I just sent a message off to my friends describing the Sears Point day. I thought it would be of interest to those here that didn't get to go. BTW, the MPH estimates below are just that, estimates. I didn't have much time to be checking out the speedo!
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Friends,
I had a change to participate in a High-Performance Driving School at Sears Point (a local race track) on Thursday and I wanted to share my experience with everyone.
First, some background information:
- For those that don't know, I recently purchased a BMW M5 automobile. This is a very high-performance sports-sedan car capable of keeping up with Porsches, Corvettes, etc., while at the same time being a very drivable 4-door luxury car. This is a fairly rare car -- BMW only imports about 2000 a month to the entire North America.
- I am an active participant in a web-based discussion board dedicated to BMW M5 cars. The site is www.bmwm5.com and has several hundred active participants. What is so good about this site is that most of the participants are driving enthusiasts like myself. We share experiences, technical insights and, important to this discussion, plan events.
Over the past 9-12 months we have been planning our M5 Extravaganza which included the High-Performance Driving School at Sears Point. The other activities centered around several events going on over the weekend in Monterey California. I didn't have a chance to go to the Monterey events so I won't spend any time on these. The driving school was a special edition put on by Russell Racing just for our group. We had 22 M5s show up for a long day of fun.
We started the day with a very quick class-room session. Normally, they would spend 30-45 minutes talking about basic driving techniques. However, since we were all experienced drivers they skipped most of this. We did have a techniques book sent to us in the mail that covered basic cornering techniques. We quickly jumped into our cars and headed over to a autocross course set up especially for our class. This is similar to club racing if anyone is familiar with it. Basically, they used white chalk and orange cones to mark out a short "track". We took turns driving this course for several laps with an instructor in the car telling us how to best negotiate the track. The main purpose of this activity was to get us comfortable driving aggressively and properly through turns. The last set of laps were timed and I took second place!
We then headed back to the pit area and performed a couple other maneuvers aimed at preparing us for the track. The first was a short course that used the old turn 11 at Sears Point (they are currently rebuilding the track and this turn has been removed from the track for the next several months). Turn 11 is a very tight 180-degree turn that is one of the hallmarks at Sears Point. This gave us a chance to experience this turn and practice our entry-exit skills. The exit of the turn is into a long straight-a-way that invites you to hit the gas hard. Once, I came out of the turn a little to fast and got the car sideways. No real danger, it just made for some fun. The M5 is so powerful, you can spin it out almost at will. The other maneuver was a high-speed lane change event that taught us how the car behaves under sudden steering input. It also gave us a feel for the weight transfer of the car.
After these events, we broke for lunch and listened to Steve Dinan. Steve is one of the premier tuners in North America and is very knowledgeable about all aspects of BMW cars. He told us about the modifications his company is working on. They include an additional 50 HP through headers, intake changes, etc., and a whopping 100 HP increase from a super charger. Combined they will add over 150 HP to the already high 400 HP from the stock car! Watch out!
Finally, after lunch, we got to head out to the main track. We were paired up and assigned an instructor. He drove us through the track for a couple of laps to explain how best the enter and exit each turn (often called the "line"). Then, we drove the cars in a lead-follow manner with the instructor in the lead car and the other car following. After a while, he would switch cars. This meant that for half the time I was in the car alone following the other car and half the time in the lead car with the instructor. We would drive for about 1/2 an hour and then take a 1/2 hour break and go do it again.
Sears Point is often described as a technical course. It is a road-course, meaning that, unlike most NASCAR tracks (which are ovals) it is like a road meandering through the hill-side. Is is called "technical" because you must follow the proper line or you won't get around the track very fast at all. It is 1.83 mile track with 9 turns. There are a couple of very interesting parts that I'll go into more detail on:
- The transition from turn 1 to turn 2 is a steep climb. The exit for turn 2 occurs right at the top of the incline. What makes this interesting is that as you exit turn 2, you are cresting the hill and starting back down. Because of this, the car is very light and it has a tendency for the back-end to step out. This happened to both me and the other driver (Greg was his name). We ended up taking the turn in third gear so that we didn't have too much power to the rear wheels. I should mention that you are going about 80 MPH coming up that hill.
- Turns 3 and 3A are famous for the blind turn. Turn 3 is a left-hand turn that occurs in a "dip" in the road. This mean you can take it very fast since the car is being pressed down on the ground. However, turn 3A is on a rise much like turn 2, only worse. As you come over the hill exiting turn 3A, you can't see the road in front of you! We were coming over this hill about 60 MPH and having to break hard for turn 4, which was a 90-degree right-hand turn. This turn was very high on the pucker-factor meter!
- Turns 5 and 6 are very fast turns. Turn 5 is a right-hander that you take about 80 MPH. Turn 6 is often called the carousel because it is a very wide 180-degree left-hand turn. You come into the turn about 40 MPH and exit about 90 MPH. This leads into the longest straight where we hit top speeds of about 110 MPH.
- Turns 7, 8, 8A and 9 are called the esses since they are a series of back and forth turns. This is the most technical part of the track because if you don't get turn 7 right, your mistake is compounded for each following turn. You enter the series of turns at about 30 MPH and accelerate to about 90 MPH. Then, it's hard on the brakes again for turn 9 which leads back to turn 1 and you start it all over again.
As you can imagine, this activity is very hard on the tires. Interestingly, however, most of the wear was on the outer edges of the front tires. The M5 performed flawlessly and was so much fun to drive around the track. The instructors commented several times about how impressed they were with the cars. They were also impressed with our collective driving skills. Aside from the tires, I also took many miles off the brakes. They did perform very well with no noticeable fade, amazing given what I was doing to them! The only problem I had was over-heating of the car. I guess running near red-line for 20-30 minutes can get a car engine hot!
I've posted a bunch of pictures on the web. You can see them at:
http://community.webshots.com/album/19544018TezuhiSIIt and
http://community.webshots.com/album/19544790bUCBuTPVeI
Sorry this got so long, but, as I hope you can see, it was a whole lot of fun!
Regards,
Phil
And yet, more pics from Sears Point
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