Now, who doesn’t just love spending all that money on fossil fuel? Has anyone lost their ride in the name of money saving? Here’s how I lost mine…..I drive on the average, just under 10 miles a day (that is taking my son to school, going to work and home, plus lunch). My wife drives just under 50 miles a day going to work and lunch. She drives a big ol’ SUV…or did anyway. The SUV gets 14 mpg, the MINI avgs 34 mpg, so I get to drive the beast daily. We figured it out, at the current $4.50 for regular (SUV)  and $4.70 for premium (MINI), we are saving approx. $46.00 a week in fuel..thats nearly $2400 a year. I can hear Lex now…”Buy another MINI”, well, that would kill the $240 savings as both vehicles are paid for, plus we have 3 boys in the house, add their friends and any fuel savings the MINI gets, would lose out because we’d have to take both cars . The SUV holds 8 people, so getting rid of him is not an option. This is why my other love is the two wheeled variety, you just can’t beat the 52mpg I get with my Buell! Now if the sun would just let up, I ‘d ride the bike a lot more (putting on a leather jacket, long pants and a helmet for a 1 mile ride in 100+ weather, is just not fun).

Drive safe fellow MINI’ers, see you on the road (though I will probably be waving from an Expedition)

Steve “Gomez” Adams

Good food and decent service given the amount of us that dropped in on the restaurant. Here we had a quick drivers meeting and followed George to the famous “Tehachapi Loop” were the train (if long enough) will actually loop over itself as it goes up hill. We found a few motorcyclists who’ve been there for well over an hour! After about 25 minutes we could hear the distant sound of a train horn, cool we’re going to get a chance to see this happen, and happen it did. This freight train was long enough to not only pass over itself, but to travel next to the back half of itself as it cruised through the loop, it looked like two trains! But places to go, food to eat still!

Our next stop was to meet up with the group that started from Bakersfield. The official drivers meeting and the passing out of the CDs and Bowling shirts (in some weird red color) out of the way, it was now on to the driving, yee haw….I choose to stay with the “sane” Yellow group and follow one of the “Yellow Leaders” in the mid-pack since this was all new territory for me. With Tavis’ instructions still ringing in our ears of “…stay to the left at all “Y” intersections…” we went right the first chance we got. Okay, we’re a FUN group, not a SMART group! As I’m telling my wife “I think we went the wrong way”, George verifies it by uttering the words I’d hear all day “Yellow Leader, you went the wrong way”. Sooooo, a quick u-turn, back to the “Y” and now we’re back on track. I was looking to catch up with the cars in front, only to find out that two of the three stopped with Lex, and viola, I’m “Yellow Leader”..damn! Well, okay, keep an eye out for the “Ys” and go left, here’s one now, cool, everyone’s following us. This is going pretty good, Michelle is calling out warnings and I’m trying to stay in front of the DS stuck to my bumper. We made it to the flat grounds and whoosh, there went our left turn! Go ahead George “Yellow leader, you went the wrong way”….yeah yeah yeah, another u-turn and off we go to Mickey Ds. Without much more drama, we finally arrived at the stop, to meet up with the fast group. I noticed Tavis was in the back, but I swore he was the leader…..seems the “missed turn” syndrome wasn’t exclusive to the yellow group. After a quick stop, we all lined up and headed to Kernville for, yup, more food. Seems our little car club, is in fact a food club that just happens to drive the same make of vehicles. Good food, me and Michelle shared our lunch, as I had a challenge awaiting me…more on that later.

Lunch done, Roadmaster Craig made it up from Steve’s in record time with CF MINI, so he donned the “Yellow Leader” cap and we were off again, heading up the mountain where there was still snow on the ground and back to Bakersfield. Nice tight turns and cool weather made for a fun run, and oh yeah, another u-turn for yours truly. I am getting damn good at these turns on tight roads! Now I’m in the back with George following me (less chance for mistakes) and we headed to Lengthwise Brewery for more food and beer. None for me, thank you, there was some ice cream with my name on it waiting for me…..It seems that when Lex posted up the picture of Erik and his sundae, stating that “no one could touch Erik at ice cream eating”, I posted, tongue firmly in cheek, that it looks like a “piece of cake”. Mr President, of course, took this as a challenge and we’re off to the “Showdown in B-town”. For those of you who think you can put away a hefty amount of food, be forewarned, never challenge the skinny guys, they’re unnatural! So, stepping down in weight class to take on Erik, eating for all of us “non” CR MINIs, bring on “Frank Daddy’s Super Sundae”……DAMN, that’s a lot of ice cream! Oh well, let’s get on with the beating. I thought I was doing okay, getting a bit tired of strawberry ice cream (another mistake, I feel), but I think I can finish this…..then looking down the table, I see Erik tipping up the bowl to scoop the last of his desert, and presto, he’s done! After checking the floor underneath him for dropped food, I threw in the napkin, picked up the check, tail tucked firmly between the legs and went bowling!!

A big “thank you” goes to: Tavis and Angela, our hosts, for this blast of a weekend; Juan and Derek for the cool tunes (and Craig for burning them); George and Lex for their organizational skills and everyone in the club for a safe trip. Can’t wait for next year, and yes, I will share a Blondie with Michelle at Rosemary’s! Drive Safe.

On January 12th, 2008 SCMM celebrated it’s 5th anniversary in the usual fashion by holding a huge birthday bash at the Santa Anita racetrack. However this year a little something unusual was added to the mix. A crew from KNBC TV’s new SoCal car culture show Whipnotic was on the scene to record the event and get a feel for the club. They interviewed several members and club officers and shot a lot of video of the real stars of the show: Our MINIs/Minis.

The clip you see above was aired on KNBC 4 TV in L.A. on Saturday February 2nd, 2008 during the 3pm hour. It turned out great! The club got about 2 minutes of airtime. Highlights included Scott Murphy with his gorgeous classic silver Mini, and Brian White with the uber-powerful 500HP “Black Widow”. Whipnotic did a great job of putting together a wonderful video glimpse of just how much fun this club is to be a part of.

Thank you KNBC and Whipnotic for joining us on our Birthday and capturing the essence of our club: Our Maniac-obsession with these sweet little cars!

Toys, toys and more toys. The holiday gifts, destined for local needy children, arrived in the boots and back seats of more than 50 MINIs, donated by club members for SCMM’s annual drive to support the Marine Corps Toys for Tots campaign.

This year’s event included a breakfast meet-up at Ruby’s in Long Beach, a cruise to the Naval Marine Corps Training Center on Terminal Island, and a run through the Palos Verdes Peninsula ending at Fireball Tim’s Studio Shop in Torrance for an afternoon holiday party.

“The generosity of SCMM members is truly amazing,” said club President Lex Adams. “The toys they have donated will bring much joy and happiness during the holiday season to children who otherwise would have gone without this year.”
The day began at Ruby’s Diner in Long Beach where the large turnout overwhelmed the restaurant staff, but they managed to get all the breakfast meals served and get us on our way on time.

Cruising through Belmont Shore, it was impossible to keep the large caravan together. Dave Read’s route directions were very clear though and we all made it to the Marine’s training center on Terminal Island without any problems.

Similar to our past visit to Camp Pendleton, the Marines at the gate were all smiles when the parade of toy-filled MINIs arrived. Toys collected by the Marines remain in the area to assist families in the local community. Authorized charitable organizations and churches partner with the Marines in this effort, similar to a food bank, but with toys.

“These generous contributions have enabled us to help fulfill the Christmas dreams of our nation’s neediest children,” reads a certificate presented to SCMM on behalf of the United States Marine Corps Reserve.

Content and Photos By: George Marsh

To start, for those of you having trouble with iTunes, I have no idea what the problem is. The only thing I can think is to try to subscribe manually instead. Of course, any tips or tricks that you might have for us and the WRR listeners would be greatly appreciated!

AMVIV is coming up sooner than you think. Click over and register and get your room if you are planning on staying at Palace Station. There you will also find the schedule of events and other things that are going on in Las Vegas that same weekend.

Keep an eye out for a live show schedule. We’ve got it down enough to actually be able to do it on a regular basis.

Finally, news of the week from Motoringfile. Yes, I’m pretty sure we did some of the news last week, but we pushed on regardless.

Check back tomorrow for some rousing opinions on the Smart car.

Woofcast 213:

Shownotes/Download | Subscribe | WRR @ iTunes

As in years past, Fireball Tim was our trusted MC and he gave away a ton of swag from some great sponsors! You can see the complete list below.

We had great weather too. Out of nowhere we get 80 degrees! In January! A perfect day to play the ponies, including the 8th race, which was the race for SCMM.

It was great to see everyone there, especially those of you that I don’t get to see very often. I promise I’ll be going to more stuff this year!

Of course, all that great swag we were able to give away had to come from somewhere. And it did from our generous sponsors!

Follow the jump for photos and sponsors!

• Crevier MINI
• Irvine MINI
• South Bay MINI
• Nick Alexander MINI
• Long Beach MINI
• Bob Smith MINI
• M7 Tuning
• Craven Speed
• Adams Polishes
• Johnny’s Auto Clinic
• SCMM
• Craven Speed
• Minicorsa
• K1 Speed
• Twistybitz
• Lex and Hope Adams
• Mark Blair
• Roger Martin
• Scott Murphy
• Dan Skorcz

Pictures? Oh, of course there were pictures.

Lex’s Pics

There was a nifty browser here, but it seems to not be working in Safari. Follow the link below for Lex’s photos.
(you can view them at his flickr page as well here)

My pics

There was a nifty browser here, but it seems to not be working in Safari. Follow the link below for db’s photos.
(you can view them on my flickr page here)

Happy New Year from SCMM!!! We have had an AMAZING year in 2007, and we know that 2008 will be even more amazing. We have a million plans for Motoring fun coming up this year, and we hope that all of you out there in MINI-land will come and join in!

Sincerely,

The Entire SCMM Team!

To each and every MINI owner on the planet, SCMM wishes you all a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Of course, we also cover news of the week from Motoringfile.

Great shows this week! I think you’ll approve. We have also decided that we are going to do 1 show next week and we are going to do it live! Next Thursday, 7PM PST. Keep an eye on the sites for details Wednesday.

Woofcast 208:

Shownotes/Download | Subscribe | WRR @ iTunes