[Year's_End]

Yeah, so I'm sittin here in the Mariott near Spartanburg, SC, gettin ready for the big two days coming up. There's gonna be M3s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not enough usage of exclamation marks to even show how f'n anxious I am! Can't WAIT! I'll definitely post pics!

[E82tt6]

Congrats! I hear it's a lot of fun.

[Kiemyster]

i know how u feel. thats exactly how i felt lastnight at about 11pm, waiting like an anxious schoolgirl for ATB to come on stage. have fun bro! post pics for me honey

daddy loves you

[cbad335]

Cool! have fun and post some pics.

[spacedogg]

Extra pics please!

[Year's_End]

*No pics today. Forgot camera. Will take some tomorrow*

Aight, so day one's over. I'm sittin here back in the Mariott (internet is 10 bucks a day) relaxing after a wonderfully epic day. Epic doesn't even describe some of the stuff we did.

Where to begin...well...first off...I have a newfound HUGE respect for the M Coupe. I mean, that thing is simply raw! It's amazing, it really is. I'll detail the day in order.

We wake up today at 7:00AM. Me and my dad have breakfast with all the other participants downstairs in the Mariott and leave around 8:00, give or take a few minutes. We get on a bus and are taken down to the BMW performance center, literally two minutes away from the Spartanburg BMW production facility.

So we get dropped off at the entrance, with a B7 by the door. Inside we all meet inside a breifing room where we are instructed some basic, basic stuff. Everyone introduces themselves to the instructors, is assigned a team (Blue/Green/Red), and within a few minutes we're off to the cars.

We step out back and are greeted by three lines of cars: One line has all M5's, another all M Coupes, and the last all M6's. Each line has one M5 which the instructors drive. I was assigned to the Blue team and my team is told to go to the M5's where we will then proceed to the large wet skid pad to learn about oversteer and understeer.

This was fun stuff. It was a good warm up too; you could get a feel for the M5 instantly. The steering is MUCH lighter than I expected at lower speeds, but it's direct and informative nonetheless. It gains heft as you gain speed, so it's all good. Understeer practice was simple and relatively boring, obviously. Oversteer was a good way to energize the morning, and I managed to spin out a good number of times too (hellafun). Eventually, we took the M5's back to where they were all originally grouped, and proceeded on with the M6's.

The M6 is...I dunno...not exactly worse than the M5...it's just not any better. The M5's active bolsters are a great touch and annoyingly absent. Whatever, I just set the M6's bolsters to maximum pinchiness. We practiced breaking, corner entry and exiting. Another good warm up pracitce and also a great way to see how the transferring of weight can extremely change the way a car handles. Next up, the M Coupes!

These were all stick shifts, and were obviously more fun because of that. Not many people seemed excited about that (except for a few guys, one of which owned an M Roadster himself). Anyways, this practice was all about heel and toe downshifting. Fun shit indeed! I actually worked up a sweat getting into this! I had it down pat after a good three or four runs through the mini course. The back end is definitely a swinger on this car, and it wanted to break free as I rushed towards the corners at the maximum limits of the tires. This car is visceral. If you haven't test driven one, do it. Now.

After this third event was over, we had lunch and prepped for the next set of challenges. My fingers hurt right now from typing this, and I'm kinda tired, so I'll type it up in a bit.


















God damn those Z4's are fun!

[Year's_End]

Oh and I got the fastest lap time with the M6. Second fastest overall at the end of the day on the big run!

[Year's_End]

Oh you know what sucks? Those M3s are not for us!!!!!!!!!!!!! Damnit!!! They're for some SPEED tv show thing comin up around March 25th or something. There's about ten of 'em sitting right there next to all the other cars! They look so mean. I'm really dissapointed about this. Whatever, the M Coupe is a good alternative.

[spacedogg]

Sounds like fun.

Probably too exciting and too busy driving to actually take pics for the rest of us. Well...enjoy it. Definitely an experience of a lifetime.

[bosstones]

Lucky bastard! Sounds like you're having fun though! Then again, how can you not?! I've been dying to go to the M school so needless to say I'll be waiting for further write-ups!

Any chance you happen to have brought a camera mount with you?

[Year's_End]

Ooh! Just got back! Guess what, they have these plug-ins on the cars that have multiple cameras installed inside, so I should be recieving a bunch o footage in the near future! I'll definitely upload em here if I ever figure out how to do that. I have pics too. Those should be up soon. The write up will take forever, so instead I'd be willing to answer any and all questions regarding the school: what was the best activity, which car I preferred, whatever you want to know, I'll answer it.

[spacedogg]

1) Best car you drove and why?
2) Best (fun) driving exercise from the weekend?
3) Best driving tip from instructors?
4) Second best driving exercise from the weekend?

[Year's_End]

1) Best car overall? Has to be the M5. The M Coupe was really fun though, but we didn't get to track it enough. It was more for skid pads and to learn heel and toeing. The M5 felt the most balanced through the corners, but the M6 was more eager to turn and rotate. The M5 also felt like it could brake better too. It also had the active bolsters.

2) Heel and toe practice was the best, because it was all out driving with a manually equipped car. Although I would say that the Auto-X activity in the very end ties with it too. They made one large circuit out of the entire course and we drove both the M5s/M6s for about 15-20 minutes non stop out there.

3) Look where you want to go. Seriously. Look 90 degrees sideways if you have to. Always look well ahead.

4) Wet skid pad duals were second best. We used the smaller wet skid pad, had two M coupes start on opposite sides, and as soon as were given the green light, we have to catch up to the other person before the time runs out. It gets hectic and there's oversteer galore if you're not careful or if you just wanna have fun.

I can be much more in depth tomorrow, but it's kinda late right now.

[lvwirelessguy]

Sounds like an awesome time. Ill be there on May 22nd when the M3's will be part of the lineup

[Year's_End]

Yeah those'll replace the M Coupes. I'd actually have a really hard time choosing between which one I'd like to drive.

[Edit]: No pics right now. It's 3 in the mornin, just got back from an 8 hour drive. I'll post em later.

[ZuerstBMW]

No pics.