Back From Hiatus

It’s been a while, I know, but I hope you all are doing well. Life has been busy for me over the past few months. After a $7000 AC replacement bill, my track budget for 2009 pretty much vaporized. I had to miss Sebring last month and I am having to cancel my plans for Daytona later this month :(. But alas, the house is now cool, which is important in South Florida!

The MINI scene around here has been pretty much non-existent over the past few months. I have heard similar stories from other regions as well. Some believe the new MINI owners buying cars are not as enthusiastic about the MINI and its culture. Of course, there ARE enthusiasts out there buying new MINIs, but I would have to agree that the numbers seem much lower.

Take the wave for example. I still wave to every MINI I see on the road. In the past I would usually receive an enthusiastic wave back. Now-a-days, I usually get nothing back. Sometimes, I even get some weird looks. What sucks is the lack of enthusiasm and activity has really put a damper on my own MINI enthusiasm. It is kind of hard to get excited about your car when you can’t go out and hang with other MINIacs.

If I lived closer to Miami, I would make it a point to go hang out with Minis of Miami. I hear that their club is still going strong. I suspect it is because they started as a Mini club, rather than a MINI club, and most of their members own classic Minis, and are as enthusiastic as ever.

With all that said, I did get an opportunity to hang out with some great MINIacs a couple weeks ago at Mickey & MINI 5. It was nice to be around familiar faces that I don’t get to see very often. The weekend proved quite adventurous for me and my MINI. Stay tuned for my weekend recap on Mickey & MINI 5 and I’ll show you how my MINI broke down and how yours might too.

3 thoughts on “Back From Hiatus”

  1. I hear ya.

    I gave up on club activities here in SoCal but still have many friends within the club. My problems with the SoCal club come from a few things… Politics, bad manners at the club blog and club runs in areas where they go way too fast for that area.

    I haven’t seen a MINI Wave in years. I still wave at about 50% now.

    I still love my MINI but I yearn for the days of “let’s just go motoring”, have some fun and forget all the other stuff that has become part of this SoCal club.

  2. Im still with the MINI Pedro…Even though you haven’t seen me in a while…I’m a die hard….(you have to be to drive a 2002 MCS…LOL)..been a bad year (finance wise for me too)….just wanted to chime in and let you know some of us are still here… 🙂

  3. Same story here Pedro… my MINI activities have been cut way back, and the Daytona group seems to have vanished. I haven’t been to an autocross in over 2 years now, and longer than that for any sort of trackday. I’ve had so many mechanical issues (not really the fault of the car, just bad luck) in the past year that some people would have given up on the car. For almost the last 2 years I’ve driven 70 miles to work (one way) each day, and wave at the same 5 or 6 MINIs every day, with nothing returned.

    I’m slowly trying to get back into the swing of things… and going slowly in a MINI isn’t much fun!

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