///M Performance School – A 836 Mile Weekend Drive & 1 Day ///M School

[DBACE]

This past weekend was a thrill at BMW's South Carolina Performance School. The local Tidewater BMW CCA had a group discount ///M event that was a great opportunity, and I was able to take. Joining the BMW CCA has showed me some great benefits, this experience being just one of them. The Wife and I decided we would make it a family trip, She and the Boys would explore and check out the area, while I went to the school.

About seven members met up the Friday before and we caravanned down for the 418 miles. We each had a radio, (The Boys really enjoyed that), which helped with any driving, car or traffic issue that arose. The Tidewater BMW CCA president had shirts made up for all the participants. It had embroidery in three places, the front left breast, the left sleeve (with our last name), and the right back shoulder. Another 15 club members showed up in town and we all got together and had dinner at Bacon Brother's. The food was sublime. Thanks for the recommendation SD ///M4.

We met up the next morning and headed over to the BMW facility. Since my Wife was taking my F80 with the Boys, one of the BMW CCA members had let me ride along with him in his 2017 M760i. What a very nice ride. That car is filled with high levels of luxury and performance. Once there, we went straight into the classroom signed our waivers and then, the instruction began. Mike Renner was our lead instructor. The other instructors were Jim Clark, Andy Van Cleef, Justin Faust, Leo Portillo and Rafael Torres. The classroom session was pretty short and discussed some of the finer points of under and over steer, what we would be doing, etc.

We were out with the cars and ready to drive in pretty short order. There were four lines of cars that were associated with each of the four exercises we would be doing in the morning and afternoon. One line of M2's, two of M3's and one of M4's. The way it's run, you go out do your exercise and come back in. There is enough time in between exercises to talk to the instructors, other drivers, hit the head, or get a bottle of water to drink. The following is my POV of each of the exercises.

Morning:

Control Course M2, Jim Baker

A small course, with a short straight followed by a slalom then a long turn which went into a ninety degree turn, followed up by a couple of compound turns back into the short straight. The M2 is nimble and fast! It felt too small for me and I had to look under the mirror, I had set the seat like I do in my F80, but it was too high. While in the M2, I had to adjust to the car and sit lower than I like to. I ran through the course without hitting any cones and felt fast, my co-driver was faster. At the end I was looking a little too deep into the course and missed Jim's signal to stage and got one more lap in. It was at this point I concluded the radio can be hard to hear, with all the action going on. I realized after being the passenger for a little while, I started to get a little nauseous, I thought oh shit, please no!!! It subsided and I thought about the Dramamine comment snareman made in a post where I asked for advice about this day, that was a piece I glossed over. Fortunately, it subsided and I never experienced it again for the rest of the day.

Skid Pad M3, Justin Faust

The skid pad is one very large doughnut, or donut, shaped course. By far, the skid pad is one of the funnest and hardest exercises to do. When I started out I used the CPR method to control the car, my eyes were looking well into the turn, and I was doing pretty good for someone who had not done this before. Justin said the proof was in how often I had to stop while the other car was recovering, although I did lose complete control a few times. Most of the time, I was able to keep the car on the skid pad and maintain control in the counter clockwise direction. I was simply not quick enough with the steering wheel & throttle to maintain a constant drift around the pad though. The Process of correcting, pausing and recovering was easy until my corrections were so fast I could not put back the correction I made in a timely enough fashion. Something I will need to work on. It was a little disheartening, but I felt pretty good about what I could do. My co-pilot was a young gentleman who had recently graduated high school. He talked about how he loves to drift his car out on the road. When he got in the driver's seat, he immediately went into a drift and never stopped the whole time. Justin had nothing to do, but did teach him to modify from blipping the throttle through the drift to maintaining a constant RPM. The kid mastered it in minutes and Justin said, "that's how you break world records", alluding to Johan's recent world record, performed on the same skid pad we were on.

Rat Race M4, Rafael Torres

The course is a short oval that has a car starting on each side in the middle of the long side of the oval. This was an awesome exercise in control. The course was wetted and the traction control was off, it was a great learning experience. Object is to lap the oval faster than the other car. Getting the car to accelerate and then braking in a manner that leads to a smooth throttle application without under-steering the car through the turn, was hard. I did not win the race, but I was getting better on each lap of not under-steering and not having a gap of too many car lengths between myself and the car that beat me.

Track Course M3, Mike Renner

Our first main track course was a shortened version of the main road course to practice some high speed accelerating & braking. This was the fastest we would bring the car in the morning. The course's other objective was learning to use the outside-inside-outside line to maximize the straight line speed through the turn. I was feeling pretty good about my lines, although needing improvement and then it happened, something distracted me and I went right off the course at the corner Mike was at. His response of "What are you doing that for DBACE?" was a little embarrassing. Although not too bad, I had taken my eyes of the goal for a moment, and lost my opportunity to turn properly. An exhilarating exercise to say the least.

Lunch:

After our fourth exercise we headed inside for a nice refreshing lunch. There was soda, water, chocolate milk, wraps, salad, potato salad and ginormous cookies. The instructors peppered themselves throughout the crowd and good conversation ensued.

We went back to the class room and briefly talked about the afternoon's schedule. The BMW CCA South Atlantic Regional VP, Dwayne Mosley came by and talked about the BMW CCA and stayed with us through the end of the day.

Afternoon:

Figure 8 M3, Leo Portillo

The course lay out is as it sounds, same area as the Rat Race was conducted on, with an eight instead of an oval. Leo described the exercise in terms I and my co-driver thought eluded to drifting the car around the turns, but was about getting around as fast as possible. I was first up and screwed the pooch, by trying to drift around the turns. Leo had not provided much input on the radio, other than what I was doing, and not what I should be doing. Others who followed used a non-drifiting approach and did better, once I realized that, I did much better. I was a little disappointed that Leo did not provide much coaching and we talked about it after the exercise. I had said I hadn't understood what we were supposed to do, and his explanation led me down the path it did and I was surprised he had not done some coaching through the radio. He was quick to conceded he had not lead this exercise before and he had realized his mistake and apologized. He was appreciative of my constructive feedback and just awesome to talk to.

Track Course with Height and Camber changes M3, Justin Faust

This was an awesome exercise that had a course with fairly big height and camber changes. It was fast and provided opportunities to really drive the car. It was the first time I had seen the LCI LED Brake lights, light up with its dynamic feature of braking-braking hard. Justin had to pit me to create space in front of me once. I was in the zone and catching people and had a smile on my face the hole time. My co-pilot had encouraging laughter and commented how smooth and fast I was, he was appreciative of the fact I had some skill. Since he was a much better driver than myself, I appreciated his words.

Track Course (Large) M4, Jim Baker

This time on the main course we had a lot more straight away (not the whole, but close), which fed into the skid pad, back onto the course, it was fantastic! The fastest in the back straight I could see was 106 in the heads up. The braking at that point was as fun as the previous exercise. At one point though, I missed the turn, the Car Radio had turned on and I glanced down. I probably could of made it, but chose the conservative route and went out the run-off and got back on the course quickly.

Control Course (Timed) M2, Mike Renner

This was the last exercise and set up almost exactly like the first one in the morning, with the exception of the box being right at the end of the course. Mike Renner showed us the path with a stop in the large box at the end, and he did it in 22.1 seconds. He was in an M3 when he did it, and it looked fast and smooth. I was going to appreciate getting anywhere near 25-27 seconds with my mediocre skills. I was amazed that my fastest was 23.02, but I had nicked a cone, my fastest clean run was 23.6, so I was pretty pleased with that. I loved standing on the brake, not once did I go outside of the box. The fastest guy in our whole group, was the young guy who was co-piloting with me, he got a 22.3.

End of the Class

Everyone had a hot lap experience, and I took the advice given and found a shot-gun seat with an Instructor, Jim Baker, and enjoyed the awesome power of the ///M. Holy crap Batman!!! These cars can move like the wind with the talents of someone like Jim. The smoke left on the track, the speed of accelerating, braking, the precise turn in, was awe inspiring. I cannot wait until I have some skills to drive like that!! Until then, practice, practice, practice…..

The top drivers were recognized and awarded medals and cones. We were all given a goody bag of a hat, carabineer, note book, and BMW propaganda. Feedback forms were already filled out and we all headed to the gift shop. My wife dropped off my oldest son and we headed to the gift shop where I bought myself a nice pullover, and three t-shirts, one for my wife and each of the Boys!

Post ///M School

We all headed over to the BMW CCA Foundation to see the current collection of BMW Model 2002's. It was in an area called the candy shop. I am pretty sure it should be called the Porn Shop, because those cars......are just.....damn!!

I headed back to the hotel, took a quick shower and the family and I headed out for dinner at Hans & Frans Biergarten. Mike Renner was there too, so appropriate food and beer was had by many.

Conclusion:

Joining the BMW CCA made this event far better than I could of imagined in cost and experience. While the event was only one day, traveling with the group the day before and heading home the day after was a great experience. The camaraderie throughout the entire three day weekend was outstanding.

I learned you can learn a lot in one day, even if you are drinking from the fire hose. The instructors are top notch as is the facility. I came out of this one day event a better driver than I was when I went in....Mission accomplished! I highly recommend the one day course, especially if you can get it through your local BMW CCA.

I have no doubts the two day class is even better, but the one day class is exceptional.

Thanks for all the great advice: SD ///M4, MN2///M, clutchdj, jmg, Hachima, ljzimm, E92 M Sport, snareman

#BMWPerformanceCenter
#BMWPerformanceDrivingSchool
#BMWPC