Posted by Maxwell:

I would like to encourage anyone with a free Saturday up his or her sleeve to try to make it up to Phil Wicks' Midwest Driver event August 30th.

For anyone who wasn't able to make it to the latest Chicago MINI Motoring Club meeting, it will be a multi-part class. The class is at Gateway International Raceway, just north of St. Louis on the Illinois side. It is essentially an entire day running from 8 am to 5 pm. It begins with some MC/MCS-specific class-time discussing your car and its functions, followed by some in-car practice with braking, skids, emergency maneuvers and general driving technique, and then finally we are out on the track, which is actually located on the infield of Gateway
International and utilizes part of the main oval for one portion. (You can check out the lay of the land at www.gatewayraceway.com/mapOval.html — the gray portion is the main part of the track we will be using.)

As has been previously mentioned, the regular price of $275 is lowered to $220 for all Chicago Mini Motoring Club members (and members of other MINI club as well). Also, if you have had some track time or a driving school class in the past, then you may wish to take the intermediate level class which will include more track time and costs only $140 instead of the usual $175. They also require a DOT approved helmet for everyone, so any motorcycle helmet will do–I've got a spare or two in my basement if anyone needs one.

Finally, to anyone from the Chicagoland area who is interested, I am going to be spending the night in a hotel in Collinsville Friday and Saturday night. To all those who plan to go, you should let me know as soon as possible if you have not already made reservations. If we get a few people
together who all want to spend the night there, we can probably qualify for a group rate.

If you have not yet signed up, but you do plan to attend, I recommend calling Phil, and getting your name on the list; then just fill out the entry form on his site and send it in via snail-mail.

Contact information:

Me:
Maxwell Heathcott (aka Chitown_COOP)
mheathcott@hotmail.com

Phil Wicks/Midwest Driver:
midwestdriver.com
racerwicks@aol.com
(314) 330-6449

Hope to see a lot of you there!