Just got back from a wonderful day at Bedford Autodrome. The BMW Driving Experience.
Started of in M2's getting to know (one of 4) Circuit. Great fun & got faster & faster. Then swapped into M5's, same thing again. Clearly more powerful than the go-kartesk M2, but much much heavier - fantastic fun. Only downside i found with the M5 was that if you red-line it to the limit there is a huge pause of death before the next gearchange (in manual mode & despite pulling the paddle like a madman) this can cause some unbalancing if, like me, it happened exiting a corner. - To be fair ive never done that in my car (because its mine!) but wouldn't expect it to have such a pronounced "lul".
From there into competition m4's for hot laps, 4 or 5 circuits with an instructor, all the data (& great video of you driving/the view from the front of the car) logged and then assessed with your instructor, then out again for a similar time to try to improve & get faster - Thats when i had it sideways twice!!
From there over to a drift area, M4's fitted with nylon type over tyres so they lost traction very easily, dounuts & figures of 8.
Then on to a timed slalom event, again in an M4, through the slalom, U turn then flat out trying to stop in a coned area.
Then some laps driving the M4CS before a few laps driving the i8, finally a whip round in a race prepped 235 with race driver (nuts!!).
All in all a fantastic day and i thoroughly recommend it, we were very very well looked after & catered for fantastically. They also gave us a USB wristband that had all our recordings on it.
But......i got in my C4s to drive home and can honestly say i wouldn't swap it for anything i drove today, M2, M4, M5 or i8.
Personally i was looking forward to giving the i8 some beans & was really disappointed with how it went, yes its fast but nowhere near my car in my opinion.
So for me, the best car at the event was the one i drove home - that makes me very very happy! It immediately felt, more well balanced, lighter, faster & more responsive.
If you get the chance, get yourself on it - its always great to thrash the life out of someone elses car & shred their tyres, the guys were great & at no point were we encouraged to go easy
:thumb:
Started of in M2's getting to know (one of 4) Circuit. Great fun & got faster & faster. Then swapped into M5's, same thing again. Clearly more powerful than the go-kartesk M2, but much much heavier - fantastic fun. Only downside i found with the M5 was that if you red-line it to the limit there is a huge pause of death before the next gearchange (in manual mode & despite pulling the paddle like a madman) this can cause some unbalancing if, like me, it happened exiting a corner. - To be fair ive never done that in my car (because its mine!) but wouldn't expect it to have such a pronounced "lul".
From there into competition m4's for hot laps, 4 or 5 circuits with an instructor, all the data (& great video of you driving/the view from the front of the car) logged and then assessed with your instructor, then out again for a similar time to try to improve & get faster - Thats when i had it sideways twice!!
From there over to a drift area, M4's fitted with nylon type over tyres so they lost traction very easily, dounuts & figures of 8.
Then on to a timed slalom event, again in an M4, through the slalom, U turn then flat out trying to stop in a coned area.
Then some laps driving the M4CS before a few laps driving the i8, finally a whip round in a race prepped 235 with race driver (nuts!!).
All in all a fantastic day and i thoroughly recommend it, we were very very well looked after & catered for fantastically. They also gave us a USB wristband that had all our recordings on it.
But......i got in my C4s to drive home and can honestly say i wouldn't swap it for anything i drove today, M2, M4, M5 or i8.
Personally i was looking forward to giving the i8 some beans & was really disappointed with how it went, yes its fast but nowhere near my car in my opinion.
So for me, the best car at the event was the one i drove home - that makes me very very happy! It immediately felt, more well balanced, lighter, faster & more responsive.
If you get the chance, get yourself on it - its always great to thrash the life out of someone elses car & shred their tyres, the guys were great & at no point were we encouraged to go easy
:thumb:
