How to drive a car the BMW way... (BMW Driver Training)

Following the test drives offered at the BMW Expo last weekend, BMW also held special Driver Training classes for a limited number of people. Our class today was composed of approx 23 people. Although BMW offered the driver training during the expo, it was a much shorter version than the one we took today. (And I think drivers were only allowed to drive 1 or 2 cars around the course) The training is sponsored by Citibank Platinum so the other participants were all Citibank Platinum card holders.

The cars we got to drive were the following:

118i
120d
320i
320d
325i Coupé
X3 2.5i
X3 2.0d
520i
520d
530d
X5 4.8i
740iL (can you say Titanic?!?!?)

We were made to do the courses over and over, each time using a different Bimmer. Each car had 2 people in it, after one round, swap, then the other person got to hit the track....BUT since we were an odd number... and I was odd-man-out... I was told to do each car twice so as not to break the rhythm of the class!!! Hehehe... so I got to do the extreme braking and wet braking/cornering class twice!!! (The sacrifice!!! Hahahaha)

And for the sheer thrill of it, we were all given test rides (unfortunately only qualified drivers are allowed to demo the M-cars, which means, only Herbert was allowed to drive it) Although, I have to admit... riding an M-car with someone who knows how to handle it, is more fun than driving it and not knowing how to maximize the 420 (500 for the M5) horsepower under the hood. To actually feel a 500bhp car drift is something else all together (specially with the precision to drift through a narrow road cone course)... and to feel the grip of the M3 corner at race speeds is something else!!!

Photos are on my Multiply page.