I know it’s late to post about this, but I just found it online.

In 1982, Folgers Coffee came out with a Christmas commercial to end all ads. You’ve seen it. Peter comes home from college armed with beautifully wrapped gifts. His little sister comes down the stairs, and tells Peter to wake everyone up. “I know just the thing”, says Peter. The smell of fresh Folgers coffee wakes everyone up, and mom walks in and says “Peter!”

Yup, that’s the one. My mother and I reminisce about this ad sometimes; not only for the sheer longevity, but more for the fact that neither of us can ever remember me coming home from college with anything more than a big pile of dirty laundry, let alone professionally wrapped gifts.

Well not only did we see this ad year after year, but apparently after a (brief) break, it’s still being aired. Matt and I don’t watch TV that much, so I never saw it, but apparently it came back in 2005 and they’ve aired it this year too.

For those like me that craved the chance to see it “just one more time”, here it is.

I’ve had Eloise for a little over a year now. Since then, she’s undergone some - changes.

In terms of suspension, she has lower/wider tires, and front/rear strut bars installed. She has brand new shocks and has Eibach 1″ lowering springs for improved cornering.

For performance, she has a JCW short shifter, weighted shift knob, 15% reduction supercharger pulley, Ram air intake, one-balled muffler, and to bring it all together - a custom-mapped Unichip.

In terms of “bling”, Eloise has gone through some plastic sugery herself. She has an all-new chrome interior/exterior, including alloy pedals and a chrome exterior grille.

Finally, in the functionality department, she has an RCA adapter wired through my car to the CD changer for my MP3 player. The last thing she is waiting for is a CB Radio to be installed in her glove compartment (our MINI rallies have gotten so large that a two-way radio won’t cover the distance from start to finish, and now that I’m helping keep cars under control on the drives, I need to be in full communication with the other organizers!).

Some parts I’ve been able to put in myself, but most things I let my MINI mechanic (aka MINI Pimp) handle. In his words, “Try it yourself - if it gets ugly, stop!” These were very familiar words, in which I have spoken myself to other people about fixing and upgrading their computers.

That introduction was a long one, but necessary. Pete belongs to our MINI club, and is also our resident mechanic. We’ve had “tech days” in which we go to the shop where he works, and wash our cars, get parts installed, and enjoy the company.

Pete’s wife is a member of Pixie Posse Racing, so we’ve even been fortunate to have a real “Pit crew” when we autocross.

The bottom line is that Pete gives up a lot of his time to help us all out, answer our questions, and install things for us. It was time to say a heartfelt thank you!

Some members of our club felt that our very own MINI Pimp should not be riding around in stock rims. We all chipped in, and got him something to make him very, very happy!

Here’s Pete, aka MINI Pimp, finally riding in style the way he deserves!

If you are in the MA/Worcester area and need a good mechanic, take your car to DT Automotive (508-754-1400). Your car will receive top notch service, and you will receive top notch customer service. Matt and I live an hour away, yet it’s still worth the drive up there for the quality.

Three cheers for Pete and DT Automotive! Gold stars all around. Enjoy the wheels, Pete, you deserve it!

When I registered at the gate for my first autocross event last May, the lady behind the counter was helping me make sure I was in the right class. One question that came up was whether I wanted to be in Open, Novice, or Ladies class. I was a novice, but I’m also a lady, and didn’t know which to pick.

The woman said that there was no other women registered that day - if I wanted a trophy, compete in ladies class. If I wanted to be competetive, enter Novice class. I ended up going as Novice (where’s the fun in no competition?).

(Of course, now I have so many modifications to the car that I’m bumped to the highest mod class. More on that later!)

The lady behind the counter shook her head, and said that in the eleven years she’s been working the gate, she had never seen a woman go there on their own accord - they always came and entered because their spouce or partner did.

I then got to tell her that I was here by myself - she almost fainted! It was a nice moment.
As it turns out, I was a bit of a pioneer for my local MINI club. There was one other girl who had wanted to do it, but just wasn’t sure where to go, how to get started, etc. She ended up coming with me on my next event.

Note the “MINI” logo on my helmet, that sticker was a gift. Love it!

After that, we got a third girl. As the tech inspector for the cars announced, when we drove up for the morning Tech Inspection, “They’re multiplying!”

Three pixies! Audra, me, and Becca.

Finally, the fourth girl came in her new MINI and had a blast, unaware of the driving potential of her car.

The fourth pixie, Sheena!

We had a blast on our first season together, and Becca even made it into a racing magazine when they took her picture at the line. The real irony is that her son is a championship autocrosser in the midwest.
The cars, in order: Becca’s ‘Bonnie Blue’, Audra’s ‘The Pearl’, Jess’s ‘Eloise’, and Sheena’s ‘Pi Rho’.

We finally wrapped up the season with a detail-day party to wash the cars (read: get the cone marks off!) and I gave everyone a CD of all the fast songs I listened to on the long drive to get to autocross to get psyched up! I made it complete with CD cover booklet of all the girls and the cars.

Season 1 is over, with a few medals I brought home, and a whole slew of new friends. Who knows what next season will bring? I can say, it will be a long wait.

Here’s some samples from the CD cover I made. The rest of the season’s album is here.

Becca driving Bonnie Blue, SM class means ‘Street Modified’

Sheena driving Pi Rho. She’s running GS class, which is G Stock. This basically means that she’s pretty much the only one in our MINI club that still has a stock MINI. She’s only had her MINI a few months, so we’ll see how long *that* lasts.

Me (Jess) driving my beloved Eloise. I made the mistake of spending a day driving around in someone else’s MINI during an autocross event once. Eloise let me know what she thought of that by breaking down twenty feet into driving home from the event and needed to be towed. Matt was considering renaming her to the more appropriate “Christine”.

Audra, driving The Pearl. Pearl has since got bring orange mirror caps, and her orange flame is on order. STX class means “Street Touring Extreme”, which doesn’t have quite as harsh scoring methodologies as Street Modified.