February 19, 2007:

R56 drive time with Herb Chambers MINI

After Fridays meet the R56 at MINI of Peabody, I headed down to Gillette Stadium to join Herb Chambers MINI and their customers/friends for another R56 event - this time, driving was the theme!

HC MINI had arranged two autocross tracks in a big parking lot - one was self-driven with a Skip Barber instructor to guide you, the other much more fun was travelling as a passenger with Skip Barber instructors driving! Wild :)

There were long queues early for both tracks and it was seriously cold!

But the wait was TOTALLY worth it - being driven by Skip Barber was excellent! I tried to video the drive but it’s tough holding the camcorder steady while also trying to hold yourself steady … but you can download & watch this 7MB Quicktime movie to get a feel for the event:
http://gbmini.net/downloads/HCMINI_R56.mov

After a while it was just too cold so we headed in to the stadium to warm up, eat, drink & chat - lots of MINI friends again!

When the door prizes were called, George won a Hammer & Coop lunchbox for longest drive; he immediately dressed up and it suited him perfectly!

Another great evening, demonstrating the good handling of the R56s … my own short R56 MCS drive left me with only one thought: where’s the clutch! Pressing the pedal down seems to have no feedback at all (although I guessed people will get used to it)

Thanks Kerry, Rich and all at Herb Chambers MINI, and also the Skip Barber instructors!

Posted by GBMINI at 11:22 am | GBMINI meets, R56
Comments: 6 (post new comment)

  1. Josh Wardell (2007/02/19 @ 4:03 pm)

    Interesting that both served mini burgers.
    If only they were co-sponsored by White Castle!

  2. GBMINI (2007/02/19 @ 4:55 pm)

    Also, see George’s write-up of this event!

  3. George (2007/02/19 @ 7:42 pm)

    Fantastic video Ian! You either managed to hold the camera pretty steady or it has great stablization.

  4. Julian (2007/02/20 @ 9:57 am)

    I put your video on youtube.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiFrCfCyzoY

  5. snid (2007/02/20 @ 2:07 pm)

    Sounds like fun.

    I checked out George’s site, and followed the link to the Skip Barber schools. Man, they’re expensive (compared to BMWCCA).

    Nice that there was a Cooper mixing it up with the MCSes in the video.

  6. jordan (2007/02/22 @ 8:23 am)

    COOL VIDEO IAN looked fun! :-)

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