Give the Gift of Speed: We Tried BMW’s Exclusive GT4 Experience Racing School
The moment you’re properly introduced to the racecar is when it get real. BMW’s $200,000 factory-built M4 GT4 is a razor-sharp weapon, made to do battle in any number of professional racing series with professional drivers at the wheel. Except today, we’re driving it as part of the BMW M4 GT4 Experience in Thermal, California. This exclusive $3,470 ($2,795 U.S.) “BMW racing school” is for anyone who has fantasized about being the next Lewis Hamilton or Max Verstappen.
The head instructor goes over the basics of the BMW M4 GT4 Evo in the pit lane. If the car’s on fire, he says, press this button marked “E” to trigger the on-board fire-suppression system, but if you have to escape in a hurry, don’t worry about pressing the button, just get the hell out of the car. Next, he explains how to select from different throttle maps. (We’ll just stuck with the normal one, thanks.) Then he shows us how to remove the steering wheel, which is necessary for getting into or out of the claustrophobic cockpit. (Two hands, pull, don’t let it whack you in the face).
BMW’s instructors – all of whom are current or former professional racers – make squeezing your body through the jungle-gym of roll-cage tubes and into the deep racing seat look easy. It isn’t. It’s intermediate yoga. The seat is bolted to the car’s bare metal floor and non-adjustable – to give the driver more feel for the chassis – so you move the pedals and steering wheel back and forth until everything’s in the right place. Then, as if you’re an astronaut, someone comes to buckle up your six-point harness and plug your helmet into the comm system. It’s getting hot in the cabin under the California desert sun, but then you light the engine, it settles into a gnashing, whirring howl and you are driving a racecar – albeit, not exactly like Verstappen.
Racecars 101
The morning of the one-day GT4 Experience program was taken up by a brief classroom lesson on the basics of driving fast, followed by a fitting. Each of the half-dozen participants at the GT4 Experience gets outfitted in a full fireproof suit, boots, gloves, helmet. A HANS device rests on your shoulders; it’s supposed to prevent serious neck injuries.
Looking the part, we head out to one of the circuits at the Thermal Club, a kind of country club for wealthy gearheads. This place is home to millionaires and their car collections. Becoming a member means buying a plot of land on the premises and building a vacation home here; by the time it’s all said and done you’re looking at well over $1 million. By contrast, the BMW racing school seems like a bargain.
Each student gets a BMW M5 or M3 as an aperitif to flog around the circuit and learn the lines. Our instructor, guiding us around in a lead car, points out where to brake and turn, via walkie talkies, offering the occasional helpful tip. The roadgoing M cars are totally at home on a racetrack. They feel ballistically fast, but we’re warned the racecar could run circles around them.
Remember to breathe
Rolling out of the pit lane in the GT4 racecar, it’s weird not being able to move; the straps hold your torso so tightly it’s like you’re a part of the car, which, of course, is the point.
The racecar accelerates like the road car, except without hint of lag or momentum. But the brakes are different. They’re not power assisted. You press the pedal as hard as you can with everything you’ve got, as quickly as you can, and then slowly release it – carefully – as you turn into a corner. Because the brakes stop the car like a brick wall, now you’re too slow and you need to hit the gas, which, oops, nearly spins the car. Those early laps are messy. Everything is out of sync.
But, with expert tips coming in real-time from the instructors, it all starts to flow. Brake hard, downshift, ease off, downshift again, look for the apex, turn, turn more, look for the exit, touch the curb, gentle throttle, unwind steering, more gas, rear tires sliding, straighten the steering, ride out the oversteer now flat out, upshift and do it all over again but better and this time remember to breathe. Rinse and repeat.
Over a full afternoon, with each passing corner of each lap you’ll feel yourself getting faster, and faster, playing a dangerous game of chicken to try and find the limit. It’s a constant stream of hundreds of little choices, and there is a right answer, a perfect lap. People spend their lives chasing it, never reaching it (unless your name is Max or Lewis). For the rest of us, the learning curve is infinite, which means you will want to come back to the BMW GT4 experience for another taste. Be warned: racecars are addictive.
