I Did A Thing

While house / dog / mom sitting, I had some time to get serious about track car shopping. Using Cars.com and AutoTrader, I zeroed in on some specific models of certain years and mileage. For a few days I’d watch the cars and the prices of them, and comparing the offerings to what values NADA.com said were reasonable, I started to narrow down the choices to a select few cars scatter around the US, mostly east of the Mississippi. When the dust cleared, and some of the vehicles disappeared while I was debating, I jumped on this beauty…

A ’21 BMW M2 Competition rescued from an Audi dealership in South Carolina.

Cars.com was a pretty slick operation. You can really target your search to narrow in on specific details of cars offered in whatever range from you decide on – years, mileage, transmission, price range. After talking with a Civic Type R owner about the amount of modifications needed to make it track-worthy (mostly from a heat dissipation standpoint), and having had a similar discussion with an M2 Competition owner, I decided the M2 Competition was the better choice. Was it pricier than the CTR? Sure it was. However, if you look at the value of available cars in relation to MSRP, the M2C was a far better value.

I narrowed my search down to three specific examples of the M2C: a white ’21 at a Nissan dealership in Cincinnati, a blue ’21 at an Audi dealership in Greenville SC, and a red ’21 at an independent dealer in NYC. I was leaning towards the white one as it seemed to represent the best value, but when I sent the listings to my wife, she said she preferred blue, so who was I to argue? Shortly thereafter, the white one was taken off the site, so I figured I needed to move NOW on the blue one before it was snapped up.

As I discussed the car with a salesperson at the dealership, I learned the cosmetic damage incident revealed in the Carfax report was contact with a deer in the suburbs of Atlanta. The Audi dealership had recently replaced the rear tires as part of their sales prep, which gave me a bit of assurance that the frame isn’t suffering from any issues. This, and the mileage (~36k), made it a very affordable choice. Similar M2Cs that had mileage under 10k on them and a clean Carfax were commanding a premium of $4k-$7k above what I paid, so I was happy to get a discount for a minor incident and some miles.

Flying down to Greenville later this week to pick it up and drive it home to Albany. Just hoping the weather cooperates with my flight, and the drive, so it doesn’t make a long trip any longer than it has to be.

No End In Sight… Yet

All of May’s motorsports activity has been wiped out. However, there are attempts to get some events off the ground in June. For me, that means a track day with Patroon BMW CCA scheduled for June 20th is still on the calendar. We’ve been talking with the track, and until the current CT guidelines allow for gatherings of more than 5 people are loosened, we can’t attempt to hold the event. The track has stated they are not offering refunds, so the club can’t get money back if government entities allow the event to take place. We’ve changed the format of the event so that no in-car instruction is needed, meaning only non-novice drivers will be allowed to participate. Also, traditional gatherings such as classroom sessions will be ditched. Drivers’ meeting would be changed to spread everyone out, and registration itself would likely be changed to limit contact between participants.

Not sure when we’ll hear whether we can move forward or not.

I’m really curious as to whether we’ll be able to go across the border for our Trillium BMW CCA July track event at Calabogie Motorsports Park in Calabogie, ON, CA.

Vinyl wrap for the Evo

I have a family friend’s daughter who recently got a new job at a graphics shop. I was checking out the website and noticed they did vinyl wraps for vehicles, so I figured I throw them a bone and have them do my Evo’s hood. It’s a bit road rashed at this point with all the track days I’ve done with it, so it could use a refresh. I think the results are pretty good! As a buddy point out to me, most carbon fiber hoods for the Evo actually weigh MORE than the stock aluminum hood (unless you get a dry carbon fiber one, which is four figures), so the wrap makes a lot of sense for me.

Thanks to the gang at Graphicworx for the nice job!

A new site… long overdue.

I recently had new business cards made up, not because there was any need to but because the image on my old business cards featured my very stock-looking BBY Evo 8, and now it’s a more non-stock looking BBY Evo 8.  Gotta rep the wing…

I finally handed out a new card (Hi to Adam F!), and realized my website address on the new business cards point to my extremely creaky Earthlink website.  I’m no longer an Earthlink customer, but I guess Earthlink websites never die, they just stick around forever stuck in a weird 1999-2007 vibe. So I decided to finally use this push to take the plunge and whip up a quicky WP site.  I administer one for the MoHud Region of SCCA, so I figured I could use the practice on my own site.  It’ll slowly get built up around here…