Day 2 - Dallas to Nashville
   Dallas Texas
   Little Rock
   Nashville

Day 3 - Nashville to Greenville
   Nashville to Knoxville
   Mountain Drive

Day 4 - Z3 Homecoming
   Driving School
   Unusual Z3s
   Michelin
   Downtown

Day 5 - Z3 Homecoming
   BMW Tech Session
   Onsite Installs
   Upgrades
   Vendors/Exhibits
   Burkhard Goeschel

Day 6 - Returning Home
   Greenville to Nashville
   Night Driving

Day 7 - Returning Home
   Arrive Home

Katherine and myself signed up for the BMW driving school when we sent in our homecoming registration. The confirmation packet we received before the homecoming informed us we were scheduled for the Friday 11:00am class. After checking with a few other members from the Z3 message board we discovered several long time friends had been placed in the same class. The BMW driving school was very well organized, the 30 cars signed up for the 11:00am class were lined up into three groups of 10, and then we went inside for a quick drivers meeting.

The school began with a brief lecture on the three parts of the class. My group started out on the handling section, then moved to the autocross section, and finished with the skid pad (which was by far the most fun of the three parts). Each area had its own instructor and one way radios allowed the instructors to talk to drivers without actually riding in their Z3.

Before beginning the handling section we were given a brief lecture on proper seat position, hand position, where you should look etc. After the lecture I moved my seat a little closer to the steering wheel and put my seat back in a less reclined position.

We then started weaving between some cones. I think most Z3 owners would have liked to have done this exercise a little quicker than we did.

The next session was the autocross, this was a little more fun. We were given a brief lecture on the Z3 suspension and what happens to it when you go into and come out of a turn. The key was to do everything smoothly. If you can negotiate a turn smoothly you give the suspension a better chance to fully use all four wheels.

Running around the autocross we stayed in third gear. The track was laid out very well for cruising without a lot of need to change speed. The goal was to learn how to see the turn, visualize the line you wanted to take and then execute that line as smoothly as possible. After hearing the lecture that preceded this I could visualize what was going on under the car as I was driving and really understanding how important being smooth is.

The school had a special 300ft skid pad of polished concrete that is watered down. They sent us out in 328i with ASC so we could try with and without the ASC on. To give you an idea how slick the concrete was you could feel the ASC working just over 20, at 25 your sliding, if you hit 30 your a second away from a 180. It was a lot of fun, would have been interesting to try the Z3s out there.