any one time. Sat 15 July is showing as available, I will need to see how many spaces they have. Apart from the higher cost this has the disadvantage of more scope for damage to cars.

A quick note from people who have expressed interest so far in this thread to indicate their interest in Bruntingthorpe on a Friday afternoon and Goodwood on a Sat (and their preference if ok with both) would be useful at this point.

I am trying not to make any comments about the people who complain about car noise from a test track and runway, severely limiting the operation of one of the only facilities in the UK for people to enjoy their cars off the public roads. ......

Post by D4 » Fri Apr 21, 2006 11:36 pm

jezza wrote: I am trying not to make any comments about the people who complain about car noise from a test track and runway, severely limiting the operation of one of the only facilities in the UK for people to enjoy their cars off the public roads. ......

especially when you consider how few houses must be within a 2 mile radius of the runway!!

Post by **neil** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 1:09 am

Personally I'd prefer July and Bruntingthorpe as I'm pretty hectic in May and am seriously running out of brownie points, holidays etc...

is that an option or are the dates in june the only ones ?

Post by **Charles** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 1:51 am

Neil,

How about chatting up Ged to organise another Alpina day at Donnington? B5, B6 & D3 driving day perhaps?

For me, those two Fridays in June are tricky and definitely cannot do the 15th July. Not saying I cannot do B'thorpe in June, but ....

Please keep me posted though

jezza · Post by **jezza** » Sat May 06, 2006 11:50 am

Well with just two "possibles" it looks like the week day meeting is not popular (unsurprisingly) and neither is Goodwood at higher cost. There seem to be no other options for a few hours in the south on a track so unless anyone has any great ideas I will reluctantly have to revert to a simple meeting with perhaps a drive afterwards.

Only remaining option is Charles' suggestion about getting Ged to organise something. I wasn't involved in the last one and have never spoken to Ged so don't know how reasitic this is. I am certainly willing to call him and give it a go but would we have a better chance of success if Charles/Neil called?

Post by **neil** » Sun May 07, 2006 8:47 pm

I'll chat to Ged and see if this is going to happen again this year.

ALPB1033 · Post by **ALPB1033** » Thu May 11, 2006 11:22 pm

Count me in Donnington but depend on the date as I missed the last year invitation meeting held by Sytner. If possible can we drive around the circuit?

Post by **neil** » Fri May 12, 2006 12:07 am

Last years event allowed people to drive on the circuit (there was a fee) as long as they were driving a BMW, ALPINA or Mini.

Post by **Charles** » Fri May 12, 2006 2:00 pm

jezza wrote:Only remaining option is Charles' suggestion about getting Ged to organise something. I wasn't involved in the last one and have never spoken to Ged so don't know how reasitic this is. I am certainly willing to call him and give it a go but would we have a better chance of success if Charles/Neil called?

As luck would have it, I popped in and had a coffee with Ged on Monday afternoon. As well as talking about "stuff" I asked about another track day - perhaps to showcase the B6 and D3.

Ged was interested but hadn't really thought too much about it.

However, he indicated that if we can get enough interested people together, he can help us leverage a good rate at Donnington for a few hours one summer evening. Price per car would depend on how many cars (as there is a flat rate to hire the circuit).

This got me thinking. The last track session had a wide range of cars and drivers from the BMW stable (including some "muscular, T-shirt wearing bejewelled M3 drivers" to quote an unnamed but highly respected Alpina source of mine).

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could arrange an "Alpinafest" at Donnington.

We currently have several hundred members and their cars on the register and I would love to see an Alpina-only track session with 40 or so cars at the event. If that were to happen then we could probably generate some involvement, not only from Sytner, but more importantly from Buchloe. The potential publicity would be great and it's the sort of event that could get various magazines and/or TV shows interested - if handled well.

For those who have never "tracked" their car - don't panic. It's not about hooning about being stupid. I believe a sensible track session for sensible drivers would be great fun.

Anyway, I'm not trying to hijack this particular thread, but I wanted to offer a slightly different twist on the theme.

I will start another thread with this message to gauge initial interest here:

http://www.fastsaloons.com/forums/viewt ... =5151#5151

Jezza - please don't let this idea stop you from carrying on arranging your thing. Realistically, this may take at least 6 months to pull together and so may be something for late September or even 2007.

Post by **neil** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 1:40 pm

Please see the following thread (you might be interested !)

You might want to read this