Hi all!

I drove down to Memphis on August 27th to meet catch the MINI Takes The States drive. Here are my pictures so far:

August 27 -- Memphis
August 28 -- Nashville
August 29 -- St. Louis
August 30 -- Indianapolis
MINIs on the Brickyard (VIDEO)

I'll be posting every day (given that I have Internet access) through Indy.

Enjoy!

-Tom

 

Great pix! They make me wish I could have done the complete trip, instead of just California.

 

Nice shots. Enjoy the trip!

 

Thank you

 

Very cool Shagz Thanks for sharing

Hope to see you in Indy

 

Thanks for the kind words. I've updated with some pictures from today's drive. It was really a pretty drive. Hopefully the weather will hold out this evening for the music festival. Met briefly with Fireball Tim and his crew. Very cool people. Still haven't met the Maxim models yet....

 

Where are your priorities man!!!

Of course, this comment is coming from a guy that found it more important to work than go to MTTS....

BTW, has anyone seen the "Hummer Escape Pod" sticker shown in one of Shagz pics? I gotta get me one of those....

 

More pics posted under Nashville. The weather held out almost until the end. John Hiatt was great as well as the other bands. I've met some very cool people...it's really neat how this has kind of been a family reunion with the MINI being the common gene.

Maxim models: I'm starting to wonder if that was a lure to get desperate guys like me to come.... Actually, I am not the only one who hasn't seem them....maybe they knew I was joining the tour and decided to call it quits!

 

you crack me up!!

 

Sorry for the delay in posting pictures, but as with everything...there is a story.

St. Louis: It was a nice drive to St. Louis. We stopped early at a Waffle House to feed a craving (not mine). I stuck with OJ....I had already had bacon and eggs that morning and there is only so much punishment my GI track will allow. We venture forth to Metropolis, IL, home of Superman....or at least a very large statue of him. We tour a Superman museum....Holy fanaticism, Batman!....oh wait...doh!!! For lunch we eat at the floating casino Harrah's. The buffet is nice and I left up $19 on the slots.

We get to St. Louis and the Milwaukee MINIs go to their seperate hotels. Mine is located right next to Busch Stadium with the tailgate party on the side of the hotel. That made my life simple. The weather was overcast and threatening to rain. The set up was nice. They had a large tent with food and large projection screens for the game broadcast. As you walked in, you received a black envelope. If the envelope contained a red card, you one a pair of skybox tickets to the game ($82 tickets!!! ) John and Heather won a pair and gave their original tickets to Wade and Theresa. I had resigned myself to hanging out at the tailgate party and maybe hitting my hotel room to post pictures. Little did I know that things would change quite dramatically.....

I spied Todd Pearson of WhiteRoofRadio.com and introduced myself. I had emailed him about an available GP in Milwaukee during the time he was looking. He had remembered the email and shortly thereafter asked me if I was going to the game. As it turned out, MINI USA had given him a pair of skybox tickets and as his wife was back home, he had a spare.

Now I should say that I am not much of a drinker anymore. As a matter of fact, before this evening it had been several months when I last had a beer. Being in a skybox, I felt obliged to have a drink. Being Busch stadium, they were serving up Bud, not the normal sort of beer I drink. Bad news!

The evening was fun. I got to hang out with John and Heather and met some of MINI USA's insiders. The Cards got creamed by the Marlins...9-1. Rather painful to watch. After the game, Todd and I headed back to my hotel room to purge any accumulated toxins before heading to Al Hrabowski's Saloon, a nearby bar named after a pitcher. Todd said that he had sent a cellphone picture of my bathroom to the MTTS Flickr, but for the life of me, I can't find it. Maybe it got yanked. We met up with Gabe and Taylor who had just arrived from Chicago. I have about half of a beer there before I called it an evening, which was about 11:30. I felt like garbage and I slept poorly. Apparantly others showed up and folks were out until rather late (or early) hours. I would have never survived.....

I woke up the next morning and was definitely in "why the hell didn't I just drink water" mode. I made it to the Arch where the other Milwaukee MINIs had arrived. The cars were lined up for an aerial photograph. Then off to Indy!

MAXIM Models: I asked Todd where the Maxim Models were. He said there was a story, but wasn't at liberty to say. I'm thinking this was just a cover story. My guess is that Maxim magazine could not afford to lose any more models to the guy known only as.....MINISHAGZ!!

Indianapolis: The drive to Indy was non-stop. There was talk the night before that there might be a limit on the number of cars to drive on Indy and that we needed to get there early. As all the MINIs had left St. Louis together, I-70 was loaded with the little cars we know and love. I tried to keep up with some of the speed demons, but decided that it was probably best to keep it relatively moderate as I really felt crummy (Thanks BUD!!!!). I did sort of catch my second wind later and sped up to catch up with some folks (although I think for most of the drive I was ahead of the main pack). I hit my hotel...quickly use the bathroom and speed out to Indy. Even when I arrived, there were loads of MINIs already lined up to hit the Brickyard! I take a short tour of the Hall of Fame where I run into many of my Chicago MINI friends who drove down for the day. Take a quick bus tour of the track and then hang out waiting for the parade lap. A MINI cabrio arrives with a seriously smashed in driver's side door. The driver apparently picked the wrong time to make a turn and got hit by an oncoming car. The car looked horrible, but happily the driver was uninjured. It is a real testament to the safety features of the MINI. Oddly though, the side airbags did not deploy....

We rev our motors, honk our horns and hit the track. Initially we get up to about 50mph on the back straightaway, where we started. After turns 3 and 4, the speed drops to a crawl as the MINIs in front cross the finish line at a reduced speed so that pictures of the cars can be taken. Then turns 1 and 2 and we are directed off the track and basically out the door. It appeared that my little camera set up has worked OK. I will be posting the video later after I do some work on it.

Many of the MINIs meet up across the street and chat. I and a few of the Chicago MINI club members drive down street to meet up with the remaining Chicago group. We hit a drive-in restaurant. The food was OK, but the company was great. The next morning I head to the departure point to say my good-byes and snap a few last pictures of the tour. I then head an hour north to visit with my brother's family.

It's hard to believe it is already over. Although I am not wearing it, I still feel the wristband that got me into so many cool events. When I got my car last December, I couldn't stop smiling. I've told many people that getting my MINI was one of the best things I've done for myself. After MTTS, I think it has paid off 10-fold. I had a blast, saw some spectacular cars, and met and hung out with some really great people. Would I do it again........where do I sign up?

Thank you MINI USA. Thank you Memphis, Nashville, St. Louis, Indianapolis, and everywhere in between. Thank you Todd for the ticket! Thanks to the local clubs and dealerships who pulled things together on the local level.

Safe travels to those going forward and keep motoring!!!

 

Great pics Tom!!!

Glad to hear your trip home was uneventful. Thanks for sharing your pics and I enjoyed your write-up. Here are my MTTS pics as promised!

It was good to see you again!. Us BRG's have to stick together

 

OK! I've posted my video (link above). This is a relatively big file (~25MB), so dial-up....be warned! Enjoy!

Note: I may do some further work on the video (add titles, etc.) but I wanted to get this up as soon as possible....and yes....I changed lanes ...I'm a bad....bad....person.....