2 day M school - SC

[mthreecpe]

I keep seeing discounts here, which makes this tempting. Of course this is a ton of fun for someone who's never been on track before (hence great reviews), but was curious r.e. feedback from people who have at least some prior track experience. Beating on cars is always fun, but the track seems to be more of go-kart track on steroids that they water down with safety-minded cone placement. Thoughts?

[SYT_Shadow]

If you have ample track experience it is a little boring, but allows you to drive the newest BMWs which is still cool

[dparm]

These programs tend to focus on very fundamental car control at-speed. It's not just 2 days of "go beat the shit out of an M3 on a track to your heart's content."

There are more targeted race schools if you want to drive the really crazy stuff (F4, Radical, etc), or need training for wheel-to-wheel.

[dogbone]

I guess it depends on what you're there for. Just from the way you asked the question makes me think you might have already outgrown what they do at these events. I've been to Greer, it was perfect for me in 2010 because I had never driven any car in a performance oriented setting. Years later when I had quite a bit of track experience, I was invited to a dealer-invite day at BMW's Thermal Club facility. It was a nice day, and it was fun to be in an F8x M3. But the day was geared towards novice drivers. I wasn't learning a whole lot.

If you have a couple thousand bucks laying around along with a car that can hit the track, hire a private coach for a couple days. Two days with a coach that's focused on you, your data and your video will teach you A LOT.

So, if want to learn, and you've never been to a track and don't know anything about braking zones, apexes and other track stuff, Greer can be a good first step. But if you already have some track time under your belt and you have a track-worthy car, then I would do the coach thing at a local track. You'll learn more because the coach can focus on you, and you'll be doing it at a track that is meaningful to you.

[dparm]

Originally Posted by dogbone

If you have a couple thousand bucks laying around along with a car that can hit the track, hire a private coach for a couple days. Two days with a coach that's focused on you, your data and your video will teach you A LOT.

Bingo. None of these schools give true one-on-one coaching. It is usually basic instruction.

$800-1000/day is pretty standard for a local coach who will work with you directly. I use the word coach very deliberately and have written about this here before. Instructors are going to get you comfortable with fundamentals and pretty much leave it at that. These are the brave souls who ride in the HPDE1/beginner cars and ensure people won't kill themselves on the first solo lap.

The coach is going to help you perform at your best. They will perfect your technique and get you comfortable being independent with pushing the car to the limit, situational awareness, etc. Coaching is one of the best things I've ever done to take myself from "competent" to "fast". At MSR Cresson, a 1.7 mile local track, he got my lap time down by 4 full seconds (as an example).

[e92BMW///M3]

I did the one day school, and the feedback above is all consistent with my experience. As a novice I learned a bit, but it was more of a fun experience than something I would say is geared towards really pushing the cars. For reference, we didn’t even have helmets when I did it ~4 years ago so that should give an idea of the level of performance. If you’ve done one of the M Track Days this is maybe 1 step above that.

[Cyberdemon]

Pre-Covid, they offered the advanced M schools at VIR and Thermal which I haven't done but may be more in line if you're an experienced driver and looking to get more direct seat time, but you pay to play. I don't know how that will shake out in 2020/2021, looks like theres no offerings at VIR anytime soon.

At the 2 Day M school in SC when I went, the first day was much more basics, by the second day though you had a couple good rounds of hot laps, and they would do a pretty good job managing point bys for people who were faster or slower. You'd have a pretty wide range of skills and IMO they did a good job managing it (and I say that coming in on the slow side of the scale). It was also a nice chance to get real time behind the M cars you were interested in. I was lucky enough to be there when they still ran E92's and the F10 M5's had just come out - that experience alone was the reason I still lusted after a E9x to this day.

I actually found by the 2nd day I needed to take it easy by the end of the hot lap sessions, I got pretty fatigued pushing myself at 9-10/10ths, although a few years later I'd be diagnosed with an inner ear tumor which was responsible for a lot of balance/vertigo issues - the skidpad exercises did me in something awful.