Journal: M3POST members enjoy 3-day BMW M school on the Nurburgring / Nordschleife

[marcel b]

As announced earlier http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=512966

BMW organizes an 3 day driver training at the Ring. Some M3post members where lucky to participate.

Day 1

Arriving fairly early at the ring with beautiful weather at the Lindner Hotel. A beautiful hotel with nice rooms, but lacking the atmosphere you can find in the older small hotel / guesthouses you find in Nürburg.



In the entrance of the hotel I already met the first E90post/M3post member from the States and we spent the day walking around and visiting some visitor spots around the Ring looking at mainly Porsches but also a Ferrari 458 Italia driving on the Ring as a part of a training. (Porsche Driving Experience).

Behind the Lindner hotel our cars where waiting for the coming days. 40-50 new M3 with ZCP. Most of it E92, but also some E90 which will be used by the instructors.




The long straight of the GP track, "Freude am Fahren"




Brünchen, a nice spot to watch other cars driving





At 17:00 the track opened for public, and just for fun I drove a lap in a small Mercedes Diesel Rental car and showed Jason the track. We could drive the Nordloop including the Nürburgring GP-track, which is something which cannot be done often, so that was a nice bonus.

At 19:00 the event started with some instructions about driving position, driving lines and some critical parts on the track.




The groups where split in German speaking and English speaking. At the end of the instructions the groups where introduced to there instruct for the next 2 days.

The Chief instructor is Claudia Hürtgen. She is a BMW factory driver who won the 24hours of Dubai this year in the Schubert BMW Z4 GT3.

As a guest instructor we where lucky to have Dirk Adorf, a BMW factory racedriver, driving the BMW M3 GT2. Both of them will also be driving to the 6hours race on Saturday.

During the dinner with the group and instructor it was nice to get to know the rest of the people of the group a bit. Food was nice, and we ended up at the bar enjoying some beers before heading to bed, looking forward to the days to come.



Day 2

After a nice breakfast is was finally time to get into the cars. Everybody had to share a car with one other person. A group contained out of 4 cars, 8 Persons only.





A GTS standing between all the normal M3. The owner was lucky, the last day of the training Claudia Hürtgen took him around the Ring in his car That for sure is something he will not forget.

Arriving at the track we started with driving 2 laps (1 per person) around the 20.8km / 12.9 miles long track behind the instructor. The track was divided in 11 sections to enable a proper learning of the long track with 33 left und 40 right corners.

The max gradient is 17%, the max drop 11% and the difference between lowest and highest point of the track is 300meters or 984 feet.
Before going into the sections everybody started with some exercises on steering technique, heavy braking and slalom.




We did 3 sections in the morning, one hour per section. On average everybody could drive 6-8 times every section. The sections where driven behind the instructor who increased pace every pass giving feedback mainly to the driver behind him. Every run the positions where swapped.

During sections we stopped to discuss and learn more about the specific section.




After a nice lunch at the Devils Diner it was time for an other to sections in the afternoon followed by some full laps. (3 laps per person)




Here it is important that the groups are homogeneous as the instructor will not drive faster then the slowest person in the group.

The day before we received a USB stick which could be inserted in the car for data logging. Every car is equipped with 2 cameras and a Racelogic data logger. Starting with the full lap was a perfect time to use it.
The video contains Speed, g-force, RPM etc.

The diner in the evening was in the hotel. After the diner we went for a beer in the Pistenclause. On the way back to the hotel we had a look at the old pitboxes.


Day 3

On day 3 we did 3 sections in the morning before lunch, after lunch one section followed by full laps behind the instructor. In total we drove 6 full laps. Maybe this doesn't sound much, but because of the length of the track his is more then an hour drive. Some of the laps where at high pace reaching speeds of more then 140 miles an hour.
The long straight of the track could not be driven full, as this would be too dangerous.

After having driven the M3 2 days at the track I am really impressed with it. I own a modded 335i which I drive on this track quite a bit, and I can say the M3 is in a different league. So much more communicative, more feeling in the steering, more grip enabling you to carry more speed through the corners. The V8 impresses with how it can be modulated and it's grunt. It was just pure JOY

The day finished in the VIP lounge of BMW at the GP-track. We had some food, drinks and got a certificate for the participation.





On the way back to the hotel we had the chance to see some racecars who will drive this weekend in the 6hours VLN race. This race is a preparation for a lot of teams who will enter the 24 hours race later this year.








Most of the participants left on the last day, I however will enjoy the weekend here watching the race.

I can recommend anybody who would come to do the training the add some days to the visit to watch the race. Dates can be found here: www.vln.de

[marcel b]

Some pictures of the race. (200+ cars participated)
The cool thing is that you are allowed to get into the pitlane. And as I know 2 teams driving I managed to get on the pitwall, great experience seeing pitstops made in front of you, with tires passing on the main straight.

[pcbrew]

Just have to say I had a great time and learned a lot.
In addition to the section training of anywhere from 4-8 runs per section, both driving and observing; I got in ~12 full laps over 2 days plus rode as observer/passenger on about the same. After rainshowers Tuesday night, the weather was perfect for the 2 days of the event. Also, thanks to ///M Rakete for driving to/from the ring in a shiny M3.

BMW gave us memory sticks that we plugged in for our runs and the in-car VBOX system dumped data + avi video to. I just checked and the .vbo is an ASCII file with the following data:

• satellites
• time
• latitude (divide by 60 for degrees)
• longitude (divide by 60 for degrees and change sign)
• velocity kmh
• heading
• height
• vertical velocity m/s
• RPM_ENG
• ANG_ACPD
• avifileindex
• avisynctime

Unfortunately, the system sometimes did not always record properly, but I did at least get a few full laps. Also, while it included the graphical istrument data, it did not include the instructor comments like YouTube posting from marcel_b. (Sorry we did not meet Marcel - I see your were in Gruppe 4).



A few pictures from the event...
1) Pseudo panorama of the parking lot Wed. morning - array of ~40 shiny M3s awaiting the 'Ring.
2) Gruppe 5 instructor + foursome entering the Karussell
3) View of the Karussell from in-car recording system

[TobiasMUC]

Thanks for sharing! I have to go there too.

[redduck1]

Wow, that was very cool. Wish I was there too. Looked like an awesome experience.

[creepy coupe]

Epic, I want.

[RON1X]

That sounds so amazing, thanks for sharing. Great shots to document the experience!

[klammer]

Looks sick,

[jonasaurus]

Thanks for sharing!

[Stormtroooper]

looks like a good time. I wish i would have seen this earlier and i would have gone. The ring is only 40 min from me.

[GOLFFRR]

epic, what a great event to be part of! i need to do this!

[John Tanglewood]

OH MY GOD.... Words cannot describe how jealous I am!!! Pics make me feel like I am part of it!

THanks!

[crackberry]

[BenTrovato]

Looks like an amazing experience, thanks for sharing with us!

[southlight]

Amazing, I gotta do this sometime. Thanks guys for write-up and photos!


Best regards,
south

[HS_01]

I was there too. I had a blast... Too bad we didn't meet. I was at group number 8.
Compared to the M Advaced at VIR, this one was much more chalenging.

[davem3fan]

JEALOUS! I'm doing that in the future no matter how bad it stings.

[ase2dais]

Incredible Event!

Where to I sign UP!

How Much?

[ase2dais]

Nevermind! saw the annoucement ! a bit late
hopefully there will be another one ?

[pcbrew]

Originally Posted by ase2dais

Nevermind! saw the annoucement ! a bit late
hopefully there will be another one ?

There is another session in late October, based on info from Jeff_DML in this post: http://www.m3post.com/forums/showpos...6&postcount=86

First post in the original thread has links to information and application: http://www.m3post.com/forums/showpos...46&postcount=1
Just fax application to the number on the form, hope to get accepted and then convince your S.O. that this is something you absolutely MUST do.

M Driver Training on the Nürburgring (in fall 2011)

Dear M driving enthusiast,

Thank you very much for your interest in the M Driver Training on the legendary Nürburgring race track. The feedback on our online communication was overwhelming which is why I kindly ask you to accept my apologies for the belated reply.

The training slots in May are already fully booked, I am afraid. However, I am pleased to offer you alternatives in September and October. We have not communicated this, yet, but would like to offer them to you first as a sign of appreciation for your patience.

Sept. 28th (arrival on 27th) -> 10 seats for the 1-day M Intensive training on the F1 grand prix track

October 24th to 25th (arrival on 23rd) -> 8 seats for the 2-day M Fascination training on the North Loop

Please find attached more information on the program as well as the registration form. We will be more than happy to welcome you in fall this year. Registrations will be handled on a first come, first serve basis.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions. I am looking forward to seeing you in September, respectively in October!

Best regards,

[OC3]

Lucky bastids!

[enricob]

great job Marcel !!! See you soon at Nordschleife