Another Mickey & MINI is in the record books and this year was the best one yet!! With 300 of the best MINIacs this side of the Mississippi, Orlando was THE place to be this weekend. It was so nice to see familiar faces from last year and so cool to see so many new faces who, for some, this was their first MINI event ever! I plan on having a full weekend recap once I get my photos retouched (darn camera lens got mucked up and now there are spots on most of my photos ).

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I am also working on a video from the weekend as well. For now, enjoy the group photo from our Saturday Morning Motoring adventure which led us to the main EPCOT parking lot in front of Spaceship Earth. There were 68 MINIs/Minis that made up this photo. If you look close, you will see we had to double them up and create a second row. Sadly, I am short and did not have a tall platform to get an aerial shot to get all the cars in both rows in the shot (hmmm…. there is always next year ).

It has been way too long since we added a new edition to the MotoringFun Desktop Wallpaper Collection. This latest entry comes to us from Darren M. Tai, who took this awesome shot recently in the Orlando, FL area. Funny thing is that I actually know the previous owner of that Mini pickup truck in the back! What a small world . Thanks Darren!!

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Now this is something I can not wait for! South African animation company, Luma, has developed a new racing game that is sure to be a hit - “MINI #37 - Arcade Racer”. Cars will be added as new versions of the game are released. Coming this month, this game will eventually let the player select all the types of MINIs you can configure for purchase including classic Minis and JCW’s. Heck maybe even a GP will sneak in there . The game will start with tracks in South Africa, and new courses will be added as new versions are released. From what I have seen, the graphics will be stunning. Check out the following description from greatgamesexperiment.com. They also posted some screen shots that are worth checking out too. Enjoy!

MINI#37 is an episodic racing game and every couple of months or so, new sections of the game will be released. The first public release (Episode One) will be available in May of this year. It will include tracks set in Newtown as well as Cape Town (tracks include Camps Bay, the V&A Waterfront, and the dock area). Each city/location will consist of three tracks, and new cars will also be available as downloadable updates or as part of the next release. All of the MINI vehicles will eventually be available, including vintage MINI’s and some hotted up MINI’s like the GP and JCW.

There are two game modes: Arcade Mode will feature single races on any of the unlocked tracks, and Championship Mode will require players to compete through a series of tracks in Grand Prix style racing. Both game modes will be playable as single player or multiplayer experiences.

[ MINI #37 - Arcade Racer Trailer Download ]
[ MINI #37 - Arcade Racer Website ]
[ Screenshots ]
[ Luma ]

We just finished recording AMVIV Live! - Show #3 and have it ready for download! A huge thanks to Agro, Will and Fireball Tim for joining us over the past 3 nights. For those of us who could not make it to Vegas for AMVIV, it was nice to hangout and get first-hand accounts of the days’ activities.

Thank you to all who showed up each night in the MotoringFun.com chat room and the MotoringFun.com hotline where the broadcast was able to be listened to live. Depending on your feedback, we may try that format again for future virtual meets.

[ Download AMVIV Live! - #3 ]
[ Download AMVIV Live! - #2 ]
[ Download AMVIV Live! - #1 ]

We just wrapped up AMVIV Live! - Show #2 and have it ready for download! Sounds like a good time is being had by all in Vegas. Sure wish I could be there. You too? Well - here’s the next best thing - download the show and it is as close to being there as you can get!

We will give it another try tomorrow night at the same time (9:30pm EST / 6:30pm PST). Hope you can join us!

[ Download AMVIV Live! - #2 ]

We just wrapped up our first ever MotoringFun.com audio event - AMVIV Live! and I think it went ok. We normally have our monthly meets in the chat room with no audio, but this time our special guests were live from A MINI Vacation In Vegas and called in to chat. Agro from Sin City Minis and Will from M7 Tuning joined us on the MotoringFun.com hotline and shared their experience thus far with AMVIV 4!

Let me say upfront that this is the first time we have tried something like this and we are, by no means, professional podcasters or broadcasters. Hopefully you will enjoy the show, nonetheless. We will give it another try tomorrow night and Saturday night at the same time each night (9:30pm EST / 6:30pm PST). Hope you can join us!

[ Download AMVIV Live! - #1 ]

It’s time for another Motoring Fun Desktop Wallpaper download. This awesome picture of the RSR Motorsports’ MINI Cooper S driven by Randy Smalley and Mark Congleton at the 2007 Grand-Am KONI Challenge Series in Daytona, comes to us by our latest MotoringFun.com contributor, Tom Stacy. Great shot Tom!

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Winding Road Issue 18 for March 2007 has a lengthy article comparing the 2007 MINI Cooper S with the Volkswagen GTI and the Volvo C30 T5. While they discuss the good and bad attributes of each car, they don’t declare a winner. Things they like in the MINI: the light weight, wider powerband, interior (mostly), seat position, steering, Web-Spoke wheels, and its “flick-ability”. Things they dislike: rear seat space, remote mirror adjustment knob placement, thin interior plastic, and straight-line speed.

Register your email address for a free three-year “subscription” and download the article at Winding Road.

I think it’s time I posted the next installment in the Motoring Fun Desktop Wallpaper Collection. For this edition, I decided to use my own 2006 MINI Cooper S named “Scooter” as the subject to celebrate the end of “stock” status. This week, Scooter gets transformed from a cute little MINI to a more aggressive performance machine. New wheels and tires have arrived and the JCW exhaust with the MyMini resonator eliminator and JCW intake will be getting installed this weekend. A 15% pulley from MyMini will also be added within the next month to round out the performance enhancements. More details to come, including dyno data, but for now - enjoy “Scooter”.

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Looks like the marketing folks at MINI are at it again! This time they put out all the stops with the website DEFMINIRECORDS.com. Complete with band information, music videos and downloads. Oh - and an interesting spin on the classic game “Memory” called “Butt-Memory“…

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