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Enthusiasts’ Corner

Welcome to the first edition of Oxford Motorsports’ Enthusiasts’ Corner! We have a bit for everyone who has taken, or wants to take, their MINI to the next level.

Whether you enjoy an occasional “spirited” drive on highways and byways near you or take your MINI to the track, you know how important car control is. What happens when you stomp on the brakes and change lanes to avoid being in an accident? How do you compensate for understeer or oversteer?

I can’t say enough positive things about the Advanced Driving Skills School hosted by the BMW Car Club of America’s White Mountain Chapter. Held at a parking lot adjacent to New Hampshire International Speedway, the school teaches those skills and more in a safe environment. BMW chapters nationwide offer the school, as do several private enterprises.

Play On and a Porsche 911 waiting their turns on the “wet skid pad”while another MINI is thrown about

Do you have a young, inexperienced driver in the family? Or know someone under 21 who just received their driver’s license? Talk to them and you’ll find the typical “Drivers’ Ed” program is about the rules of the road and parallel parking.

The BMW CCA Foundation’s Street Survival School teaches drivers under 21 how their car handles in a variety of situations. BMWs, MINIs and all other marques may be driven – the instructors don’t care what car is driven if the driver knows how to drive it. Check out this link for more information “This is NOT your high school Drivers’ Ed course!”

Serendipity! The September day after I took delivery of my new ’02 MCS, after a 9 month wait from the time I signed up at MINI of Peabody (MA), I left for the French Alps to visit my oldest son. Frustration with not having the new MINI to toss around soon turned to elation when I discovered a 1600 cc rallye was being held on the streets in and around Morzine.

Classic MINIs (anyone know the year?) staged for the start

I returned Stateside to quickly become immersed in the MINI “culture.” The following June, my youngest son and I joined 73 other MINI drivers and their passengers for the first MINIs On Top. Now in its fourth year, this drive across New Hampshire and up to the summit of Mount Washington now draws over 225 enthusiastic MINI drivers, co-drivers, navigators and just-plain-passengers from as far away as Wyoming and Georgia.

MOT 2003

The last two years saw a group of particularly crazy MINI enthusiasts spend the day before MOT cruising around the twisty back roads of Maine’s Mt. Desert Island national park. The next morning they rose to see the sun rise on Cadillac Mountain and would have been the first people in the USA to see the sun that day if the clouds and fog hadn’t got in the way!

Looking back over the last 3 ½ years (and 97,000 miles), every MINI owner I’ve ever met has shared my enthusiasm for the marque to some extent, sometimes even more. Oxford Motorsports is my way of saying “Thanks! Let’s go for a ride!

-Pete-