My New Year's Resolution; Driving (2)
Continued from My New Year's Resolution; Driving (1)
After the instructed driving lesson at Fuji Speedway, I found that my car tires were badly worn out. The instructor told me that for turbo engines, computer tuning is a good investment into improving the performance of the car. So I decided to get the tires changed and a computer tuning device added, after that my car, BMW 320d, could perform much better than before and I was eager to go to Fuji Speedway again.
I found out about an event called "BMW One Make Driving Lesson" that took place in June. The event gathered BMW car owners at Fuji Speedway, and let us pylon-drive at a parking lot and sports-run at the main circuit. The new thing for me was that they timed my sports-run lap. I got quite excited and my lap time went down to 2mins and 21secs, and I was placed at #21. My instructor said that with a BMW 320d, diesel-engine sedan, it was close to the limit and going any faster could put me in danger.
"If you have a chance to own a sports-car, you should get it," the instructor at the Finland Ice Experience had told me. Since then, I was fascinated by Audi TTS, and started to consider replacing my BMW 320d (the diesel-engine sedan). However, after seeing some pictures of BMW M2 Coupe which was newly released into the market, I struggled to choose between the two.
Audi TTS that I test drove:
Since the BMW M2 Coupe was a newly released model, they said it would take around 6 months to get one after ordering it in Japan. However, a sales person that I knew at a BMW dealership told me that the M2 displayed at their showroom was available if I placed an order right away since the people who had considered purchasing it did not end up placing an order. So I did, and luckily, I was able to get a brand new M2 in July which was still very rare in Japan.
My new BMW M2 Coupe:
Driving my BMW M2 Coupe at Fuji Speedway became my next target. However, I knew that my circuit running experience was not enough. I wanted to experience more, in an educational way; I knew that driving at circuits without formal instruction would be dangerous, time consuming, and expensive, wearing out many tires. In August, I decided to take a BMW driving lesson organized by BMW Germany, and applied to attend a two-day driving lesson in Valencia, Spain. The lesson used BMW M4 as a practice car which they said behaved similarly to M2.
In early September, I flew into Valencia via Frankfurt, to attend the lesson.