I drove down to Austria last weekend. Over 40 Minis were meeting near Salzburg to join the Mini Track Day 2004. We are all members of the German “newMINI-IG” a Mini dedicated Online forum (http://www.new-mini-ig.de).
A couple of members organized the event in their time after work and did a great job! We did two nice tours through the Austrian mountains, had dinner and (lots of) drinks together. At the track we met even more Mini enthusiast and it was a great and fun weekend.
MINI does a great job with open and accessible pit “tents” where all 30 teams from the MINI Challenge prepare their cars. You can watch them do the last tweaks, speak to the teams and drivers and take lots of photos.
As the weekend was a “Track Day” we even got to drive on the track in smaller groups on Saturday and Sunday! Very cool!
Races were going on on both days. On Saturday it was raining like mad so the first cars had some trouble staying on the track during the qualifying session however the race itself went very well. 19 year old Katrin Droste made the pace – starting from the pole position and eventually winning the race.
On Sunday it was nearly dry – but unfortunately not incident free. Rauno Aaltonen went off the track fighting for his position and spun his car in a fast bent. He then rolled the car after hitting the guardrail. He got out ok and had to watch the last laps from the side lines. Yellow flags didn't prevent a crash involving several cars in a tight set of curves in the same lap. A handfull of cars were involved but all ended up finishing the race. Alexander Burgstaller eventually won. With this 1st place he also won the 2004 Mini Challenge series.
Here are some pictures of the weekend: www.hubertus.net/mymini/trackday2004/
Ciao
Philip
<p>No comments yet!</p>
<p>COMMENT.</p>
<p>Hey – thanks for the write-up, Philip! </p>
<p>15 years ago, I lived in Switerland for a year as an exchange student and I remember how great the roads were there – both the condition of the road surfaces and the locations through which the roads led. </p>
<p>I can only say that I am totally envious of your being able to jump in a MINI and drive around some of the most beautiful countryside in Europe!</p>
<p>Thanks for the great photos as well, – looked like a really fun weekend.</p>
<p>Cheers – – Michael</p>
<p>Cool pics. I really liked the red MINI that had that nice little front
spoiler. </p>
<p>I went to Salzburg last year and had a ball at an Octobertfest tent.</p>
<p>Nice country, nice people.</p>
<p>Thanks, Philip…RB</p>
<p>The car driven by Mrs. Schumacher, is she any relation to the F1 Schumachers or do I have the spelling wrong??????</p>
<p>@COOPR SS:</p>
<p>The Mrs you are referring to is in fact Ralf Schumachers wife. Just like her there's a couple other celebs participating.
Anyway the rest of the drivers are real racedrivers – therfore you can forget about Mrs. Schumacher. ;-)</p>
<p>Cheers</p>
<p>Sorry. I had to take the pictures down due to heavy traffic on my server. If you want to see them, please feel free to e-mail me.</p>
<p>Hi Philip,</p>
<p>Being a passionate for everything on wheels I’m always looking for new pictures. So, … a little question, did you take any pictures of the racing itself and did you get pictures of the winning teams in particular?</p>
<p>As I accidentally found your site just now, no more pictures were visible any longer,…dam.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if the Salsburger-racing was the only one you did go to. Perhaps you visited other German racing circuits. If so, with one …Nurnberg, Norisring, Hockenheim or the Eurospeedway?</p>
<p>Meanwhile,… waiting anxiously for an answer, I’m wishing you more exiting race weekends in 2005… the season just started again!!!!</p>
<p>Kindest regards,
Christine (a Belgium DTM-freak)</p>