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Korman Autoworks Annual Open House (22nd Year!)
Saturday, March 2, 2002
10am-3pm

The Korman Autoworks Staff and Tarheel Chapter BMW CCA cordially invite you to enjoy a day filled with BMW activities including:

-Special Display Cars
-Great Door Prizes
-German Luncheon
-Tech Sessions
-Kid's Activities
-"Parking Lot Concours"

Korman Autoworks is located 1 1/2 blocks south of I-85/I-40 at 2629 Randleman Rd. in Greensboro, North Carolina
(336) 275-1494

The weather doesn't look good for Korman's Open House!

Rain with highs in the upper 40s. Northeast wind around 10 mph becoming east in the afternoon increasing to 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain near 100 percent.

I was there, didn't win anything thought, grrr... Seems like a nice shop. Oh yeah, the rain sucks.

Yeah, I usually try to go because it's a nice open house but with the rain I decided not to attend. Korman does have a nice shop...

I hope you enjoyed yourself even though the weather was lousy.
http://bobcrews.homestead.com/files/Rain_URL.gif

Bob ///M3

The turnout was real low due to the weather (37F, rain and wind!), but the lunch was great and Ray's talk about his past in 2002's was wonderful.

Given that it is 2002, Ray felt it was time to look back at his experiences over the years with 2002's. Like the time he was preparing his IMSA RS 2002 for Daytona when he was stationed in the AirForce in Macon, GA. He had the car in his carport, but it was windy and snowing, so once he got it up on jack stands, he taped cardboard all around the outside of the car down to the ground to create a makeshift garage. He also talked about buying his first BMW as a present for putting himself through grad school (I think it was an MBA from Harvard). This was in the early 60's, and there were 5 BMW dealers in the country at the time (Boston, NY, Chicago, LA, San Francisco). He shortly was transferred to Arizona with the Air Force where he had to send off for any supplies, filters, etc. Nobody knew what a "BMW" was at that time.

He said that he did literally hundreds of autocrosses in his first BMW. At his first one in AZ, and SCCA autocross event, they had no class for a "BMW" which people thought was a British Motor Works car. They put him in a class with Lotus', and Ray walked and studied the course carefully. He then watched the first few drivers runs. He noticed that in a section of the course where you came up over a rise into a 3-turn chicane, nobody was clued into the proper line. Even though it was a blind entry, he realized that he could just barely straight line the first two turns if he entered "just right" over that blind ridge and then use that whole path as a breaking zone for the third turn. He got FTD on his first run, so the timer said there was a clock malfunction, and they ran him again. On his second run, he shaved another 1/2 second off his first time! He got FTD for the event over Vettes, Lotus's, etc...starting a string of autocross victories into the coming years.

There were some neat customer cars to look at, and there was an auction for some parts and some nice doorprizes ($500 certificate for wheels, H&R spring set, gift certificate for a NASA driving event, and lots of other smaller prizes). I was fortunate to win a t-shirt with Redline fuel cleaner and water wetter! Thanks Ray! The lunch was great too!

The weather was awful, so there was no parking lot action like there always is at his open houses. I first attended Ray's open house back in 1982 at his original shop (where he built that killer engine for my Bavaria :-), and they are always a lot of fun.

I'll try to post a few pics I took. It was fun to be back into the groove of the club after a few years on the sides just reading the Roundel! 2 weeks until Performance Center delivery of the 540i 6-speed has something to do with it I guess. :clap:

I've sold two BMWs at Korman's open house in past years (1994, 1997) (72 Bavaria, 85 535), so it's too bad the weather was awful, since my '88 735i 5-speed was looking for a new owner. :95

Nice briefing! Thanks...

Bob ///M3

Here are come pics from the Korman Open House. A red 3.8 liter M6:
http://personal.atl.bellsouth.net/rdu/c/b/cbrans/pictures/DSC00503.JPG

2.5 liter e30 m3http://personal.atl.bellsouth.net/rdu/c/b/cbrans/pictures/DSC00502.JPG

One of three Group 5 M1's built:

http://personal.atl.bellsouth.net/rdu/c/b/cbrans/pictures/DSC00497.JPG

I was drooling over those fikse wheels the whole time!