The best charity work ever

This is mostly non-food related, so feel free to skip it if you don't like driving German cars for breast cancer research.

Now that the disclaimer is out of the way...

Almost every year since 1999, I've taken part in the BMW Ultimate Drive for Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Simply put, you get to sign up and drive almost any current BMW car or SUV unchaperoned over a 12-15 mile course along the local roads around the BMW dealership. For every mile put on a car, BMW donates $1 to the Susan G. Komen foundation. Two separate fleets travel all over the country. This year, they are in the Phoenix area this week. Wednesday, Oct 17, in South Scottsdale and Saturday, Oct 20, they will be in North Scottsdale. Being the car geek I am, I've signed up for both days. N. Scottsdale is much closer, but S. Scottsdale always has much better food, including a chocolate fondue fountain. The S. Scottsdale course also has some better roads.

My first one was in 1999 at Texas Motor Speedway. They had an autocross course setup and a short instruction school for it. My first car was a 1999 M Coupe. I loved it. I drove quite a few more cars that day. In the years since, I've only missed a year or two. It's a great time if you like driving and/or abusing expensive German cars. Where else can you drive, for FREE, a 650i Convertible or a fully-loaded 750i sedan with no one looking over your shoulder?

Like a lot of people, several members of my extended family have had breast cancer and one has even died from it, so it's definitely something that hits close to home. Being able to combine charity work with driving some of the best cars on the road is something I can't pass up.

So if you are in the Phoenix/Scottsdale area this week, you can actually just stop in and sign up on site. They will put you in whatever cars are not reserved at the time. I've signed up online to reserve the ones I really want to drive, but you can (and I usually do) spend as much time as you want there and just about drive all the cars. They are coming to the Camelback BMW too, but given it's location and the light rail construction, it's hard to really enjoy the cars. If you aren't in Phoenix, click in the link and see if they are coming to your city. If you missed it, there's always next year. :)