FREE Mini Cooper Autocross Ride and Drive Day March 27-28 Grand Prairie!

[goofygrin]

FREE Mini Cooper Autocross Ride and Drive Day March 27-28, 2010
RAIN OR SHINE WE ARE RUNNING THE EVENT!

On March 27-28, 2010 we are hosting the Mini Cooper Ride and Drive Program, sponsored by MINI USA, Yokohama Tire and Presented by ABF Motoring and Gruppe-S Engineering at

Grand Prairie, Texas
Lone Star Park

Lone StarPark
1000 Lone Star Parkway
Grand Prairie, Texas75050


This event is COMPLETELY FREE and you get to Autocross a mildly built Mini Cooper S TURBO around a specially prepared autocross course designed by a Professional SCCA AutoX Driver. Registration is limited so register today at

http://abfmotoring.com/reg/index.php?sid=37439&lang=en

So register and come on out to check out some awesome Mini Coopers and push one on an Autocross course, COMPLETELY FREE.

The only catch is that you have to be 21+ years of age to drive.
See you out there!

Same day as the tour...

[762]

I will probably be doing this if I decide not to do the Tour. Who wants to go? I can do any session.

[ken o]

Who is the driver?

[Miatamoto]

I didn't know there were "professional" autocross drivers

[sammm]

I didn't know there were "professional" autocross drivers

Just you Stiggy.

[Jiggerachi]

Do you get to drive, or just ride along?

If my wife wasn't due two days from then i'd be all over it.

[NC Eunos]

I saw this poster up in my break room at work. If the "ride and drive" is the same one from work what it is a select group of discount tire employees get to test all the different brands of tires and thrash cars around all day. It's usually a more exclusive event for discount tire employees, but for product knowledge and seeing how it's free I guess they couldn't pass this up. On our banner at work it says that the tires that will be tested on the car will be yokohama tires a lot being "passenger type" tires. The only tire that I saw on there that was worth a damn was the AD08.

[CosmosMpower]

Think the "pro" driver is G.J. Dixon who brought a F430 Scud to nationals last year at least that's who it was on the west coast. Not sure who it would be locally. I signed up for Sat AM. No corner working, killing free tires and no entry fee sounds good to me.

Also curious to see how some suspension and a chipped car feels.

[ken o]

It is a tuned car, not chipped.

[cwisenheimer]

If you read the link, it says you get to drive. You also get a lap with a pro at the wheel to humble you.

[CosmosMpower]

It is a tuned car, not chipped.

What's the difference? They piggybacked the ECU to tune it but did not add a chip?

[ken o]

Usually the R56 is tuned on the ECU.

[762]

I signed up Saturday Morning as well. No reason spending 100 dollars on nationals when even if I did drive flawlessly (which would not happen) the car still would not be competitive.

[762]

Myself, brother, and friend will be at the burger king at 8 for breakfast. Anyone is welcome to join. See you there.

[Version3]

Any updates on how this went today? Was it worth the price of admission (obviously it should be). Was it worth the trip out? How early did you arrive for your session?

[OZMDD]

I did the AM session Sunday. It was fun. Very short course, tight course. Nothing really major about the course, but good for showing off the quick handling of the Mini. They only had one manual transmission (Cooper S JCW), and you had to pay $20 to drive that one (plus get a t-shirt, unlimited laps). The clutch burned-up in the JCW about halfway through the morning. They had 3 auto S's, and an auto Clubman S with the flappy paddle shifters. The Clubman was the surprise of the day, as it felt really stable and was still superbly nimble. Each mini had different Yokohama tires on it, so the handling varied quite a bit, but it was a cool way to see how tires changed the feel on nearly-identical cars. As the session went on, the line got slow, but I still managed to get in about 10 runs in under 2 hours.
The new direct injection turbo motor they are using is great. As much as I like superchargers, the turbo S's were quicker and felt stronger than even the JCW-version S's from the supercharged years.
If its possible to get a lightly-optioned JCW without the glass roof and other heavy stuff, that would be a damn fine autoX/DD to drive.

[redmenace]

The Minis were nice enough that I price shopped them. Yowza. For that kind of money, I'll take a Yaris and have change left for an 848. (BTW, thanks for the ride, OZMDD!)

[CosmosMpower]

The Minis were nice enough that I price shopped them. Yowza. For that kind of money, I'll take a Yaris and have change left for an 848. (BTW, thanks for the ride, OZMDD!)

Mini isn't bad if you don't go crazy on options plus it has a lot more power than the Yaris stock for stock and gets as good MPG with BMW build quality and features.

Ours was right around 25K brand new with no discounts and it still has a lot of goodies (sport suspension, LSD, HID's, Keyless go, Bluetooth phone etc).

[Titus]

I loved driving our Cooper S, but I have now added MINI to my never own out of warranty again bucket. Why is it that all the brands in this bucket are German?

[jrj512]

I loved driving our Cooper S, but I have now added MINI to my never own out of warranty again bucket. Why is it that all the brands in this bucket are German?

I thought Mini was British.