MINIUSA is a sponsor of the L.A.T.E. Ride, a 25 mile bicycle ride downtown to be held on the night of July 11th and into the morning of July 12th.
They will have an exhibit with several MINIs and have asked the Chicago MINI Motoring Club for any interested Ambassadors to volunteer some time and share their MINI experience with event participants and their families. You will have full access to a display car and be asked to answer any questions people may have about the car or MINIs in general. The time commitment is tentatively set to be 9pm to 12am, and volunteers are welcome to stay as long as they like.
An additional perk is that if you would like to participate in the bike ride, your entry fee costs will be covered!!
If you are interested, please add a comment to this post or shoot me an e-mail at steve@chicagominiclub.com and I will get you in contact with MINIUSA.
UPDATE 06/30/2009: Our staging area will be spot 69B which is at the corner of 51st street and 94th street. Additional Parade information has been added to the bottom of this post. Anyone who has responded to this post or our Meetup site will be mailed a PDF of the staging area. We will be staging near some horses, so please be considerate and not start your MINIs till we are ready to begin the parade.
NOTE: This event will be televised on a local cable station so make sure your MINI is looking good.
I participated in the Windy City BMW Drivers school event at Gingerman Raceway this past weekend, and had a great time.
My personal objectives were to have a good time, learn more about what my car could do at higher speeds, to improve my driving techniques, and to be able to say that I have driven my MINI to my limits on a racetrack.
The Windy City Miata Club has invited the Chicago MINI Motoring Club to participate in their Autocross event in Maywood on August 1st. We will be given a special pricing of $30, and we will be running in our own MINI classes.
Check out the website HERE for specific rules and details.
IMPORTANT: You are required to preregister for the event at any time from now till the Wednesday prior to the event to reserve your number and to help things work smoothly. Add a comment if you will be attending or watching so we know who’s going.
Mini Meet East meets West will be held in Minnesota on June 29th thru July 3rd. This year is the 50th anniversary of the Mini, so it is bound to be a special event.
Post up if you are going, and what time you are leaving, and perhaps you can hook up and caravan out there. Also visit the Minis In Northern Illinois site to join up with more MINIs and Minis!!
Our club website was unavailable for a few days. The underlying servers were moved without proper notification, and it took a little bit to get everything straightened up. Thanks to Paul for coordination to get things back for us.
We are currently planning out our events for this summer and fall.
Keep an eye on the right-hand column on this website for news about our upcoming events and things that are in the works. When the items are in red you can click on them to take you to the post that describes more detail.
Here is a quick heads up of some of the new events that we don’t have full details put together:
July 4th - Dress up your MINI and participate in the Oak Lawn July 4th parade. Full details will be posted shortly.
August 8th - Plans are still tentative, but we are looking into a Culvers get-together in Downers Grove.
July or August - We are looking into an auto-x event hosted by the Windy City Miata Club
October 3rd and 4th - We are looking into the idea of a Southwest Wisconsin overnight trip.
Don’t forget to click on the links for details of our next planned events:
The Windy City BMW club has again made a special offer to the Chicago MINI Motoring club . They are offering us a discount for their driving school at Putnam Park on August 22nd and 23rd as well as including a years membership to the BMWCCA. This is a fantastic opportunity to improve your driving skills and enjoy testing you and your cars limits in a safe controlled evnironment.
Sections: General, Other Events Jul 1st, 2009 4 Comments 
