TLDR; Did a two-day M-School in California. Had a blast. Highly recommended, even if you never track your own car.
I recently participated in a two-day M-School at BMW's Performance Center West. I thought people would be interested to know what it was like, hence this writeup. The event was organized by BMWCCA's National Capital Chapter. We drove on Sunday, February 19th and Monday February 20th. The price of the school was $3395 (this was a special BMWCCA rate) and included the following:
---Two nights in a hotel
---Dinner on Saturday / Sunday night
---Breakfast on Sunday / Monday morning
---Lunch on Sunday / Monday afternoon
---Transportation to/from the hotel and the Performance Center
That left me with covering air travel to California, transportation to/from the airport, and any extra meals or hotel nights I needed (I stayed over Monday night). All in all, I'd say I probably spent ~$4100 for everything.
Day One --- Morning
We arrived at the Performance Center around 8:30am. Not much to say about it, it isn't terribly big. The one in South Carolina is larger. That is a new M5 sitting out front.
The first day started with some time in the classroom. Things kicked off with a round of introductions for instructors and participants. After that it was time for some slides. These covered a variety of topics including seating position, understeer, oversteer, braking, weight transfer, vision, cornering, etc. This lasted about an hour or so. I thought this was all really good information. Classroom time ended with everyone dividing up into three groups, blue, green, and red. Each group had six students in it. Within each group, each student had a number. For example, I was red #1 (Red Leader!). Once everyone had their numbers, and made a pitstop in the restroom it was time to head outside and start driving.
Weather
The weather was nice, though a bit chilly in the morning.
Cars
The cars on tap were M2s, M3s, and M4s. All cars have DCTs, no manuals here. Different cars were used for different activities. Each car had a magnetic number on it. This number corresponded to the number you were assigned in the classroom. You can see the numbers on some of the cars in the picture above. So, for each event, because I was red #1, I would get into the car with the #1 on the side. There was one driver per car, no sharing or swapping of drivers required. If a car breaks down, runs out of fuel, or is otherwise out of commission, they simply pull the number off, roll in another identical car, and stick the number back on.
Each car is completely stock. No racing harnesses, helmets, or special equipment is required. All cars run on Continental Tires at stock air pressures.
Vehicle settings were set based on what the instructors said at the start of each activity. All the M3s/M4s had the M1 buttons pre-programmed with the necessary settings. This adjusted all the steering, suspension, shifting, DSC, etc. I don't remember what they had them set to, but I do know MDM was used all the time. For the M2s, we started with "Sport" and moved to "Sport+" later on.
Instructors
A quick note on how the instructors work once you're in the car. With the exception of one skidpad event, there is no instructor in the car with you. You are in the car by yourself and there's a two-way radio clipped to the driver's side door pocket. The instructor has a radio of his/her own and feedback/guidance is provided using the radio. You can, if you need to, pick up the radio to ask a question or ask for help.
Participant skill level
There were participants in our group with a huge variation of skill levels. Some had several other M-School days under their belts, HPDE, autocross, etc. Some had very little experience. This proved to not be a problem at all. You are encouraged to drive at a speed/level that you are comfortable with. You are never forced to drive beyonds your limits.
Track
All of the activities for day one were done at the BMW track (as opposed to the actual circuits over at The Thermal Club). The track layout was changed throughout the day, using cones, depending on what we were doing.
Cones
OMG, cones. There's cones everywhere. Blue cones for turn-in points, yellow cones for apex markers, blue cones for track-out points, green cones for starting lines, red cones for pit lane, etc. The cones are made from rubber and running one (or more) down with the car doesn't hurt the car (or the cone).
Autocross
The first thing we did, being in the red group, was autocross. The M2s were used for this. They had us put the cars in "Sport" mode. Each activity kicks off with the instructor leading you through whatever you're doing. We followed his car around the autocross track and he pointed out turn-in points, braking points, where "pit lane" was, and any other gotchas. Then, they turned us loose, releasing us from the starting line one at a time, until everyone was on the track at the same time. The six of us did laps for 25 - 30 minutes. If the gaps between the cars closed too much the instructor would call someone into pit lane to try to break things up a bit. A quick 20 second break and then you were let back out onto the track. This was one hell of a way to start the day.
Skidpad
The second thing we did was skid / slide recovery on the skidpad. It's a huge concrete pad, ringed with sprinklers to make it wet, and covered with cones in the middle positioned in the outline of a circle. We did this event in the M3s, with all the nannies completely turned off. This is the only activity where the instructor rides shotgun with you. The purpose was to drive around the circle and practice recovering from a slide / spin. It sounds easy, but getting it exactly right is very tricky. The pad is very, very slick. Parts of it are so slick it is essentially the same as trying to drive on an ice rink. Seriously, that slick. The cars would start to spin at speeds of 12 - 15mph, while doing lazy slight left hand turns around the circle (counter-clockwise). I felt like I was getting a good handle on it just before we ran out of time. Another 5 - 10 laps around and I think I could have held the slide for much longer.
I was actually dreading this event after having done a similar one on BMW's skidpad in South Carolina. That skidpad has a _RIDICULOUS_ amount of grip compared to the one in California. You could do 45mph around the skidpad in SC, with all the nannies turned off, in the wet, and still not get the backend to step out on you. That meant all the spins / skids happened at much higher speeds and you needed to be a lot quicker to be able to catch it. I'm sure people with more experience would prefer that setup to the one in CA, but I thought the slower speeds in CA were much better for learning on.
Corner Entry
The last activity of the morning was corner entry. This was done in M4s. The point here was to walk through each step of entering, apexing, then exiting a corner. We did each step individually, then put them together and did some laps. For example, we would come down a short straight, up to 55mph, then get hard on the brakes (100% ABS stop) at the turn in point. The purpose was to see how quickly the car would stop, and how much more room we'd have, if we needed it. Next time around we moved the stop point to the apex. Then to the track-out point, etc. Each time the instructor, who was standing on the infield of the corner, would provide feedback/tips over the radio. This event was good because it really helped you work on the technical aspects of taking a corner correctly.
Lunch
Pretty standard fare here. Provided by BMW and setup in the cafeteria area on the second floor of the building. This took about an hour. The advise here would be to eat sparingly, no one wants to puke in an expensive M-car.