Nixon Motor Sports: NMS Drives BMW

Sunday, May 20, 2018

NMS Drives BMW

Classroom time before autocross

Thanks to BMW

Sunday May 20th had the NMS-North team driving into New Jersey, more specifically the big parking lot at Met Life Stadium to drive some BMWs. This is a free event that BMW hosts at several locations across the country, and if you like driving someone else's car for FREE (our favorite flavor), then check this website to see if they're coming to a town near you! BMW Schedule

To be more specific, we were driving the BMW X2 Xdrive28i and the BMW 530e on an autocross type of course, with each driver getting a few ride alongs with the expert instructors, and then getting to drive 1 practice loop of each car. After all that practice, we got ONE SHOT against the clock to determine who was the fastest. Here's the standings from my group of 20 drivers:

Times DO NOT include CONE PENALTY!

So, as you can see, I took fastest in raw time behind the wheel of the mighty BMW 530e. HOWEVER, in the interests of full disclosure, I knocked over one cone, and like in autocross, that adds a 2 second penalty to my time, which means that I really wasn't the fastest and didn't get to compete any more. With the two second penalty my time was 32.31, so even with that extra time I would have been 9th out of 20. Oh well, I drove fast, and only injured one little plastic cone, so all in all not bad! Here's the judge's time sheet, which DOES include the cone penalty:

The judge's time sheet

Other than knocking over a cone, I had a great time, really enjoyed driving the BMWs, and would encourage you to drive one too. There are still some more dates of the Ultimate Driver Experience coming, so check out the link above and have fun. Here's a few more shots from today: