1. Yeah!, 2. Yeah!, and 3. Yeah!!! (Baby’s back, ///M School, Thursday NJ meet

[(H)]

1. My baby is back and better than ever

After almost exactly four weeks, my beloved Singapore Eagle is back. For those, who don’t know: I drove through a flash flooded road and drowned the engine in water (literally). I was devastated and the days ever since have been a dramatic emotional struggle (just kidding, not really ;-) See my original post at (http://f10.m5post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1006476). Thanks for all your support and kind replies ever since. I have learned my lesson and I will certainly stay away from anything more than an inch of water on the road.

Princeton BMW (Frank, Mike, Tom and Roxanne) have been absolutely phenomenal in walking me through this. Geico sent somebody that really knew his stuff and that’s in part why it took so long. But in the end, it turned out that the initial diagnosis of a hydrolocked engine was incorrect. Drying everything out and a set of new hoses, filters, spark plugs, a total of six oil changes with filters and a bunch of replacements of critical parts did the job. Still ran a hefty almost five figure bill but insurance paid without any problems (thanks there too).

Now of course my greatest fear was that the car is no longer the same. Quite the opposite, I feel like it is driving better, more aggressive, more responsive and agile than ever before. Might be in part due to a new set of MPSS’s that I thought I put on while she’s at the shop anyway.

I am beyond ecstatic. Can’t wait now to add the BMS 1 (just wanted to wait a week to see if everything is really ok) and I am thinking about getting some RPI air scoops if they are available in caliper blue (is that MCB?). Since I can’t touch my exhaust, my wife would divorce me over a single db more sound, I am thinking about other mini-tunes like filters etc. Any ideas?
After I picked up my car, I ran into Ed with his beautiful LCI/CP M5. He was ultra-welcoming and seemed equally excited to see me back in my ride. We pulled over, chatted for a couple of minutes and Ed took a quick shot of the two darlings. Thank you, Ed, for the warm welcome! This is just a great community of likeminded people.



2. Two Day ///M School

While waiting for my baby, I went to GSP for the two day ///M School. What a blast. I highly recommend going for two days of unrestricted fun. The accommodation is a bit interesting (your average chain airport hotel) and food is rather ok/casual but that all obviously didn’t matter much because it is about driving ///M cars. And that you get quite plenty of. It’s not like the school is a revelation in learning new techniques. It’s rather that you never really have the time and opportunity to apply any of them and that is why the average Joe’s (including mine) driving skills are, well, average. After all, driving is like any other craft, it requires skill and skill doesn’t come without practice, practice and more practice.

The day typically starts in a class room with about 1-1.5 hours of theory. Some of it is helpful as you look at a map of the various tracks and get a mind-map of what is going to happen later. But most of it, I found redundant since when going onto the track, you usually take a couple of follow rounds with an instructor in the lead explaining turns and such over radio. I would have preferred a 15 minute theory session and then more explanation in slower speed runs on the track. I find it amazing how much you can learn when going around a track at 55mph and feeling everything in slow motion.

The great thing about ///M school is really that the instructors want you to go to your limits and test them. So much so that during the very first run, one of the students spun out one of the brand spanking new and loaded M6s and almost flipped it over. They were quite cool about it and that remained the only incident the rest of the two days.

So if you are expecting to run an ///M car to its limits (more like to your limits ;-) then you are definitely in the right place. We got plenty of track time on a great variety of courses and a good load of wet skid pad driving as well with exhaustive oversteer and understeer experiments. On the timed figure eights for example you could decide to be fast or just have dozens of laps of drift fun.

There were two things that really bugged me: Apparently the Spartanburg PC has a deal with Continental Tires. That is really strange since Michelin of NA is headquartered a stone throw away. So all the cars are equipped with Conti 5Ps. I didn’t know and when first driving the M5 with CP I asked the instructor to check my settings because the car felt so wobbly. I thought I must have done something wrong. These Conti’s get sluggish real fast and then the car literally becomes a different (and very ugly) animal. We did the final course on the M6s with the same Conti tires and I had several incidents where I almost flew of the track because handling felt more like a LeSabre than an ///M car. Not funny at all.

The second thing was the overall use of the days. School ends around 4.30pm on the first day and 4pm on the second day. It should be made clear that a decent level of physical fitness is required to do intensive track training. I am much more of a paper-pusher during the day than I wish I would be but I was really disappointed when school ended that early. It was pretty much that I just warmed up. I think ending it a 1-1.5 hours later would not do harm. At any time students have the option to rest or quit. Two of the students in my class made use of that. So why not have those who have higher energy levels continue and make the most out of it.
The one thing that I thought was awesome, besides really learning to love the E92, was that you actually get to keep your helmet. Each student gets to try different size helmets during day one and on day two, a package with a brand new helmet is waiting for you that you get to take home. Will make sure to bring that and wear it to every meet from now on ;-)

Just to clarify on some rumors: The Performance Center already had plenty of F80/F82 standing around but those were not used for ///M school yet only for PCD. We used E92s instead.

Here’s a quick video of one of my dismal runs with one major driving mistake at 0:40. I was a lot faster in the M3 than in the M6.

[u2b]http://youtu.be/zb20C3mFdlQ[/u2b]

3. Thursday Central NJ Meet’n’Drive’nDine

With all this said and travel out of the way for at least two weeks, the Thursday Central NJ Meet’n’Drive’nDine is back on. The next meet will be held this coming week on Thursday, August 6.30pm at Joe Canal Liquor store parking lot on 3375 US Route 1 South (Rt. 1 and Quakerbridge Rd.).
This will finally give me the opportunity to make whole on the not so little episode that I had with 968 turboS (see http://f10.m5post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1004553). I will make sure to bring the bottle of champagne and a small gift for you (watch out ;-).

Here is the plan: We will meet at 6.30pm at Joe Canal and we will leave at 7pm sharp for a 45-60 minute drive. Afterwards, if anybody wants to join for dinner, we could add that too. I will prepare the route and let’s pray that this time we will not be taken by some flash floods etc.

[mike@x-ph.com]

Nice!!

[RPiM5]

Congrats dude! More pictures!

[ManhattanBMW]

If you loved M School, you should do Advanced M School at VIR -- even more fun, but the parting gifts are not as good -- so bring your helmet. VIR is a fantastic track, and on the straight you can top 155 mph in the M6.

[richard in NC]

I actually spoke to a Michelin rep about the Conti's at the Performance Center. The deal was so good, Conti is loosing money given the number of tires the center goes through. Michelin didn't want that and Conti got the deal.

I've also heard they have backed off the amount of drifting during the hot laps to preserve the tires because Conti can't keep up with the supply of the M5 & M6 sizes.

[(H)]

Originally Posted by ManhattanBMW

If you loved M School, you should do Advanced M School at VIR -- even more fun, but the parting gifts are not as good -- so bring your helmet. VIR is a fantastic track, and on the straight you can top 155 mph in the M6.

So funny, booked it today for October 7/8 ;-))
The head instructor in Spartanburg recommended Road Atlanta over VIR, others said VIR is best. What's the deal?

[ManhattanBMW]

Originally Posted by (H)

So funny, booked it today for October 7/8 ;-))
The head instructor in Spartanburg recommended Road Atlanta over VIR, others said VIR is best. What's the deal?

VIR has more run off areas, while Road Atlanta, is a much tighter course. The consensus I got from the BMW instructors was that VIR was a better track to improve your driving.

At the end of August, I am headed to M School at the Ring in Germany.