A day at BMW Performance Center

Jeez, you people are harsh!
I have been way too tired to post the last 2 nights. Not enough sleep, plane rides, time change. Plus, cellphone coverage is weak, Sprint EVDO datacard is bleak, and the wired ethernet connection in the hotel room didn't work.
So now you are going to get 3 days worth. And as you all know, I don't miss a thing when telling a story ;-)

Sunday (Day 0):
Up at 4:15 am for our flight from Vegas at 7:30.
We eventually arrived in Greenville, SC on Sunday evening at 5 pm (EST). The Marriott is a pretty nice hotel; although rather old looking on the outside, the latest renovation turned out nice on the inside. Dinner in the hotel restaurant was okay - nothing spectacular.

Monday (from now on, known as "Day 1"):
Up at 6, breakfast, on the shuttle to the BMW Center in Spartanburg, SC with 7 other people. Most of the group were relatively local (within a couple of states) and one couple was picking up a Z4 and driving it home to Oregon. Yikes! That's kind of cramped quarters for a road trip like that. The rest of the group were picking up a 535, X5, a 335 coupe and another 335 convertible (like mine). We were greeted by a Delivery hostess and introduced to our 2 driving instructors for the day, Ray and Donnie. Everyone is incredibly courteous and hospitable here. The group was split into 2, each instructor taking half. Our group started with Donnie, practicing ABS braking control, each in a car similar to what we were driving home in. My dad and I were driving a 335i sedan. The exercise is basically slamming on the brakes from 50mph and trying to control the car in a lane lined with cones. Fun! (I think my dad really liked it too.) And actually quite easy with all the electronic gizmos these cars have.
We then switched instructors and Ray showed us how to maneuver around a short course with a slalom and a chicane, mostly configured in a circle. This was really fun.

This is me coming around the corner on full throttle.

We were allowed to go as fast as we wanted as long as we didn't knock down any cones. The last exercise on the road course was driving around a large "skidpad" which is a large round circle of polished cement, and wetted down with sprinklers.

This is me on the skidpad.

The point here was to learn how a feature called "DSC" for Dynamic Stability Control will keep the car under control no matter how much gas you give it while driving around the skidpad in a tight circle. It is really amazing how well this works.

Next, we each jumped into our own X5 to drive the off-road course.

This was even more amazing. We climbed up and down rocks, through water, and experienced how far an X5 can lean over to one side without flipping over. This looked a little scary when watching the person in front of you do it first, but wasn't so bad when you did it yourself. On one of these while dad was driving, we were tipped over far enough to watch other cars through the sunroof going around the road course.

I took this through the X5 sunroof with dad driving... Maniac.

We then each hopped into a new 650i and drove down the street to the BMW museum. This was filled with early BMW airplane engines (their original business), old cars, motorcycles, race cars, and a few high technology exhibits. No photos there, need to save room for pic's of my car. After that, we went back to the Performance Center for lunch. Actually, pretty good food for a cafeteria.

Delivery of my new 335i - finally!

My new Monaco blue baby.

Since they had 6 deliveries today, my Delivery Specialist was Jonathan, not one of our driving instructors. Very nice guy and knowledgable. I don't know how these people remember all this stuff about each car. Although many of the new BMWs now have similar features, some of them control the features in different ways. The delivery of each new car takes place in a separate room, just big enough for the car and a table with chairs. So first I took a bunch of pic's from every angle imaginable.



Unfortunately, the light in the room was not exactly amicable for photo taking. Trust me, it's dark blue, not charcoal. Jonathan then spent 50 minutes going over every detail of all the controls. I'll be self-impressed if I remember half of them Tuesday morning. We were also handed a pound of "BMW" coffee and 2 travel mugs for the new 335i cup holders.

Only 3 miles on the odo! Sweet. And we're ready to start the roadtrip back to SF!

At about 3:45 we headed out for the backroad scenic route to Asheville, NC. This was really beautiful with a mix of incrdible lush greenery with tall mountains. Highway 74-A for those truly interested in details. We passed Lake Lure which looked like it was plopped down right in the middle of the forest. Nice.

We arrived at the Biltmore Estate about 5:30 pm.


The estate is enormous and beautiful. This is the Inn at Biltmore Estate where we are staying tonight.


Inn at Biltmore Estate , and the back patio



The lobby.



About 15 minutes after arriving, it started raining with lightning and thunder. Our room has a beautiful view over looking a small valley of rolling hills leading down to the Estate winery. I could not get a decent pic with the rain and mist. I will try again tomorrow morning. We are probably going to take a couple hours browsing through the Vanderbilt's "summer home" tomorrow and then head to Nashville, TN.

Please stay tuned for the next post here, which I promise will be Tuesday night.

Bye for now, y'all!

Jeff
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