As promised, here is my report from the BMW Two-day Driver’s School I attended earlier this month in Thermal, California…
You can read the full program here Driving school but I’ve summarized my experience below to help personalize how the activities are laid out.
First off, if you’ve done the BMW track drive for new owners, the two-day driver school covers all the same, with the exception of possibly driving a few different cars on the short autocross circuit.
I flew into the Palm Springs airport because it is a short 30 minute drive to Indio, where our hotel was, and only about 25 minutes past Indio to the Thermal Club where the BMW Performance Center is located.
If you have the option to take the class with a friend or partner, I highly recommend it as you will be paired with a different driver both days. I did this with a friend of mine who I have known since high school and he was equally interested/enthusiastic about the course and we were both able to help ‘coach’ each other a bit more by providing additional feedback on hand placement, lines and timing for some activities. It also helped to have someone who matched your enthusiasm, because you were willing to step outside the comfort zone and discuss the pros and cons of the day.
Our class had three instructors: 1 lead instructor Rick and two assistant instructors Rob and Cam.
Our group consisted of 13 people, so we had 3 cars in one group and 4 cars in the other group. There were 2 people in each car, with the exception of 1 car with 1 person in it. This made for a quite personal and small group experience, as you get more repetition and therefore more feedback from your instructors. Our cars were m240i and m340i. I would strongly encourage the use of seat memory for either driver as you will be switching back and forth often and this can quickly get you back to the position you want to be in. Also, the sooner everyone is ready to start riding and people are paying attention and focusing on the activity, the more cycles you can go through.
Depending on the activity, you will work with 1 or 2 of the instructors. As you read through the following summary, you will know that while we were doing one activity on a given day, the other group was doing the other activity, for example when we were in the timed lap, the other group was on the skid pad.
The Day 1 activities on the list for our group were a cone slalom, followed by ABS panic breaking up to 45 miles per hour in a straight line, followed by the emergency lane change activity, then the skid path and finally the timed autocross.
The Day 2 activities listed for our group were a second ceremonial cone activity that we would do later as a time challenge, followed by braking on the Interstate at 70 miles per hour on a curve, after which the new owners drove on the short autocross course, followed by the new owner X5 off-road course. We finished the day with the timed cone challenge and finished on the skid path. Both days include a 45-minute lunch break and plenty of water breaks between activities.
I was able to use my GoPro for all activities and found the visor mount better than the suction cup mount considering the movement between cars. If you bring a GoPro or similar, I used 3 batteries (because I would change the batteries when they had about 20 minutes left) and was able to keep everything on a 256 GB card while shooting in 4K for both myself and my friend.
Below you will find an overview of the activities per day:
Day 1 started around 8:15am with a few more classroom basics than I would have liked, but I recognize that everyone needs to be at the same level to start the activities. The curriculum is largely BMW agnostic, but there are several nuances they use to highlight BMW’s specific capabilities or nuances, such as star-marked tires, so know that you’ll get a little bit of sales mixed in with their instruction, but it’s really minimal and there were at least a few people in the group who had no idea about the star-marked tires, so it clearly provides value for some on.
Cone slalom was simple for the most part and focused on looking ahead and not at the cones and being aware of the distance between your vehicle and the placement of your hands. It also familiarized you with the handling of the vehicle and its dimensions. For me coming from my daily driver of a 550 My friend and
I jokingly called the 240 a grown-up version of a go-kart, as we thought it was small and nimble and well suited to the weekend’s activities.
For the ABS braking activity we used the straight section of the small autocross course that the new owner uses at the track, and we worked our way up to faster and higher speeds to get used to the way ABS works. There were a lot of people who had never used ABS before, so again this was useful for people if you’ve never felt it before and don’t realize that when it’s engaged you have to keep your foot on the pedal to keep it engaged. Don’t stop just because of the sounds and feeling (pulse) you feel through the pedal. The most important thing to remember with this activity is that when you press the brake and you think you are pressing the brake as hard as you can, there is more room to go and you have to keep pushing to engage the ABS. This is becoming increasingly apparent as on the last step when you do this at 45 miles per hour your windows are down and if you engage the ABS properly the windows will automatically roll up to prevent dirt from getting into the car if this were a real event.
We then headed back to the same part of the facility where we had done that cone slalom to work on the hard shoulder changes. Again the emphasis here is on hand placement, steady speed and use of braking so that all the previous skills build on each other. It was also insightful to realize what the cars are capable of when you see the size of the gap you are navigating your car through.
We then went to the skid pad and learned how to get the car into a skid and how to recover from the skid. This is also the only part of the course where you can disable DSC. If DSC has disabled all other activities and the instructors catch you, you will be parked for the day. This activity will also help you become familiar with using the paddle shifters, for those who haven’t used them before. There was also a bracket challenge here where you had to compete against other drivers to see who could get around the skid the fastest without passing the other car.
The timed autocross was the final of the day for our group and for me by far the most fun: you have a walkthrough or rather a slow drive through the course with tips from your instructor followed by several timed laps. In our case you had 4 or 5 and your best time was retained. What made it challenging was the possibility of having to stop inside the stop box instead of running through the course and then braking gently after crossing the finish line. So think back to the use of ABS and know that you will apply ABS when you come to a stop, as if you were standing outside the stop box on either side. It’s a 2 second penalty.
We ended day 1 around 4:30 PM.
Day 2 started around 8:30am, similar to Day 1, and our first activity after a bit of classroom freshening up was the more advanced cone slalom, focusing on achieving a consistently faster speed and rhythm.
We then entered the 70 – 0 mph braking activity, using the long section of yesterday’s timed autocross course and the tightest corner at the end. The advantage here was that when using ABS brakes the handlebars had to stay straight and then turn right at the end, even as you came into a corner and the natural instinct is to want to brake and steer at the same time. The reason for this is that you don’t have to turn earlier, because your car can actually stop earlier if the wheels are exactly straight, because the ABS and DSC do not have to handle another force at the same time, for example from side to side. We then did the new owner’s track ride and you can read my previous post about it on this forum here https://g60.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh….php?t=2210313
We then changed lanes at about 45 miles per hour, which I also found simple and equally enjoyable, as it gave you extra experience if you suddenly encountered some sort of debris or animal in your path.
From here it was our timed cone activity, taking into account what we had learned previously and setting up for turns and where the apexes are to maximize getting back into a straight line quicker. It also ended with a stop box, so using ABS again at the end will set you up for a win to ensure you don’t lose 2 sec. fine.
Then we went to the skid pad for extra practice starting a skid and getting out. We went both clockwise and counterclockwise around the skid pad so you could practice both. I found both ways to be about the same, while there were others in the class who definitely felt one way was easier than the others, so definitely a skill that requires more practice. Plus, they also re-enabled DSC for some people so they could understand how much the car is doing to keep you under control.
We finished day 2 around 4:45 pm.
Overall a rewarding time and a good starting point for their other classes such as the One-day M-school or Two-day M-school. There was also one 2-day teenage school That happened the same weekend and when they heard the teens talking, they seemed to enjoy it. I might consider signing up my eldest child next year when they have a few more months of licensed driving experience under their belts, as the feedback I heard was that although it is open to licensed children, it is useful to have a bit more time behind the wheel and that extra time seems to fall naturally once you have also had a license for a few months.
#Day #BMW #Driver #School #Review