BMWCCA driving school at Thunderhill
Just a week after my first outing to the track, I went back for the two day GGCBMWCCA driving school. (That would be the Golden Gate Chapter of the Bayerische Motor Works Car Club of America, if that somehow wasn't obvious.) It was at Thunderhill, again, so I drove back up and stayed in the same Super 8 Motel with Adam and Matt.
The mechanics of the track event were all very much the same as the previous week, but the attitude was completely different, which manifested in a thousand little ways. First of all, you had to pay for a BMW approved mechanic to inspect your car before you got there. Self-inspection was not allowed. Then, at registration, you handed over your helmet to be inspected for the proper government safety stickers. Matt's helmet was rejected because its rating sticker came from a year before1 the minimum accepted date, and this was done without any joke or apology of any kind, because this was clearly Very Serious Business. Oh, and Matt had to wait 20 minutes for this privilege, because he was told to go to the back of the line and wait until all the instructors had finished with registration. So, we were off to a rocky start.
Once we separated to begin our actual Instruction, the day was organized around a strictly enforced caste system of four run groups. Unlike with Bonni, you may not self-select into the skill level you think you are. The Chief Instructors have decided for you, based on the secret notes that they have kept from your previous BMW Driving School attendance. Yes, really. And you must display your rank using the provided four inch vinyl letter, which goes on the drivers side window, behind or beneath the provided vinyl numbers. There is none of this nonsense with the making of numbers from painter's tape, like you have seen in my pictures.
At the first drivers' meeting, Matt immediately took issue with the fact that the Chief Instructors do not speak of "the drivers in the A group," but rather, "the As." He considered that emblematic of a bad way of looking at the world, which is a subtle point, but spot on.
Next, at my first Classroom Session for Ds, I was astonished to hear that they were putting 42 cars on the track in my group. Last time, Bonni was apologizing for the crowding with 25, saying she didn't want to run that many but didn't think she had enough to justify creating another group. But it was ok for BMW to put 42 of us out there, because who cares, we were only Ds. We're a necessary evil: a meal ticket that subsidizes the track day for the people that matter.
So even though I was already feeling put out, once I actually got to the car and met my new instructor Tony, I had a decent time on this first day. He didn't approve of the line I was driving from last week, and spent most of the morning telling me how I should change it all around, but I had been warned to expect this. Once we were done with that, I felt like I wanted to try to get faster, but I couldn't do it because I was always stuck behind a dozen cars. Tony gave me lots of useful direction, and enough positive feedback to keep me engaged and trying, even if he wasn't quite as effusive as Chris from the week before. Plus, he is a real life race car driver, and generally laid back and cool to hang around.
At lunch, we waited about 45 minutes to buy a sandwich from the Thunderhill Grill. Lunch was not included for your $500, and students were again made to wait until after the instructors had all ordered. You can just assume that was a recurring theme, and I'll stop calling it out each time it happened. I'm a little surprised that "the As" didn't eat before "the Bs," and so on down the line.
Nonetheless, at the end of the day, Tony said I had taken off about 20 seconds, which, if true, is a pretty hefty improvement. I was even thinking about asking if I might be promoted to the C group, since I hoped there would be less traffic to fight with. I don't know why I thought this was important, except that I had been taught to not want to be "a D." As it turned out, I would get over it soon enough.
° ° °
Sunday morning, I was assigned to a new instructor, Patrick. (By the way, you are not allowed to request who you want, and they get very offended if you try.) Now, Patrick is also a laid back guy and cool to hang around with, but I did not take very well to his style of instruction. Basically, he waited for me to ask for help with specific things, and if I didn't ask then he pretty much left me alone. I could see this being the ideal instructor, if I were an advanced student (perhaps "an A"), who wanted to focus on some specific task without being constantly distracted. But I am only a D, which means I don't know what to ask for, because I don't know anything.
So it was in about the second session when I said that I wanted to learn where to shift, just to say something. Patrick immediately did as I asked, and gave me three or four shift points that I got comfortable with: 3rd at the entry to 2, 4th at the exit of 6, 3rd at the entry to 9, 4th-back-to-3rd on the short straight between 9 and 10 (I skipped this one a lot), and 4th on the back straight. Then, after a couple more laps, he gave me one more: 3rd on the entry to 14/15, the tight 180 degree corner between the two straightaways.
This was a turn that I had been struggling with all day, mostly because I didn't want to take it anywhere near as tight as the racers do. But I had been concentrating on it and getting closer to the line they wanted, I think, and when Patrick said to shift to 3rd, I did.
And put the throttle at the same place I had had it in 4th.
And instantly spun the car all the way around.
At least I did not panic, which I can prove because I didn't stall—I had the clutch in well before the car was rolling backwards down the track. But now I was backwards in the middle of the track, between 14 and 15, which did I mention is a completely blind corner because of a little hill. So I got to have fairly close encounters with the yellow Lotus and grey 3-series that were entering that blind corner at high speed right behind me. This scared everybody pretty good, I dare say. After these two cars, the corner workers had reacted, and the yellow flags had cleared enough room for me to get turned right way around again. I got the black flag (standard procedure when you spin out or go off track) and I went mighty slow on my last lap before I had to come in for a talking-to. Actually, I think that at the time of the event, I might have been the least shaken up of the several people involved. It's less scary if you aren't afraid to die, I guess.
But, not scared doesn't mean not discouraged, and the fact is that I was done for the day. Patrick did tell me a few times to forget about it, put it behind me, it wasn't a big deal, and such, but it was too little too late. If you have ever talked to me for five minutes, you probably know that self-confidence is not one of my strong points. I was there trying something new, I suspected I was not good at it, the event was structured so as to constantly suggest that I sucked, and I made a big mistake that confirmed it. Every instinct I possess was telling me to go home and never come back. If I hadn't felt like I needed to get my money's worth, I might not have showed up for my last couple of sessions at all.
That's how, at the end of Sunday, I was actually quite a bit slower than I had been at the beginning. When I dropped off Patrick for the last time, I asked if I had made any progress on anything that day. I suspect the truthful answer was "no," and again I had to ask, because he didn't volunteer much otherwise. He said a vague yes, but had nothing specific to point to, and I remain unconvinced. My friends were long gone, because not being Ds, they got to leave earlier in less traffic. So I drove back to the near-empty paddock, put my stuff back in the trunk, and drove the four hours home.
° ° °
I had time to think about a lot of things, on that drive home and since. As far as that whole weekend goes, I looked at it in a lot of ways, and I have to admit that I really didn't have much fun. If any. I don't blame my instructors. They were competent and professional, in the same way as the guy that cleans your teeth at the dentist's office. He will be polite enough, but he isn't there to make conversation, and nobody is going to pretend that cleaning your teeth is how he wants to spend his Saturday. But unlike the teeth cleaning, there is no intrinsic value in my going to drive on the track. It serves no purpose other than for me to have fun. And I didn't.
Now I'd bet that at least some of the BMW organizers would say that they don't intend their school to be fun; they intend it to be school. Fine. But I still have to ask: why? Let's assume for a second that I'm never going to be a professional race car driver. Then if it's not fun to drive around as a lowly D, why should I keep working at it just to someday be a lowly C? Will that be fun? If so, how many unpleasant days is it worth to get there?
Is there nothing better I could have done with $1000 and one entire weekend?
I talked to Matt and Adam both to find out why they do this, and their reasons don't affect me. I am not very competitive, and I just don't have the Disney "I must never give up" personality trait. There may be something in this for me yet, but I'll have to figure that out for myself. For now I am signed up for one more autocross on Saturday, and nothing else. And I'm going to bed now rather than think about that bold faced question any more.
1 The Snell rating criteria for helmets change every couple of years, ostensibly because of the breakneck pace of the technological advances in helmet design. But the standards are driven by the helmet manufacturers, and it is widely held that the only real purpose for constant revisions is to force everybody to buy another $500 helmet every two years. I am inclined to believe it, because that would be completely in line with the spirit of the BMWCCA Driving School, and they are so far the only people that I have seen that care which year your sticker is from.
Updated 18 Sep 2007 (original post 14 Sep 2007 03:50 PDT). Several people (see comments) have responded to tell me that Snell helmet ratings are revised every five years (not two), for good reasons. Ok. Also, the reason that the instructors don't have to wait in the lunch line is that they might have a student in the session right before lunch, and the session right after. Ok.
I tell you this because it's fair to acknowledge that people disagree with me, and most readers won't ever see the comments. But I stand by my account as written. Even if there were a good reason for everything that I perceived as elitism and condescension, an image problem is still a problem.
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