Club Happenings – Summer 2016: Monthly Meeting at the Biergarten
by NJ BMW CCA
By Marc Goeller
For the second year in a row, our Biergarten social event held jointly with our friends from the Deutscher Club started under the rain. A lot of rain! As a result, I hit some heavy traffic on my way to Clark and arrived later than I had planned. I was nevertheless extremely happy to see that all the cars that had entered our People’s choice concours were neatly parked on the grounds! My thank you and gratitude go to our friend, Heinz Ricken, who took the lead to organize the flow of collector cars as well as the two beautiful rides that BMW of Springfield decided to bring to the party: a new 650i xDrive along with a M235i Convertible (or Cabrio as they say in München….).
Fortunately for all of us, the DC is equipped with an amazing hall that is covered and that protected everybody until the rain eventually tamed. All were able to enjoy the amazing German food and beer that was on tap (not mentioning the delicious and gigantic salty pretzels!!) while listening to some traditional Bavarian music. I used this opportunity to distribute the ballots to the participants so that they could vote for their favorite BMW. As usual, three categories were listed: Vintage class (cars 25 years and older), Motorsport class (including all M models) and Modern class (the rest…). In the end, more than 100 votes were cast and quite predictably, the car that gathered the most votes was Bill Dahn’s Pumpkin: a lovely 1973 2002 tii model in a stunning Inca Orange livery!!
Another iconic model, one of the pristine first-generation M3 (also known by its E30 code) that was entered by Bob Krieger, won the Motorsport class. For the little back story, our very own Ross Karlin, club racing chair on our board of directors tied Bob in this class with yet another beautiful E30 M3, but was gracious enough to forego the laurels. Thanks Ross!
Biergarten participants confirmed that they are true connoisseurs of the marque, as they lastly selected the car of William (Bill) Dahn in the Modern Class.
All three class winners received a prize donated by our long-time friends from BMW of Springfield. All of us were really the ultimate winners as we enjoyed yet another wonderful night in the great company of fellow BMW enthusiasts. Looking forward to next year’s Biergarten already…
