Here's an excerpt from a local member's account of a recent outing to Spartanburg. This is for the 2 day Performance Class...
"Here is a brief outline of my experiences and thoughts.
Instructors: Paul, Andy & Steve were great. All had & are currently in racing. Paul Mazzacane (sp) was our “lead” instructor and was a great teacher.
Day 1:
8:30am – 9:00 Registration: coffee/juice & waiver signing
9:00 – 9:45 Classroom: Introductions & Briefing of day’s activities
9:45 – 10:00 Outside: briefing on proper seating position and on the setting of the memory seats (to allow for the smooth driver switching on the course.) Two drivers for each car so each had their own seat position in memory.
Our cars were 2007 loaded Z4s; this was the car we did about 90% of the driving in
10:00 – 12:00 On track doing warm ups and just getting use to the cars. Various speed weaves at 30, 35, 40, 45 mph. Emergency ABS braking to full stops at 35, 40, 45, 50 mph. Emergency lane change without using brakes,, followed by an emergency stop after the change at various speeds.
1:00pm – 4:30 All track work: skid pan (using the 335i), handling course, time trials on handling course (placed 2nd with 25.47 seconds lap, top speed 78 mph. The “rat race” (using the 335i) with water was a lot of fun and really tested your smooooooth transition from brake to throttle to high speed without spinning out without DTC.
Day 2:
8:30am – 9:00 Classroom: Days briefing
Morning: Did 4 activities plus added another lane change to the other land change activity, meaning emergency lane change then immediately another lane change followed by the emergency ABS stop in the lane. This too was done at 30, 35, 40, 45mph. Quite intense even for someone that has done it before. There was a lot of cones-a-flying at the higher speeds but by the time you had your 4th pass you had it down.
12:30 Lunch
Afternoon:
More skid pan work in the 335i with and without DTC. That’s a trip..
Then the “rush” of the day: A freeway speed emergency stop in a turn.
This is a sweeping turn to gain speed rapidly to a straight-a-way (stabilize), to a full emergency ABS full stop beginning at a cone,, to stop in the shortest distance possible in a turn. You do it at 50, 55, 60 & 70mph. THEN, you do it without the cone to use your own full ABS braking point to end inside of a four cone box in that turn. In other words, highway speed emergency full ABS stop while steering thru the turn into a box. AMAZING what the BMW brakes can do.
Then we had the opportunity to drive 2 laps on a course in an X3, M5, M6, & 740 where we had cones, hard braking, and sharp turns with acceleration to speeds of 80mph. I would have to say that my favorite would be the M5 as the M6 w/SMG takes some getting use to. All are just “outstanding vehicles.”
Finally at 3:45pm we took the X5 through the “Off Road” course set up for the X3 & X5. It is nothing short of amazing what has been engineered into the those vehicles. This course takes you through 40 feet of 18” standing water, steep angles (left & right) and steep angles “around” a hill to a steep hill up and then down with the “hill mode” on which takes over the entire speed of the vehicle to 3-4 mph. This is done with you having both of your feet flat on the floor to show how well the program controls decent. Unbelievable stability in a vehicle.
Note:
All communication between instructors and drivers are with 2-way radios but the only time we talked would have to notify of a problem/concern which there were none for us. It was 99% them to us and it was broadcast to all cars all of the time. We all got the benefit of ours & others successes & mistakes."
I'd go and sign up to report to you guys, but wife said no on spending $2k
Oh well, next UDM I'll take delivery (or redelivery) there...
