Winter 2023 – Presidents Update
by Paul Ngai
Paul Ngai, BMW CCA NJ President
Dear members,
Welcome to 2023! Hope everyone enjoyed their holidays. Looking back at 2022 as my first term serving as the president of the New Jersey BMW CCA chapter, I learned that we have a very passionate group of members. We all love our BMWs and the company of other chapter members. Last year, we established a new Cars & Coffee event–the inaugural event hosted 200 cars! We are looking to schedule more of these in different locations throughout the state–if you have a location in mind, please reach out!
The New Jersey Chapter is proud of our Driving Events roots, and last year was no different. We held six autocross events throughout last year, with new faces at each one! Our Chapter also held three High Performance Driver Education schools (HPDE), including our Instructor Training School and Introduction to the Track event alongside Delaware Valley and NY Chapters. Our June HPDE was our traditional combined HPDE and BMW CCA Club Race to benefit the Westlake School while our July event was also a combined HPDE and Club Race at Summit Point Motorsports Park. Finally, we held a Fall Fun Drive to raise money for the food bank at NORWESCAP.
We met many new and existing members at our monthly members’ meetings held at various sponsors’ venues. We were invited back to BMW North America’s Open House Cars and Coffee event along with the E30 M3 SigFest. Whew. What a busy year in 2022! And none of these can happen without the help of our volunteers, sponsors, and members. So I’d like to thank everyone for helping to make my first year a smooth transition year.
Now, moving on to 2023. We have lots in store for the new year. This year will be even busier than last year. Starting off the year, we had our first member meeting at Shade Tree Garage on Wednesday, January 18th. A few of us just came back from the Rolex Daytona 24-hour race weekend. What a blast we had. Hopefully, some of you will join us next year. On February 23rd, we will be hosting our Driving Events Expo at the Deutscher Club in Clark NJ. At this meeting, we will be discussing our upcoming driving events: auto-cross, HPDEs, Club Racing, Fall Rally and the M Club Days at the BMW Performance Center in Greer! If you haven’t been to one of our driving events, I recommend you attend the DE expo and learn more about our events. There are seven autocrosses, four HPDEs (including the Intro to the Track event for first-timers), two Club Races and 4 M Club Days scheduled for 2023 spanning from April through October.
For members who are not into HPDEs or auto-x’s, we have social events such as social dinners and Cars & Coffee events scheduled throughout the year. Please visit our website at https://njbmwcca.org/calendar/ for a list of events in 2023.
We are always looking for volunteers to help out at our events. If you are willing to volunteer, please let one of us know or email me directly.
Lastly, I am sure many of you saw the tribute to lifetime chapter member and friend Gary Bossert that appeared in Jan/Feb issue of Roundel. Gary was a past President, Board member, driving instructor, club racer, true friend and influencer of the BMW CCA. He will be truly missed by all of us. Here’s a picture of Will Turner’s car with a tribute to Gary Bossert at the Rolex Daytona race this past weekend. We are planning to organize a drive in Gary’s name this year to benefit the Sharing Network. We hope you can come out and join us.
I look forward to seeing every one of you this year!
Regards,
Paul Ngai