Waiting our turn on the starting grid, sitting next to our president and experienced track enthusiast, Jeff Fait,
in his 335i, I could feel the excitement building for my first time around Blackhawk Farms Raceway. Jeff offered to
show me the ropes during our Driver’s School event by letting me ride with him for a session. When the signal was
given, we eased out of the grid on pit lane, parallel to the main straight to enter the track at Turn 1.
Easing around Turn 2, braking into Turn 3, then balancing the throttle around Turn 3D and 4, it was clear that Jeff
is very familiar with his car and the track. I’ve been driving and assisting with autocross events for over 10
years now, but I have not had a lot of experience with driver education events at road courses, so this was an
exciting event for me.

Blackhawk Farms Raceway is a tighter road course than I have been to before, with trees on both sides of the track
and even a road crossing the track at one point in the 1.95-mile course. Compared to Autobahn Country Club, it
feels much smaller and tighter, almost like a high-speed autocross through the back corners. Unlike an autocross
event, at Blackhawk Farms you are well into the triple digits on the main straight from Turn 7 to Turn 1.

One of the benefits of the BMWCCA Driver’s School events is the alternating classroom and instructor sessions for
the first timers and the track novices. This event on June 11th had 60 attendees registered for the event. 11
advanced group, 22 instructors, 14 intermediate group, 9 novices, and 4 staff, such as myself, helping with
registration and the starting grid.

The next Badger Bimmer event at Blackhawk Farms will be our Monday, August 13th Driver’s School event. Registration
is open on MotorsportReg through the link on the Badger Bimmers home page at badgerbimmers.org. For those that have
not done track days before but want to learn how to drive on a track, these are perfect events to build your skills
and learn proper car control.

We had some good, clean fun this last Saturday, June 2nd at BMW of Milwaukee North.  In typical Milwaukee fashion, we all awoke that day to grey skies and temps in the 50’s, but that didn’t stop some great folks and some neat cars from joining the festivities.

We had 32 cars registered and a few more that didn’t make the sign up sheet. It was a pretty darn good spread of some beautiful vintage cars that seemed to quietly find their places among the ranks, and some gorgeous newer cars that thundered their way into the parking lot. Side note – It seems that a prerequisite to owning a newer ///M car is to make the exhaust on it sound like it’s some kind of an underfed, angry, carnivorous animal trying to find its way out of the trunk of the car and consume anyone in the neighboring vicinity…. but maybe I’m just jealous….

When the dust settled and my wife Lisa and Darcy finished tallying up all the ballots, we handed out six trophies. Best of the 70’s went to Anton and Martha Steigerwald with their beautiful 1971 2002 that they bought brand new! Well done! Best of the 80’s went to our very own Darcy Yench with her rather cold blooded 1988 325is. Neat car Darcy! Best of the 90’s went to Jim Radke with his excellent 1998 Z3. Congrats Jim! Best of the 2000’s went to Dave Sterns with his exceptionally cool 535 wagon. Nice job Dave! Best track car went to Dan Hannula with his jaw dropping 2016 M4 GTS…. the want factor is extremely high with this one…. And last but not least, the People’s Choice award went to Jeffery Brown with his most excellent 2010 535xi! A cool car indeed!

Thanks to BMW of Milwaukee North for their hospitality and refreshments. Thanks to all that showed up with their excellent rolling pieces of German engineering. And special thanks also to Jeff, Darcy, Alan, and Lisa for their help! I truly enjoyed hanging and chatting cars with all of you, and hope to see you again next year. Happy motoring!

On May 19, 2018 more than 60 BMW’s lined their way across Waukesha’s beautiful Frame Park for Badger Bimmer’s 6th Annual E30 Picnic. The day began with partly cloudy conditions and 60 degrees. By the time lunch was served, the temperature had climbed to a comfortable 65 degrees. We had record breaking attendance of nearly 100 participants.

Many E30’s joined us ranging from M3, 318i, 318is, 325i, 325is, 325ix, along with multiple convertibles. A fine group of assorted BMW models also joined in the display area for the group to enjoy.  BMW enthusiasts from across the state of Wisconsin and Illinois spent the morning showing off their stock standards and creative modifications.

I’d like to once again thank Badger Bimmers for providing a great lunch “spread” that no doubt added to the success of the event. Congratulations to our raffle recipient, John Straszewski , who won the 2018 Badger Bimmers BMWCCA Blackhawk Farms Raceway Drivers School and Safety Seminar Driving Event Certificate.

Special thanks to TJ Whorley for his event promotion through social media and the WI Bimmers Club. With his expertise and our Badger Bimmer Face Book page, we were able to reach out far and wide to many BMW enthusiasts to insure a very successful gathering.

I enjoyed our collective camaraderie and look forward to the next time we can all get together. Be sure to join us next year when we meet again to show, discuss, appreciate, and admire these incredible driving machines.

International BMW graciously invites us back each year for our annual Spring Clean Up. They provide use of their semi-automatic drive through car wash and their service area for cleaning/polishing/waxing/etc. This year they staged three cars in the service area for us to checkout – a M2, M6 and the new X3M sport. All are very nice vehicles!

Our attendance was 9 people with very nice vehicles which included an M5, E36 M3, M235i, 335i modified for track operation, and a supercharged DINAN E36M3. Two unmodified 335i’s, a 1 series, and a “Brand X” plastic car with a vette in its name rounded out the cars in attendance. All who came left happy with clean and polished cars for the driving season.

International BMW provided us with sandwiches and the club provided snacks and drinks to enjoy with our efforts for the day. We had at least a dozen International customers stop by our area inquiring what we were up to and some expressing interest in our club. An intense interest from one individual for our driving school will most likely result in a new member and driving school participant.

If you have any interest in high performance driving in a safe environment consider coming to our driving event at Blackhawk Farm Race Way or Road America Race Track and ride with an instructor to experience driving on a track to see what you will learn.

The Badger Bimmers Board of Directors would like to thank International BMW for supporting our club activities and for providing the location for our Spring Clean Up.

Appleton car cleanup brought new participants again in 2018!

On May 5^th, the Badger Bimmers were welcomed at Bergstrom Enterprise Motorcars!  Ron Hayes laid out the red carpet for our members to use their detailing supplies, a bay in their detail area and their boardroom for our members to gather socially.  The Bergstrom team and club members shared substantial experience in auto detailing.  Very interesting cars and members participated in this event.

This event brought new members with individual experiences in detailing of their cars.  We had a nice group with good discussions on BMW performance, mechanical maintenance and repairs.  We had a brief lunch and enjoyed sharing experiences.  The participants expressed interest in touring, track events and autocross.  There is a real possibility we will have a Door County driving tour, so keep your eyes and ears open for upcoming news.