[hans007]

So i drive an f30 328i m-sport. I more or less assumed this wouldn't be drastically different.


Anyway I get to UDE , check out an m4, i8, etc. took pics and then settled in. Basic of the autocross was we'd get 4 laps to get a feel for the track, and another 2 were supposed to be timed.


Anyway i was in a car with this instructor , i think his name was jeff. he reminded me of john mccain a kind of older guy. when i asked him what he thought about the 228 vs m235i ...he said... and i quote "i like the m3".

anyhow, i had one other guy in the car who was also testing it out. I drove first and the instructor basically ordered us drill sergent style to brake and gas at certain points and it was a rather terrible experience honestly. the car i felt was a little easier to get to break thte tail loose and pretty fun to drive. felt a little more tossable than my 328i and i'm sure it'd be even better with the pilot super sports (the cars they had were 2014 m-sports with runflats).

That said, the instructor guy didn't have it in sport mode, and the driving was quite laggy whenever we hit the brakes too much on a corner. then he critcized us for messing it up.

so after our 4 laps, me and the other guy in the car were discussing why he didnt have it in sport mode. and that it was a terrible experience with the instructor (while he had another group) and just a tough time with a guy just basically ordering you gas , brake gas, so sternly. the other guy nearly spun out our car , on his turn, since he was gassing way too hard, because the instructor told us to really hit the gas and was like, seriously sounded disappointed we werent doing it better.

so anyway we get back in the car for our 2nd run which was supposed to be 2 laps. me and the other guy ask if its in sport mode, and he said it was (no it wasnt...) anyway, i was trying to do a better job this time, and well didn't use the brakes enough and ran over a few cones (didnt hit any cones the first time). this got a stern "i told you not to do that, just do what i said and you'll get it right" type mini lecture and honestly its hard to drive like that. then we kept going and and i messed up going through a chicane type section when he was saying to brake and gas in a particular way and he said somethign like "the brake pedal is the one on the left". then "if you aren't gonna follow my instructions, i'm through". so he made me pit the car and threw me out of it with a lap to go. yes, i got thrown out of a car at BMW UDE.


Anyway, probably the worst event i've been to as far as actual enjoyment. though i do have to say the car drove pretty well and honestly i think a 228i is plenty of power and handles great. was pretty cool actually seing a yas marina blue m4, and looking inside an i8 as well. i know other people who went who had a much better time , and no one cared if they ran over cones so i'd recommend people to go still. also lastly, i would say the 228i m-sport rims look way nicer than the m235i ones, i'd think on a lot of colors.

[mike@tpc]

that really sucks. If you didn't already own a BMW, I'm guessing that wouldn't sell you on buying one, which is the whole point of the experience.

[Cyberdemon]

Having been friends with many track instructors, it is more than likely you are an inexperienced driver who wasn't listening and creating a dangerous situation in the car. Most driving instructors do it because they're good at driving fast and understand the mechanics needed to do so. If you chose not to focus on the driving inputs and instead complained about the mode the car was in, I can see the driver getting fed up.

FWIW on a car without adaptive suspension the only thing that putting the car in sport is going to change is the steering weighting and throttle mapping, neither of which impacts the performance of the car.

[hyperzulu]

Originally Posted by Cyberdemon

Having been friends with many track instructors, it is more than likely you are an inexperienced driver who wasn't listening and creating a dangerous situation in the car. Most driving instructors do it because they're good at driving fast and understand the mechanics needed to do so. If you chose not to focus on the driving inputs and instead complained about the mode the car was in, I can see the driver getting fed up.

FWIW on a car without adaptive suspension the only thing that putting the car in sport is going to change is the steering weighting and throttle mapping, neither of which impacts the performance of the car.

I have seen really smart people try to teach math to children. Some of them, while brilliant, couldn't teach for crap. Just saying...

[2msport]

The cars at the Bay Area event had adaptive

[Cyberdemon]

Originally Posted by hyperzulu

I have seen really smart people try to teach math to children. Some of them, while brilliant, couldn't teach for crap. Just saying...

Most of them don't become teachers though.

If a guy is telling you to get hard on the brakes and you're not hard on the brakes, then you're going to plow past your turn in point and screw up the whole corner, and more importantly potentially putting the car in an unsafe location on the track or course. That's especially the case for events if there are multiple cars moving at once.

Either way, if you we're just slightly off your timing I find it hard to believe he'd pull you over. If you were doing your own thing and getting frustrated at him yelling at you, you were probably being unsafe.

He might have just been a dick, or been having a bad day - but when you're an amateur behind the wheel of a 3500lb machine with 2 other peoples lives behind your hands, instructors take safety seriously. There are always 2 sides to every story.

And if you say "oh we'll we were just in a parking lot" I can show you videos of stock cars flipping over at autoX's because someone puts the cars sideways, the tires dig in so far it grabs the rim and the car will grab and roll.

[hyperzulu]

Originally Posted by Cyberdemon

Most of them don't become teachers though.

If a guy is telling you to get hard on the brakes and you're not hard on the brakes, then you're going to plow past your turn in point and screw up the whole corner, and more importantly potentially putting the car in an unsafe location on the track or course. That's especially the case for events if there are multiple cars moving at once.

Either way, if you we're just slightly off your timing I find it hard to believe he'd pull you over. If you were doing your own thing and getting frustrated at him yelling at you, you were probably being unsafe.

He might have just been a dick, or been having a bad day - but when you're an amateur behind the wheel of a 3500lb machine with 2 other peoples lives behind your hands, instructors take safety seriously. There are always 2 sides to every story.

And if you say "oh we'll we were just in a parking lot" I can show you videos of stock cars flipping over at autoX's because someone puts the cars sideways, the tires dig in so far it grabs the rim and the car will grab and roll.

Pretty sure the guy was just being a dick. If you've been to an autoX and know that the organizers are about safety first, then you know they would do everything they can to minimize cars being put into jeopardy by designing the track not to be too fast for the level of driver along with turns that don't require a high level of expertise... where bad decisions could lead to catastrophe.

This being an event aimed at enthusiasts who may have never done an autoX in their lives, I'm sure it was a fairly slow, non-technical track. There most likely weren't any hairpin turns following a fast section of the track that allowed for these cars to hit 80mph. And if there were, then the course designers were idiots. Let's just say it's probably safe to assume that the coach was an asshole. Seems a more likely assumption than the OP trying to drive the car on two wheels.

[hans007]

yeah well i think both me and the other driver thought he was a total dick. i honestly don't think i did anything that bad, given the other driver nearly spun us out after the instructor kept telling him to hit this corner harder and then brake (and then he got mad at him for braking too hard....).

we were really trying to actually do what he said, and he was expecting us to nail all his points. but the guy started out a total asshole , like we are supposed to be veteran autocross guys.


i already have a bmw, and would probably still buy one even if i hadn't since it was a great car. we were the last session of the day, and the guy seemed very "fuck this shit, i have to train these amatuers when im normally a real instructor".

dont think we put anyone in any danger, knocking over a few cones. i knew people who went to some of the other events and knocked over tons of cones and it was ok. i just dont think he particularly liked teaching people anything. he even made some quip about how some of the other instructors were "guys they jsut get from anywhere" since they didnt go as fast when they were driving. i dunno, oh well.

probably still getting a m235i , the 2 series is a pretty fun ride.

[MG 228i]

Did you go yesterday? We were the first group and the instructors were very chill.

[hans007]

Originally Posted by MG 228i

Did you go yesterday? We were the first group and the instructors were very chill.

i was in the last group on saturday.

[mike@tpc]

I'm a NASA instructor and it sounds to me like the guy doesn't have the demeanor to be a good instructor. I'm pretty sure BMW just calls the cca and looks for instructors for these events and not every club level instructor is a good one.

This guy's job at one of these events is to sell cars and keep it safe. sounds like he was really doing neither. You should never push someone harder than you or they are comfortable with.