BMW Performance Driving School

Most automotive enthusiasts are well aware of BMW’s famous M School, where you can go to experience more power, control, speed and adrenaline. M School is offered at the BMW Performance Centers East and West in South Carolina and California respectively. However did you know they offer additional programs at the BMW Performance Center, taught by the same awesome instructors?

We were recently hosted at the BMW Performance Center East in Greer, South Carolina where we participated in the two-day BMW Performance Driving School for adults. While it’s technically a car control school geared towards making you a better driver on the road, the two day school offers plenty of track time behind the wheel of the ultimate driving machine. If you think M School is beyond your ability or budget, we think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the experience offered at BMW Performance Driving School. We had a blast capturing this video of all the action, check it out!

Our video does a nice job of showing the various training activities, each designed to let you practice a skill that you can use in real world driving situations. For example, you’ll get to practice accident avoidance with quick lane changes and panic braking at speed. Everything starts with the classroom instruction however, which we were unable to show in our video. It sets the foundation by teaching you proper driving position, vision, and hand placement on the wheel. We particularly appreciated that the instructors explained why we were doing everything, instead of just telling us how.

Unlike the M-School, drivers are paired up for all activities in the Adult Driver School. While some may dislike that it cuts into their seat time, we found riding right seat with another driver for half the time allowed us to concentrate more on the instruction, and really learn from each of the activities. If you’re one that learns best from seeing an example first, we recommend you choose to drive second. Everyone loves to practice their drifting on the wet skid pad, but it’s also the perfect place to learn how to regain control of your vehicle when the tires lose grip in bad weather. We can’t remember the last time we had this much fun learning at school.

We highly recommend the two-day experience for tons more seat time, and an opportunity to drive many more BMW models, including the X vehicles on the off-road course (only available in South Carolina). While we always love track day, nothing makes us happier then off-roading, so we had to launch the drone and make a second video just to show you that portion of the program:

We couldn’t be more impressed with the track, facilities and vehicles at the BMW Performance Driving School, but the real story is the instructors. They were absolutely fabulous, taking extra care to make sure that each student was able to improve and learn something from each exercise. We watched as they pushed the more experienced drivers in the group to new levels, without leaving the less experienced drivers feeling left behind. The BMW Performance Center also offers a program for teens, which was conducted simultaneously while we were there. In fact several of the attendees in the adult program had teenagers attending the school, and were able to eat lunch together. Check out this official video for much more information on the programs offered at the BMW Performance Center :

Sponsored by BMW Performance Center