My son and I experienced BMW M Track Day at Sonoma yesterday. We did three years ago and we had so much fun that time we decided to do it again.
As usual, BMW puts on a well-run event. I have no idea how they can take over the whole racetrack for 4 days in a row and put on this event. Just the cost of renting the facility must be way higher than the revenue they take in from us. For me, at $625 of a 1/2 at the track and driving so many of BMW's performance cars is a bargain. I may have shredded that much in tires alone!
We got to drag race (they call it 0-60 in performance SAVs, including the ixm60, the new XM, the X3 M Competition, and the X4 M Competition.
Next it was track time in lead-follow format on the Sonoma course that is used for NASCAR. We got 8 laps each as a driver, and 8 laps more as a passenger. We used M3 Competition and M4 Competition. Perfect cars for this event.
Finally, it was autocross time in M2s.
My thoughts on the event:
- Perfect weather.
- Great cars to drive.
- Top notch job by BMW drivers and staff.
- The M3 Competitions and M4 Competitions felt way better to me on the track than the M5 and M8 Competitions we drove 3 years ago on at the same event. While the larger cars are awesome for sure, these smaller, lighter cars felt way better on the track to me. Just a personal observation.
- The autocross was a blast in M2s. I did really well and got among the best times, buy my son rocked it. He won our group and he won 2nd place time for all the groups. He got a free BMW bag, ear plugs, and a hat for his effort!
In addition to the scheduled events, they did two extra things they didn't do last time that just made it perfect. They had a motorcycle racer on a BMW racing bike do a couple of lap demonstration. It was remarkable what he could do with that bike. Also, we got to do a couple of hot laps as passengers with BMW pro drivers driving. Just when we were feeling like we were doing pretty good out on the track, these pro drivers showed us how it is really done. Incredible.
Here are some pics from the event.