Our chapter featured in a video for BMW NA's Hofmeister Kink website!

by Matt Gage

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Scroll down to watch the video!

Since I took the reigns from Jim Lloyd in late 2018, I’ve been the main driver (heh) of our chapter’s Tours. You know, those spirited drives along the back-country roads of San Diego. These half-day drives focus on the unique roads that San Diego county has to offer and is one of our chapter’s more popular events.

In the sixteen tours I’ve done since then, one uniquely stands out. Dan Tackett, who I collaborate with and is the architect of many of our tours, messaged me in August of 2022 about a unique website just released from BMW North America and created by IPG advertising agency called Drive the Hofmeister Kink.

If you don’t know, I know I didn’t at the time, a Hofmeister Kink is “an automotive design feature consisting of a rearward/forward angle near the base of the rearmost pillar”, named after Wilhelm Hofmeister, who was BMW's design chief from 1955 to 1970 (wikipedia). The website BMW built uses AI to scan the roads in the United States looking for turns in the shape of the Hofmeister Kink. Dan suggested that we do a “themed” tour using the app to help select the route for the next tour. So we did just that. We used the website to find some Hofmeister Kinks in the San Diego area and designed a tour around them taking us from Valley Center to Borrego Springs. We called it our Hofmeister Kink Tour and we were set to run it in November 2022.

Just a few days before the tour, the craziness started.

The ad agency that came up with the awesome idea for the Hofmeister Kink site for BMW of North America, Performance Art, stumbled upon our Tour promotion on social media. Closely coordinating with them and BMW NA, the agency flew a producer/director and a creative director out on short notice and assembled a cinematography team from Flyby Photography who met us on the day of the tour near Harrah's Resort, the starting location of our Tour. Armed with drones and mounted cameras, the team followed us through the backroads filming everything as all of us chapter members in the group did our best to accommodate them.

What was the goal? To exemplify how fun and cool the Drive the Hofmeister Kink website is. Since that day, we’ve been anxiously awaiting to see the cut of the footage. I’m happy to announce, we finally have the video below!

Two County Tour - July 21, 2019

By Matt Gage

After what seemed like an exceptionally long wet season in San Diego, we woke up to a morning of clear skies and bright sun on this mid-summer Sunday. The Target at Westfield North County Mall (not to be confused with that other Escondido Target) was this tour’s meetup point for event registration and safety briefing. Spoiler alert: I want to thank everyone who attended for taking the safety briefing to heart and keeping cool heads out on the public roads as we experienced Zero incidents all day.

As we rolled out, it was easy to follow the audible exhaust trail west along the familiar 78 and Old Julian Highway with a brief stop at Dudley’s for bathroom breaks. Shortly after, we got back on the road for round two through Mesa Grande followed by going up East Grade and then down South Grade. I was told that people usually drive that route in the opposite direction so I hope this felt like a new road to many of you! We then made our way through Pechanga and finally a slow roll in Old Town Temecula before finishing up at Boris Said’s brand new BMW of Murrieta dealership and service center.

Mr. Said gave us the extreme pleasure of providing multiple tours of his facility for each of the separate waves of drivers who arrived, all while providing us tasty tacos grilled to order. Let me tell you something: Boris knows how to deliver stories; you can feel his passion behind each one, whether it’s about that one hill at Nürburgring that would cause his M3 to go airborne every time or about how he credits keeping a calm and cool head as he struggled to free himself from his literally fiery Corvette at the end of the straight in Long Beach. But his stories also highlighted his most recent passion of providing the best service he can to the customers of BMW of Murrieta which he owns and operates. After hearing about how he designed almost every feature of his brand new state-of-the-art BMW facility—down to the custom toolboxes that allow his employees to work in clutter-free environments so they can keep their attention on maintaining each customer’s Ultimate Driving Machine—it’s easy to see why BMW of Murrieta is ranked among the top BMW facilities in the world.

Thank you for all the drivers who attended the Tour and exercised safe driving habits. And thank you to Boris Said and BMW of Murrieta for helping us cap off an epic BMW CCA San Diego event!

Holiday Tour - Dec 2, 2018

The last Tour of the year was held on December 2 and what a beautiful day it turned out to be, both in weather and in the company we shared on the road.

Drivers and passengers started gathering in the middle of the Rancho San Diego Village Parking Lot at the end of the 94 and Campo Road at around 8:30am. When I arrived to set up the sign-in table, there was only a bright blue F10 M5 Sharknado and a beautiful red 1962 Triumph TR3B with the top down. By the time the driver’s briefing began at 9:15am, there were about 70 people. This was definitely shaping up to be a good day.

After a chat about the event to come and road safety, respectful driving, we headed east on 94/Campo through Indian Springs and Lyons Valley Rd which had its share of ascending and descending hills and some 2nd gear turns. We eventually passed under the 8 on the 79 and onto Old Highway 80. This led us to a left onto an old favorite: Sunrise Highway. As expected for any roads in higher altitudes around Mt. Laguna in December, a white dusting had occurred sometime earlier and evidence of this was not only along the side of the road, but also some slush directly in the road not in direct sunlight. I even heard my BMW chime warning of the icy conditions outside. Does the top in that Triumph go up?

Our group’s mixture of aftermarket and M Performance exhausts rumbled through the strip on Main Street Julian, turning more than a few heads. Fortunately, we weren’t stopping for lunch along Main Street as parking a hoard of auto enthusiasts would have been quite a challenge. We were still ten minutes away from our destination and those ten minutes were spent on a windy Wynola Rd before ending at Jeremy's on the Hill which served an excellent farm-to-table menu: thanks to Theresa and her excellent staff for accommodating our large group and began seating us even before they officially opened that morning.

Thank you to everyone who joined us on this amazing Holiday Tour. It was great to see everyone have such a great time as well as practicing safe and controlled driving through the 74 miles of wonderful county roads. I look forward to another great turnout on our first Tour of 2019: Sunday, March 3. Hope to see you there!