[nsogiba]

August 2022

Originally Posted by nsogiba

Track day bro!

Earlier this month I attended an HPDE at Watkins Glen hosted by the BMW CCA GVC Chapter. Great, friendly, motivated group of people. The theme of the weekend was endurance - managing the intense heat (85 in the shade) and preventing it from doing damage to my body and the cars.

I took Friday off work and grabbed a U-Haul trailer. With a bit of planning and wood blocks it was loaded up. It was under 3 hours to get there; the X5 felt happiest around 70-73 mph. Pushing it a little further to get around slower traffic was easy but being my first time pulling a car this far, I set it at 70 and enjoyed the ride.



I had installed a set of helper airbags just to help with the tongue weight but still had a little more squat than desired. More on that later.

Loadout included the M3, and packed inside of it was the stock wheelset (245/265 Hankooks) in case of rain, tools, pop up tent, coolers, helmet, jackstands, spare brake pads and fluid, 10 spare gallson of fuel for top offs, overnight bags, water, food...you know how it goes. In the future I'll probably load the car facing backwards and measure tongue weight instead of winging it. My wife went along with me for the trip on the condition that she could take the X5 out in wine country and to the State Park/Gorge for sightseeing/hiking, so once we arrived at the track we pulled the M3 off the trailer, unhooked the trailer, chained it up, and hit the Seneca Lodge for their famous beer brewed in house and salad bar.

Originally Posted by nsogiba

Day 1 started with Driver's meeting at 7:30, and before I went out on track I took some time to be a total tourist and take it all in.















My buddy and his wife joined us in his 330K mile E39 M5. Unfortunately he blew a clutch slave cylinder literally pulling into the complex on Day 1, but was able to find a replacement part an hour away and had it ready to go by lunch, so he only missed 2 sessions out of the 8.



Remember the thing about heat management? It was already 80+ in the morning, so it wasn't pleasant bleeding the clutch in the stagnant air. We were very lucky to have been able to borrow a garage bay from his instructor as well as a big box fan to cool off.

Originally Posted by nsogiba

As the day got hotter I just relaxed between sessions and enjoyed the cool A/C in the classroom. Since I am still relatively new to this chassis and setup on track, I checked tire pressures after every session to get an idea of how much pressure they were gaining. Saw this little guy stuck to the tire - luckily it wasn't mine.





Since it was my first time running at any actual speed on this track, I spent the majority of the first day with my instructor learning the track, understanding my line, and beginning to see my mistakes as they happened. As a result I didn't spend a whole lot of time paying attention to the mechanicals, which I suppose is a good thing since the car didn't complain much. The only issue I had on Day 1 was oil temps exceeding 275F and the iDrive yelling at me. It worked out will since I was ready to back off for a few laps to collect my thoughts and process how things were going.







My instructor and I discussed ways for me to improve, which mainly included not trying to correct my line mid-turn, braking later and more aggressively, and focusing on the apex rather than the turn in point. By the end of Day 1 he was comfortable with my progress and put me in the next run group (2) and signed off for me to go solo.