Spent the weekend on track with my E60 M5! (extensive write-up, tons of media)

This will be a lengthy post with lots of media. I’ve got a lot more pictures and videos to share, follow me on IG @rich_wvu and on Youtube at: http://yt.vu/+rich_wvu to follow along.

This past weekend, Aug 5-6 I drove my E60 M5 4.5 hours up to Summit Point Motorsports Park, near Martinsburg, West Virginia for a couple days of automotive bliss with with Chin Motorsports ( http://www.chintrackdays.com ). I started the weekend in the Green-Novice group where I had to have an instructor in the car with me at all times, but after a couple sessions was moved up to the Yellow group where I was allowed to run solo and could even have passengers with me. Green and Yellow ran the same sessions together and that basically meant that I was only permitted to pass on the straights (front straight, between 2-3, and between 9-10, and all passes MUST have a point-by. I would have four, 30 minute hot sessions each day as well as various classroom sessions and slower speed learning laps.

The Car

Many of you here are familiar with my car, for those that aren’t, it’s a 2009 BMW M5 with the 5.0L S85 V10 and 7-speed SMG, dressed up in beautiful Carbon Black Metallic. The car was 100% showroom stock, showing 66,499 miles when I bought it in August of 2015. Since then I’ve added a full RPI GTS header back exhaust system, Eventuri carbon fiber intakes, 20” Forgestar wheels, Hawk HPS pads, stainless brake lines, had the car tuned, and some other little stuff that I’m sure I’ll forget along the way. For this weekend I ran the car on the factory 19” wheels with 255/285 Michelin Pilot Super Sports all around. Today the odometer is reading 93,123 miles.

She makes pretty much the best noises of all time.

The Track

This time around I went and ran Summit’s “Main” course which is a 2.0-mile, 10 turn course with a lot of elevation changes that includes a wonderful 2,900-foot front straight. As some may remember, I ran at Summit Point last October as well (which I did a full write-up of here: http://www.carthrottle.com/post/weyepl9/ ), but it was on the super technical Shenandoah Circuit (2.2 miles, 22 turns).

Last year’s weekend on Shenandoah felt, at times, like a work-out or a chore. It was my very first time on track and it felt like there was never really a chance to catch your breath on the lap. The run-off areas were much shorter as well, with trees and concrete barriers everywhere. This year, even though the speeds were much higher, I felt so much more relaxed and confident in myself and the car. You can compare the two courses below.

Let’s go for a couple laps!

The Crew

Another big help was that I was able to plan the trip with a number of friends with varying amounts of track/racing experience. Three of the Miatas below (and two more not pictured) are dedicated track toys with very experienced owners, all with very similar levels of work done to them, so the five of them were able to get out and truly compete with each other. They ran in the Blue/Red advanced groups which permitted passing at anytime with a point by. After each session you would hear one of them honking the horn and yelling because he was the fastest that time around, bragging about shaving 0.15s from the other’s time, it was great to watch.

Two other friends joined in, the purple and black NB Miata you’ll see in pics ran in my group all weekend. It’s turbocharged and putting down some 250 whp, it could very nearly keep up with me on the front straight and dogged me in the corners of course. The other guy was out was in the Silver FRS below. It was his first ever track event, but he’s an experienced autocrosser, and the car is built well for autocross.

My wife also tagged along and was a real champ about hanging out with the boys even though she’s now seven months pregnant with our first child! She even seemed to enjoy herself quite a bit, getting to play photographer for the weekend.

The Experience - Day 1

The first day opened with tech inspections and a driver’s meeting to go over flags, safety procedures, instructor introductions, etc etc, then it was out for a few warm-up laps under a solid yellow flag to simply learn the layout of the track. My instructor, John, was understandably cautious early on. His safety, after all, was 100% in my hands and my car is fast enough that you could really get into some trouble with it. I didn’t bother timing or recording the first session, knowing it would be on the slow side as I learned the racing line and my instructor felt me out. With ten turns the course wasn’t the most technical, but significant elevation and camber changes meant that it wasn’t as simple as nailing left and right apices or straight-forward braking zones.

By the second and third sessions I believe John was already pretty comfortable being in the car with me. I had the line down, had a good feel for my braking zones, and was moving through traffic well. For the most part John went quite other than some hand motions and little tweeks for faster laps. My group consisted of roughly twenty cars, and the only cars consistently faster than me over a full lap were the turbo Miata mentioned earlier, a C7 Corvette Z06, and a really well driven 6th gen Camaro SS. While it felt nice passing people basically every lap, it did mean traffic became an issue a couple times, but you definitely can’t get frustrated, as that’s when you start to make mistakes. Times were extremely consistent in the 1.38-1.39 range unless I was stuck behind a slower car for a period of time.

At the end of the third session he felt comfortable recommending me for Solo driving in the Yellow group. We decided to go out together for the fourth and final session for the day and I would tackle the solo certification the next morning.

The Experience - Day 2

For my solo certification I would have to ride a session with the chief instructor of the event while he evaluated every aspect of my driving and track etiquette. The idea was for him to ride four or five laps (session is usually 13-15 laps) so about halfway through the session I asked him if he wanted to go in, “no way, I’m having a blast, this thing really hauls!” Probably my two most dramatic moments of the weekend (up to that point) happened while he was in the car with me, both involving cars in front giving improper point-bys. I took both passes even though I technically should not have, but he was happy with the way I handled them.

When the session was over he was happy to move me on to the Yellow group! His comments were entirely positive, telling me what I would need to do to move up to the Blue (intermediate) group and praising my composure on track. Here’s one of the laps while he was in the car with me, data logger (it’s not perfect, but the timing is good) included.

The rest of the day was all about practice and finding speed, riding solo I immediately picked up a couple seconds per lap. I’m thinking it was mostly mental as there’s no way a couple hundred pounds made that much difference to the performance of my already very heavy car. My laps were now running in the mid 1.30s even if I had to make a pass, only slowing towards 1.40 when I would get stuck behind someone in non-passing zones. My best laps of the weekend came in my 3rd session with a 1.31.58 being my personal best followed by a few low 1.32s. I feel confident saying the car doesn’t have much more in it, at least on the PSS tires and Hawk HPS pads.

Here’s my best lap of the weekend, with the data logger again.

The OOPS!

Then came my last session of the day, I told my friend to grab his helmet and hop in and away we went. I may have been just a little over excited about it being the last session and wanted to squeeze everything I could from it, so I was rocking and rolling right out of the pits. Literally every other session I took at least one lap to get some heat in the car and to find my groove. Probably should’ve done that this time around as well.

First lap out I went into the uphill turn three at roughly 70mph just like I had been doing all weekend, this time the cold tires just didn’t hold on for me. The back end of the big BMW came right around on me and to the grass I went. My snow driving instincts kicked in and got the car back under control in a hurry, no contact made, no warning lights, driver and passenger laughing about it on the way out. Stopped in the pits (required anytime you run off track) gave the car a quick once over and explained to the track marshall what happened, and right back out we went. Finished up the session drama free with some more nice clean 1.32s.

The Aftermath

Obviously the biggest concern tracking a daily driver like this is being able to get the car home in one piece. Even with the little spin at the end, the M5 performed beautifully. Oil temps stayed steady at about 255f while water temps hung around 220f the entire time. The only error message I got was something related to the Parking Distance Sensors. No idea what’s up with that, been too tired to look it up so far.

One of my biggest fears was having to drive the car home in the rain after all the abuse I put the tires through over the weekend, and sure enough, it poured the rain just about the entire 4.5 hour drive home. Luckily for me, the PSS held up better than I ever expected and had plenty of tread left of the drive home. Had a couple small wiggles in some deeper pools, but all in all the trip home was fine.

I guess the biggest problem from the weekend is how hard my formerly silver wheels are going to be to clean up :x

Really hope you all enjoyed my forever long write-up about my track experience. I simply cannot recommend it enough. It doesn’t matter what your car is, throw some decent tires and brakes on it and try -some- form of motorsport out. Whether its a full-fledged HPDE like this, or a $30 local autocross, just get out there and enjoy yourself.

Anyway, here’s a dump of some of my favorite pics from the weekend.