BMW Car Club of America, Tarheel Chapter

What the chapter covers

The Tarheel Chapter of the BMW Car Club of America serves over 2,800 members in North Carolina and Southwest Virginia, per its chapter page. Its mailing address in the club’s directory is in Raleigh. Local life runs through area groups, each with a coordinator: the Triangle, two Charlotte Queen City groups, the Triad (Greensboro and Winston-Salem), Asheville, the Sandhills, Roanoke and Down East. The Cape Fear, Northern Mountain and Boone, and Hurricane Region coordinator posts were listed as open.

Area dinners

Each area keeps its own dinner night, per the chapter’s calendar: Charlotte Area I on the third Thursday of each month, Charlotte Area II on the second Thursday, Asheville on the last Tuesday, Greensboro on the first Tuesday, and Winston-Salem and Roanoke on the second Tuesday. The Triangle group meets in North Raleigh on the third Tuesday of February, May, August and November, starting at 6pm. Footnotes carries each dinner’s time and place, or the area coordinator can say.

Drives

Day drives leave from both ends of the state. Raleigh activities coordinator Rob McIsaac leads country runs from the Triangle: Bimmers “Racing” to Elizabethtown departs Saturday, November 7, at 10am from the Farmhouse Café in Wendell for the Cape Fear Farmer’s Market and downtown shops, and the Toys for Tots drive departs Saturday, December 5, at 10am from North Raleigh Performance, where members drop off a toy before a drive through the Falls Lake area to lunch. The chapter budgets 6 hours or more for each.

In the mountains, the Blue Ridge Blitz meets Saturday, November 14, at 9:30am at BMW of Asheville in Arden for coffee and pastries, then runs about 100 miles west on the Blue Ridge Parkway through Pisgah National Forest, down and back up Route 151 (Devil’s Drop) and Route 276, and down Route 215 (Copperhead Loop), finishing at the Oskar Blues taproom in Brevard. Each participant completes an online BMW CCA waiver to register. Further out, the calendar already lists Beach Bimmers 2027 for May 13.

Track days and Street Survival

The chapter’s home track is VIRginia International Raceway, where its fall HPDE runs on the full course. Its track page carries lap guides for the VIR full, north and south courses, run group guidelines from D up to A+, an A+ advanced driver program, guidance for first-time students and an instructor’s newsletter. The November calendar lists VIR Charity Laps on November 20 and a Tire Rack Street Survival school on November 21 at the North Carolina Center for Automotive Research in Garysburg, which the national calendar shows hosted by the Tidewater Chapter.

Footnotes

Footnotes is the chapter’s monthly newsletter, with the latest issue linked from the home page. The chapter page says both Roundel and Footnotes are posted on the BMW CCA website on the first of every month, with hard copies by mail on request.

The chapter page sends prospective members to the national site; the BMW CCA page covers national dues and the form. For standing meets in the two big metros, see the Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham cars and coffee guides.