--Hello I just moved here to Burlington Vermont and was wondering where all the great clubs are at. I've heard of one in Boston and another one called New England Mini Owners.


Can anyone give me some suggestions? I'm looking for diy garage motorheads and perhaps even some occasional track events. Not auto-x though sorry. I'm more of a time attack full track racer wannabe.


My 2005 R53 Cooper S is still in transit and should be here within the week. I'm looking forward to exploring all of Burlington and the surrounding area with her and maybe making some friends while doing that.

Thanks everyone in advance.

 

There's a few MINI owners in your area and a couple of them do auto-x and some track ... get in contact with Jason (screen name "snid")

 

Welcome to Burlington! I grew up near there and miss it terribly...

I am down here in Meredith, NH and we have a little place called New Hampshire Motor Speedway - they do some racing down this way on a pretty frequent basis. However, I am not involved with any of the track events - but I do know that they happen!

Some things for you to check out as well
Rt 100 - fantastic driving road
Rt 108 smugglers > Stowe
Rt 15 Burlington to St. J.

There is a British Car event in Stowe in the fall - might be a good place to meet some other MINI people. I know that we're planning on checking it out.

In the spring there is Minis On Top - which is a weekend thing up Mt Washington here in NH. Very popular - I look forward to participating next year!

Good luck - Burlington is a really cool city. I am working on a plan to get back to that area (anyone need an IT Manager?)

 

Snid plays with the Vermont Sports Car Club, sccv.org. They do both autox and track days. There have also been a few mini runs up around that area.

I live near Saratoga, NY, across the border + south of you, and mainly post on nemini.org, but they are more NJ / PA / CT based. Not much else close though. MAMA based in NH, closest mini group..

 

Check out the Sports Car Club of Vermont (www.sccv.org) for activities. We meet every 3rd Tuesday of the month at Zachary's Pizza on Williston Road. We sponsor our own track events, but hook up with other clubs for track events at all the big tracks around the Northeast (Glen, Mosport, Tremblant, etc.).

 

--Cool thanks everyone! I'll bet nothing really happens in the winter though huh?

~p

 

What do you want to happen in the winter?

The Mellow Yellow / Black R56 Cooper S with the carbon fiber hood scoop is mine. My velvet red / white 2003 Cooper is already in storage for the winter. :(

The SCCV folks are a good bunch to hook up with. I'm an apartment dweller, so I don't have a garage to work in. But, through the club I have a few friends with garages to borrow when needed. One in Williston - with a Mitsu Galant VR4. One further south by Mount Philo - this one has a lift and the owner has a Factory 5 Cobra.

The really heavy DIY work on my Cooper was done by a few other MINI owners, but down in Connecticut.

I hit up as many BMWCCA track days as possible. If you want to get into time trials, look up COM http://www.comscc.com/ I've been to a few of their events, but there are a few other SCCV folks who go to a bunch of their events.

Once the Cooper is out of storage in the spring, there will probably be some suspension work that needs to be done to it... coilovers, rear control arms, rear swaybar endlinks, etc... If you want to help, that would be cool.

Jason

 

Jason,

We went to the last COM event at NHMS last weekend. I didn't think I would like the track, but it kind of grows on you. I didn't drive well at all...no track time since the last SLMP. Jared did drive extremely well and now the Miata is not any more challenge to him, so we have to move on. Have all winter to get ready for next year. Going to try to do BMWCCA events. Sold the vette and bought a new toy...have to decide whether to track it or not.

 

I'm not new to Vermont, but I'm new to having a Mini. I'm out of Montpelier.

 

If anyone's looking for a good road to drive along, I wrote this up about a drive I took the other week: http://jeditrilobite.wordpress.com/2...ad-in-vermont/

 

Great write-up ... great picture too

 

Northern Vermonter chiming in, yes welcome to Burlington!

The SCCV as noted above hold autocrossing and other events.

The Green Mountain Chapter BMW CCA Club welcomes MINI Cooper owners! We will be gearing up for lots of great event this summer and many, many more to come with track events, stay tuned. http://www.vtbmwcca.org

The Green Mountain Chapter of the BMWCCA has it's next meeting at the Automaster, March 28th, 2009 at 9:30am

 

Yup, that's some of my favorite road in Vermont. The App Gap (route 17) is right there, too.

Other than those, route 232 through Groton State Forest is the other must-drive road. But I haven't been on it in a while, so I don't know how bad the pavement is.

I also saw your post on your blog about the failed 5-speed midlands. Welcome to the club (I'm on transmission #3). It wouldn't hurt to talk to the service guys at MINI of Peabody to see if there's any goodwill they can extend on fixing it.

 

Thanks - it's actually not my image, just something I pulled from Flickr. I love that site.

I don't know if I've been up through 232, but I'll add it to the list. I just took a drive up 302 to 91, then back down Rt 2.

Urg, Transmission #3? Hopefully that won't happen this time around - I'm planning on checking the transmission oil (that's what happened this time around - I got a leak in the axle seal and it got chewed up) more often...

 

Are these clubs easily accessible to someone who's never done autocross or anything like that? It's something that I'd like to get more into, although I'm not necessarily a hardcore car person...

 

That axle seal fails when it gets really cold. I'm anxious to see if it failed while my 2003 Cooper was sitting in storage for the winter.

The Vermont BMWCCA is still getting its legs - it will most likely not be very "hardcore".

The Sports Car Club of Vermont is much more "hardcore", but still very welcoming to people new to the idea of performance driving. Everybody has to start from the beginning, after all. Nobody made me feel foolish when I started with the SCCV, and now I'm working on becoming an on-track instructor with the BMWCCA.

 

Huh, that's cool, I've marked down their next meeting in Williston - I'll check them out.

Really cold - interesting. The mechanic, over at Williston's Imported Car Centre, said that it was slowly leaking over a year, but this went out over the winter. I'll have to keep an eye on during the colder months. I know what to look for now, so hopefully we'll be good...

 

Two additional roads to try out if you're in the central VT area - Rt 12, going out of Northfield (or towards it), and Rt 12 N out of Montpelier, towards Morrisville.

Going South out of Northfield has a great stretch of road, if a little bumpy, that goes though a mountain pass. As a result, it's narrow and has a lot of curves. Very fun to go down so long as you're not stuck behind a minivan taking in the sights.

Going North out of Montpelier is also fun - It doesn't wind around as much, but there are some really nice stretches that are very pretty.