As always when the BMW Ultimate Drive comes to town I try to talk everyone I know into participating. So far with my co-workers I have had limited success, but with the fellow MMC members I have had better luck.
This year I had almost talked one of our young engineers into doing it. He was on the fence until I mentioned that they had an M3 Coupe in the line up, then he started leaning. He currently drives a tarted up Lexus IS250 with inspirations of turbo charging it.
When Donna and I left work on Monday he said call him if they had the M3 available and he would seriously consider taking a half day off. When we saw the M3 sitting there in the morning I gave him a call, he said he would be there in the afternoon. Because it was just sitting there waiting, Donna and I took our first loop in it. A couple of miles into our loop and having listened to the sound coming from the exhaust pipes when mainlining bursts of acceleration I told Donna to call Ian’s work phone. I wanted to seal the deal and make sure he came over by having her hold the phone out the window when I punched it. He must have been working because he didn’t pick up.
Turns out he didn’t need that sound incentive because up he drove at about 12:45. At that point the Survivor Drive was in progress so there were no cars to drive. I told him to park and go inside to register. At that point of the day it was taking a while to register, so it took about 20 minutes before he showed up back outside. He had a disappointed look on his face, turns out you have to be 30 years old to drive the M3. He wasn’t to badly hurt because he had lined up a round of golf for later that afternoon, so he just got there early and hit a bucket of balls before playing.
I think Donna and I felt worse about it than he did. I didn’t think anything of it when I asked him to come drive. I thought there might be a 25 year-old age limit on the 6 & 7 Series cars, but I didn’t know about the extra 5 years needed for the M3 Coupe. Because he is so mature acting I thought he was in his upper 20’s, but as it turns out Ian isn’t even old enough to drive the 6s or 7s. He is only 23.
Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 92
On Memorial Day I spent a good bit of the afternoon pressure washing my driveway and got 1/2 of it done. The neighbors on both sides of us have long single wide driveways and no garage access. They both handle the issue differently, one keeps all three cars in the drive with him doing the parking order shuffle each night depending on the sequence the three drivers are leaving in the morning. The other keeps one car in the driveway and two angle parked on the grass to the side of the drive and one spends the night in the street. Donna and I on the other hand have one car that we park in the garage and a 2 car wide driveway that sits empty. 
