The #EpicMINIRally was so epic, it’s taking an entire series of blog posts to document it all. This is the first in the series…

The excitement in the air was palpable at the starting line for the #EpicMINIRally. The first car to arrive was Team Ramrod.

Nick and Tyler arrived early and with their stickers already applied!

But it didn’t take long for everyone else to roll in. Team Dynamo had driven the farthest to join the fun, and clearly had a way with hashtags!

I hope my favorite team (Team Dynamo) comes to EVERY DC Metro MINIs event and always remembers to use the epic hashtag they created #sherrirocks

Team Roxie had made some amazing shirts.

Team Roxie had the best team uniform! Their team shirts incorporated their team name, the event name, and design on both front and back. I’ve always said it is attention to details that separates us from the animals.

Team Young and the Restless has a name crisis when the young half of the team bailed at the last-minute.

Team Young and the Restless was forced to change their name at the last-minute and became Team Man with Coffee. All of the judges were fine with this change.

Several teams modded their cars before they left.

Team Britt applies their team number

And some teams took advantage of the body paint floating around to suck up a little to the judges.

Team OEM sucks up hard!

Every team came prepared to win!

Team Celia’s Dad left his classic at home to drive his GP.

Everyone was thrilled to see Craig Baron had made it, especially Haemish.

Team Coupe, the sleeper Team but somehow Haemish had an instinct that Craig Baron would be tough competition.

And lots of DCMM members showed up for the meet and greet.

Sherm came to to cheer the teams on as they left the starting line.

Catalina worked hard to get all the teams listed on the roster.

Catalina signed up the drivers as Quitta, Mark and Alex watched.

When the trivia began, everyone moved into the #PassportAuto showroom to compete for mileage coupons.

Melissa had worked with David Hellmuth to coordinate the trivia contest.

Ali explained the rules. David asked the questions and teams who answered correctly were given mileage coupons that could be used to deduct mileage from their own scores or add mileage to other teams.

Ali was the Rally Master and official MC at both the start and the finish.

Melissa and I had to scoot out early to get the Cheeky Checkpoint ready to go but we saw Team Lillith and Team Max before we left.

Big crowd competing for valuable mileage coupons at the Passport MINI Starting Line!

We made it out of there and had to haul ass because Team Ramrod was the first to leave the starting line and according to Waze they were right behind us…