The Nurburgring Experience with BMW Driver's Training

[m3magic]

Last week, a few of us formed a private group and attended the famous Nurburgring Nordschleife driving experience conducted by BMW Driver's Training.

There is a very good write-up on this current issue (Sept 05) of BMW Car magazine. This year, this course is conducted only twice, once in June and once in Aug.

The cars our group had were the new e90 330i manual (yes, with stick and clutch and everything); there were also other groups using the M3cs. We couldn’t secure M3s as the places were booked 9-12 months ahead.

It took us a few laps to get familiar with stick shift (and using the clutch too) again and left-hand drive! At the end, it turned out we had as much fun and came to respect the chassis of the e90, very capable winner indeed.

In any case, the objective was to give us an experience the Nordschleife, and we certainly had enough fun doing so. In total, we had 2 full days of driving the ‘ring, or about 12 hours and dunno how many laps on the track. AWSOME!!!

Here are a few pics I took to share:

Before the start of the class, we went to watch the “open track” and spotted:



closer look at the very nice body work M3:



and what looks to be like M6?



View from our hotel, we can see all our training cars parked and ready for us:



Next morning, we finally arrive at the car park to find:





The instructor led us to different section and “walk the ‘ring” while he explained to us the lines, apex and other characteristics of each turn we need to be aware and careful of:








Follow by lots and lots and lots of DRIVING:








Here is a look at the hotel we stayed, directly over looking the Nurbugring F1 track.







This is the Nurburgring Nordschleife, also know as “green hell”:

[totoseow]

awesome..must drive there b4 i die....but its so unforgiving...

[m3magic]

Originally Posted by totoseow

awesome..must drive there b4 i die....but its so unforgiving...

That's why the best and safest way is to do it within the controlled environment of BMW Drivers training and led by experienced instructors. Each of the instructors had done minimum more than one thousand laps there before.

[jaskin]

It must have been really great. 12 hours on the ring! Congrats! Give me a few years I'll head down there myself

[eggz]

Wow NS, this is really one of those once in a lifetime experiences, awesome pictures.

How does one qualify to go for such a training? Do you have to own an M car first? What is the approximate cost?...thanks

[Puny]

Wow, NS...

I'm very very envious!...
Was the training grueling?

[Raffles]

Omg

Stick it !

[lecabrio]

Originally Posted by totoseow

awesome..must drive there b4 i die....but its so unforgiving...

The instructors are all excellent. Our instructor is currently leading the european championship ( not sure exact category) Out of 9 races that he took part , he won 8 of them! Watching him drive is a revelation - ultra smooth !
Cheers!

[eggz]

Oh yeah forgot to ask, what speeds did you hit on that long straight?

[Shaun]

What a cool holiday! Nice photos.