amviv
Did someone say Vegas?

This was the sixth running of A MINI Vaction in Vegas and dare I say the best one yet! Before going any further, I must give a huge shout to Andrew ‘Agro’ Ross, grand poobah and all around good guy, plus his team for putting on another outstanding event!

Let’s begin with some numbers. There were 572 MINIs registered, but that didn’t count those that just showed up. By my reckoning, there were closer to 700 MINIs on the top 3 floors of Palace Station on Saturday night. Over 500 people at the banquet, including Elvis!

And I believe a record for AMVIV was set during the Strip Cruise on Friday night. 227 MINIs lined up to drive the most famous section of Las Vegas Boulevard. Amazing!

Photo Courtesy Lex Adams

Everything started Friday morning at Pahrump Motor Sports Ranch in beautiful Pahrump, Nevada. The Phil Wicks North American MINI Cooper Challenge was going on as well as quite a few MINIs getting their ‘track on’ with instructors.

While that was going, about 80 MINIs headed out to Death Valley California, including frequent contributor to White Roof Radio, Robert Gold.

The trip to Death Valley ended at the track, where we were all treated to lunch, courtesy MINIUSA and Sin City MINI Club.



Photos Courtesy Lex Adams

After the track it was time to head back to Vegas, check out some more MINIs and go to the Sin City MINI Club/SoCal MINI Maniacs Mixer, which was a great warm up for the Strip Cruise!

Like I mentioned already, over 200 MINIs tore off down The Strip in a symphony of horns and squealing tires. I wasn’t able to make the drive this time around, but SCMM President Lex Adams managed some great photos while out on the strip.



Saturday brought us the Boot and Bonnet Show with all the MINIs clean and sparkly and all the vendors ready to show and sell their wares!


Besides the boot and bonnet show, the Poker Run and Red Rocks run were going on. I watched 180 cars head out on the Red Rocks run! That’s a lot of MINIs running through the desert!

While on the roof, I managed to get some video including a rare interview with Vegas Stig, intro’d nicely by Michael Babishkin.

We also got to see Todd in action, removing stripes from Agro’s MINI.

Finishing off Saturday night was the banquet.

Much swag and cool gear was given away by every vendor and sponsor that was there. A bit of change over last year was the format. This year, the bulk of the raffle prizes were given out during the various activities happening during AMVIV like the Death Valley Cruise, the Run to Red Rocks and the Poker Run. All that was left was the really cool stuff, which made the banquet go so much smoother than years past!

After the banquet, there were many parties, but only one that mattered. Not sure about the details other than the top floors of the Palace Station parking garage have been dubbed ‘the roof’ by those in the know.

Sunday wrapped up with breakfast on the roof and a huge run to get everyone on their way home.

Like in years past, it was a fantastic event! Again a big thanks to Agro, the Sin City MINI Club and everyone else that made it happen. And, for those of you that weren’t able to make it this year, make plans for next! I’ve already talked to Agro about it and he has some great things planned.

If you are looking for more picture, you can see the few I took here. Included here are photos from Lex Adams, President of SCMM and you can see all of the photos he took here, here and here. If you have photos online you would like to share, link them up in the comments and I will be sure to include them here as well.

If you missed any of the video, check out Whiteroof.tv. And, stay tuned for a little bit of audio over at WRR this weekend as well.

Finally, thanks to everyone that stopped by to say hi! It was great to meet you.

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8 Comments

  1. says: Siddhartha

    Sorry I missed you guys! I was instructing and racing on Friday, then hanging out on the roof with the race car on Saturday, but must have been off buying T-shirts when you went by.

    Cheers,
    Jerry

  2. says: DeathCab4QT

    I want to thank all those who stopped by my TwistyBitz booth whether it was just to say hi or those who purchased some of our Swag!

    Sold out on the “Unofficial Official” Event clock and took orders for quite a few more and nearly sold out on some of our Tshirts designs…. WOW, I was blown away by the response. Contact me if you want one.

    I have to find a way to do a run at these things. Hopefully see some of you all at Mini Meet West here in SoCal or at MITM later this year.

    I even had a DB sighting at my booth, I think?

    :-)……………RB

  3. says: DB

    >I even had a DB sighting at my booth, I think?

    I think so. You’re booth was right next to Todd’s. I kept meaning to stop over and say hey, but kept getting pulled away.

  4. says: DB

    >Its about time you posted something about AMVIV 😉

    Actually, I’ve been posting AMVIV stuff all week <a href="http://dbmini.us" rel="nofollow">here</a>, <a href="http://www.whiteroofradio.com/" rel="nofollow">here</a> and <a href="http://www.whiteroof.tv" rel="nofollow">here</a>. 2 of those sites are even <a href="/news-room" rel="nofollow">MF News Room</a> and on GoMotoring.

    It just took me a week between my day jobs and getting caught up from AMVIV to get it into a single post/recap.

    >Uh, I thought it was the fifth running of AMVIV? 🙂

    Oops. I’m always running fast. Dang. Thanks J/C!

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