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Just got home a little while ago from South Carolina where my wife and I attended the 1 day M school at the BMW Performance Center. We had a blast.

I got this trip for free after the purchase of my 08 M3. A few days after I registered, I got a call saying that our class was not full and I could also bring a guest if I wanted for no charge. Being a dutiful husband, I took the missus.
Although we were provided a room for 2 nights, we elected to go a day earlier on our own dime because we were driving up (about 9 hours each way.) The ladies at BMW got us in for the night at a favorable rate. The hotel was very nice and we were treated well.

We arrived Monday night and were tired out. Grabbed a couple margaritas and a mexican dinner at place close to the hotel. Early lights out.

Tuesday morning we ventured out to do a little x-mas shopping since we didn't have the kids. I had signed us up to go on the factory tour so we did that. We toured the Zentrum visitors center and went to see where the x5's and x6's are made. The factory is really efficient and clean. It is amazing how the cars are made in no particular order and all the parts arrive from the vendors already in line for the cars that they go with. We had a nice dinner that night at the hotel restaurant courtesy of BMW.

Wednesday was school day. We had a nice breakfast at the hotel courtesy of BMW, and hopped on the shuttle to head over to the Performance Center.
We met our instructors, Paul and Matt and had a little class instruction to lay out the day's events. There were only a total of 5 students in the class, so we had a lot of seat time. The instructors were awesome. Both had extensive driving and racing pedigrees and were great teachers as well. They were patient and fun. After about thirty minutes of instruction, we headed out to the cars.

There they were-, more M cars than I had ever seen in one place in my life. each student had their own M3, M5 and M6 to drive for the day's events.
There were probably 25 M cars total lined up counting the instructor's cars.
We started out in the M6's for a little turning practice. We made about 10 or so runs each at a sharp turn. We practiced braking for the turn and turning in to set up for the apex. The M6's were awesome machines in 500 hp mode. Mine was a beautiful AW on red fully optioned model. The instructors are constantly on the radio giving you pointers and advice. Most of the advice was "faster, faster" LOL. Most of this was done in 2nd gear and sometimes third, which is plenty fast in an M6. After several runs we went back to the lot.

Up next: part two.