BMW Fahrer-Training - Assessment Day 1

Have just completed our first day for the assessment for the driving skills. I woke up really early this morning, maybe it was because I couldn't get much sleep. I really wanted to get to Sepang as fast as I could to get into the brand new E90 325i that they have brought in for this exercise. BMW promised 10 units of the E90, when we got there, I counted 12 cars. There were supposed to be 20 of us that were shortlisted for the assessment. One last minute entry got in.

Our instructors for today were Klaus Heimerl and Ringo Chong. Both just touched down from Munich and Klaus, was red due to the heat. It wasn't his first time in Malaysia according to him as he has conducted the training in the APAC region from Thailand, HK, China and so on. Klaus has been to Pasir Gudang for other motorsport activities.

We were paired up with a partner each. My partner was Sunny, who's driving an E39 525i himself so he's fairly familiar with the Steptronic system. To be honest, I haven't gotten behind the wheels of a rear wheel drive car for a long time, ever since I came back from Brisbane. It was fun getting into the brand new E90, the fresh smell of leather and my car had 1785 kms on the clock. It's damned new alright.

We had three assessments throughout the day. The first was emergency braking, which was to control the car with the ABS full-on. A slalom course was laid out and we had to go through it at 60km/h. The markers were already laid out and if a person cheated by holding the speed below 60km/h, they'd know. Go any faster than 70 km/h and you'll miss the markers completely. We had 2 practise runs each followed by 3 assessed attempts. I think I faired pretty well, using the Steptronic. Somehow in Auto, the car just doesn't want to downshift and your car "glides", instead of coming to a controlled stop.

The second assessment was to avoid an obstacle without braking. It was the same speed, 60km/h and we had to maintain it to go through the slalom. Once we passed the marker, then we were allowed to brake, hitting the ABS hard.

The third assessment was a gymkhana exercise. I only managed a time of 23sec ++ average. When I was watching Fifth Gear and Top Gear over the past few months, I could not understand what Tiff and Jeremy were complaining about. They kept saying that the BMW's electronics were interfering with their driving. After today's session, I started to understand what they meant. The best time of the day was 22sec 15. Mine was 1 second off the pace, though not the slowest time. Now only if they had allowed me to turn off the traction control.... hmmmm... I think I would have ended up paying a hefty repair bill. The curbs in the carpark in Sepang International Circuit aren't exactly low.

You see, having owned a Nissan 180SX, I generally love oversteer. You want to take a quick 180 degree corner, you attack it hard put in some speed and chuck the car hard into the corner. As you are in the bend, you give it some throttle the car will oversteer giving you jsut enough traction to launch out of the corner. Now, imagine this, the "brain" of the E90 sense that the driver is about to do something "stupid". Give it too much gas, the car will cut the accelerator and the car will crawl out of the corner. I could see the traction control light coming on and there was a sudden loss of power. Now I knew what both Tiff and Jeremy meant.

This car has so much technology that it's too damned smart for it's own good. Sure it'll make a safe car for the executive owner, but it's not what you would call a fun car to drive. You see, we had to sign a form before the exercise and the first sentence was that we would not drive the car with the DSC switched off. Yes, DSC (Dynamic Stability Control) would be from the first generation of BMW traction control devices. In the E90, it's known as the DTC (Dynamic Traction Control), taken off their Formula 1 motorsports division.

The E90 also featured the Active Steering system. There was no need for the "dish-washing" manouver when you were making a large turn. Now that's something that I would really love. After the assessments, getting back into my car was such a let down. I had to turn more just to get the nose to point into the damned direction that I wanted to go! The Active Steering was so clever that when it senses the car is moving fast, it tightens up the turning ratio. When the car is oversteering or understeering, it makes corrections down to the nano second to avoid you from hitting the obstacle. I could not get the car to oversteer as much as I wanted to. When it senses the slightest hint of oversteer, the car cuts the throttle blips the brakes and once again, you crawl out of the corner safely.

Over all, I got to really experience what it was like driving an E90. I must say, it was sheer driving pleasure.