by jerri Wiley

the Chapter’s 20th Anniversary. The Annual Elections Dinner in 1992 was to include an interesting speaker: Bob Knoll who was the Director of the Consumers Union auto-mobile Testing Division. At the last minute he had to cancel so our Chapter Attorney, Scott Chamberlain, stepped in to discuss the proper procedures for dealing with alleged traffic law infractions. We were still holding the Chapterthe Chapter’s Motorsport Championship and those awards were handed out at the dinner. We handed out first place trophies for best in Autocross, best in Concours, best in Rally, and overall winners; Bob Morin took first place, Sheila Morin came in second, and Barbara Bisset was in third.

We were starting our third year of Chapter driver schools. We were still requiring first time students to attend our Safety School before they’d be allowed to drive on the track. That school was held sometime before the day of the driver school. Willy and jerri Wiley organized and pre-sented the material at those schools with help from Jim Nichols and Wally Thomas. The first Safety Schools were held at a fiheld at a firehouse, complete with setting a car on fire as a demonstration on how to use a fire extinguisher.

What was on the cover of the March DZ issue? An artist’s rendition of an ’02 with skis for front tires – needed for that early March driver school! The year was full of Events: Driver Schools, Rally School, Rallys, Concours, Autocrosses, the Annual Motorsport Championship, Dinner Meetings, Our first ’02 Fest (Chairman Scott Chamberlain), held at Indian Well State Park. Cars arrived frfrom NY, ME, NJ, MD, and PA as well as CT. More than 60 cars showed up.), Tech Sessions including some hands- on ones, the annual Raccoon Camping Trip/Concours, Bike Trips, overnight road trip to Maine, Picnics, Caravan to Oktoberfest, Charity Auction, and the annual Christmas party (yes, the name wasn’t changed to Holiday Party yet). If my event count is accurate, we held 39 events in 1992! Speaking of Rally events, some of the members of 1992! Speaking of Rally events, some of the members of the Board had formed a committee in 1991 to write a good set of TSD Rally General Instructions. We still use them. By the time you read this DZ issue, the Novice Rally School will be behind us. We will be using those old GIs. They may need a some updating, but are mostly current.

June 1992 DZ issue contains an article about the reveal of a new BMW with Spy Photos, written by Bob Morin. The article describes the car with an extremely low ride height and high profile experimental special tires. Quotes from the article: controversial high-tech design, exterior remi-niscent of the beloved 2002, but the car is very light, almost fluffy, low rolling resistance, high profile, narrow winter tiwinter tires made of an experimental new compound which is said to get excellent “bite” in the snow, safety was a major consideration, entire interior built of a very soft almost spongy substance, designed to run on alter-native fuels. The car was known as the Concept Automo-bile Kit Experimental – CAKE for short.

The Chapter Motorsport Championship of 1992 gave us the first place winner in Autocross: Will Turner (yes, THATWill Turner); first place in Concours were the Bissets, firstplace in Rally were the Morins. The overall champion was Bob Morin, beating out the Bissets who were second, and Sheila Morin came in third. It was Will Turner’s first year

competing for the Chapter Championship. Bob Morin wrote his annual poem to recap the year. Those poems were always great and filled with lots of laughs.

1993 brings our Chapter its second female P1993 brings our Chapter its second female President – Sheila Morin. We have not had a third one yet (Heather?). In the events department, we tried to organize a bus trip to Atlantic City. We didn’t get enough people to pay for the bus. A blizzard on the day of our Spring Driver School (March 13) left 30” of snow on the downhill and caused its cancellation. Stephanie Gerber, started out the year as the Driver School ChaiDriver School Chair, but turned over control to Dave Fazzino by September. Steph had been the chairman for years #3 and #4 of the Chapter schools. Could that blizzard have had anything to do with her decision???

What would eventually become the Chapter’s Annual ’02 Fest East was held for the second year. It brought out 85 2002s. We held a Dinner Meeting in October just for an excuse to have Sam Posey as our guest speaker. It was held at the Sheraton Inn in Waterbury and only cost $28 per person. We also held a Halloween Party on October 30. Members showed up as all sort of characters (even momore than their normal selves). The house it was held in was decorated with many original artist’s paintings that were on loan from the Gerbers. Those paintings were used as horror book covers so you can imagine how unique the decorations were! We held 34 events in 1993.

DZs start out as all previous ones: asking for help with all things Chapter. We’d been including columns in the DZ from The President, The Editor, The Secretary’s Report as well as upcoming and past events coverage (31 events were held in 1994). We needed more. We needed help to get the DZ out in a more timely fashion. February brought a change in Editor. As Kathy Jelinek wrote in our first EditorEditor’s column (soon to be titled “It Is What It Is”): “While everyone else was busy sitting on their hands, someone poked me in the back with a pencil. Startled, I threw my hands up in the air, and thus became editor. Since jerri was the one who poked me, it was only fitting that she be the co-editor with me.” In 1997 Nancie Giacalone took over from me to become the co-editor with Kathy. Even-tually Nancie was the only Editor and remained so until Lance Johnson took over in 2010!

There used to be this strange art display at the Hamden Mall. It was “Asphalt Art”. The artist had parked a line of cars in one area of the parking lot and then covered them with asphalt. The cover of the March DZ is a photo of a 320i parked in that line of asphalt cars. Too bad, I’m told the art is long gone. As for that 320i? We lost track of it when the girlfriend of a Club member became owner #4 – all of them Chapter members.all of them Chapter members.

We attended the BMW Skip Barber Driving School as a group. In 1994, Skippy School was still using BMWs and it was well worth the day spent driving those cars on the skid pad, autocross track and practicing panic braking and accident avoidance. It was a Street Survival day for adults. Great bumper sticker: WATCH OUT! I DRIVE LIKE YOU DO!

Since our Newsletter Editors were both on our Okto-berfest committee, our August DZ was next to the smallest one this chapter has ever had – 1 piece of paper containing 3 articles, a list of upcoming events, and Editors Column (sort of). The one-page DZ was mailed out to be sure members knew of upcoming events (again, so happy we now have internet!)

Volume 19, #9: This issue became the Nov/Dec issue. The 1991 busy’ness was over! The chapter hosted a very successful Oktoberfest. Close to 500 members attended from all corners of the US (and some from across the pond, and our neighbors from Canada). This issue of the DZ contained articles about each event. Driver School – a caravan left Waterbury (the site of the Hotel) each moWaterbury (the site of the Hotel) each morning and only one morning was anyone issued a ticket for driving too fast! The Autocross – we had help from a local club who to this day puts on Autocrosses (they ran the event for us). Gymkhana – designed from the devious mind of Willy Wiley. Fun Rally – designers Bob & Sheila Morin used a board game theme which became a challenge for all those participants who became a challenge for all those participants who didn’t remember how to play games without the help of a computer! TSD Rally – we formed a “Rally GI Committee” and wrote the General Instructions for rally’s that the Chapter used for many years. The GIs were first used at Oktoberfest. Jack Jones was the Rally Meister and did a superb job. Concours – back in the days when the Concours was considein the days when the Concours was considered “the premier even of Oktoberfest and was held on the last day of the full Oktoberfest week. John and Barbara Bisset chaired this even and with their long experi-ence as Oktoberfest champions they thought of everything, left no Zymol rag unturned and put on a great event. As the event Chairman, I want to again thank all those who helped put our Oktoberfest together (many of those on the committee are still members of the Chapter). The long-running Presi-dent (Phil Miner – 4 years in a row, but 6 years total) was our spokesperson every night at the social events. He would be stepping down as Pres at the end of the year and Scott Chamberlain would