1st Time At Roebling Road Raceway

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The M2s were out in full force this weekend at Roebling Road Raceway for the Peachtree Chapter of the BMW CCA driving school. We had several M2s, a M2 Comp and a M2 CS hit the track to drive the cars the way the were built to be driven. As a novice, I was put in the C group and assigned Frank Sommers as my instructor for the weekend. The first session out is all about learning the track.

One of my goals for the weekend was to learn how to steer the car with the throttle. In the 2nd session we started working on using the throttle mid turn to help rotate the car and build speed coming out of the turn.

The 3rd session started with a little rain which makes you a bit more cautious. The track had pretty good grip in most places but I had to adjust my line to avoid the puddles or slick patches on the track in a few sections.

The last session of the day produced my fastest lap of the weekend at 1:28 flat and just after I crossed the start finish line I “ran out” of gas. Not really, just not enough in the tank for any more hard driving, but plenty for a cool down lap and a trip to the gas station.

It was a great first day at Roebling Road Raceway and Frank had me really pushing the car and my skills to the limits!

Roebling Road Bound

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One of the benefits of using the M2 as a daily driving track car is the amount of stuff you can load into for a weekend trip. This weekend I headed from Atlanta to Savannah to participate in the Peachtree Chapter of the BMW CCA’s driving school at Roebling Road Raceway. This was the first track weekend that was far enough from home to warrant driving on my OEM wheels/tires and switching to my track wheels/tires after arrival.

I managed to get my 18” wheels with track tires to stack in my backseat for the trip down to Savannah

This did require a bit of a change in my normal seat position and since I will be doing this often, I set the 2nd memory function to tire carrying mode. In addition to the tires, all my tools and racing gear fit “nicely” (read those as air quotes) in the trunk. My cooler and my luggage road shotgun in the front seat.

I had one person at the track who saw my OEM wheels stacked up beside my car in the paddock ask, “did you bring those with you in your car?” And another person suggested that I needed a small two wheel trailer for all this stuff.

I have some personal pride in being able to maintain my car in 1/2 of my small two car garage and get to the track without the need for a trailer. The later then requires a vehicle to pull the trailer and I am happy with my current situation.

When I make it to the club racing level, then it will be time for the truck and trailer, until then I  will stick with the status quo.

Dedicated Track Brake Pads

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On the advice of my instructor from my first track weekend at AMP I purchased a set of Hawk DTC-60 track only brake pads. Like everything track related, high performance track pads can be expensive. I found a set of Hawk DTC-60 track pads for the M2 on sale at TireRack. I swapped out my OEM pads for these before heading to Roebling Road Raceway for the Peachtree Chapter of the BMW CCA’s summer driving school.

Here is the YouTube video from Fatal Garage I used to help me with the install:

Like most YouTube how-to videos, it is never as easy as it looks!

Here are few things I need help with that the video didn’t cover:

  1. Pulling the pins out of the calipers was not easy and I used a pair of vice grips to help. It might be easier to use some PB Blaster or WD-40 before you try to pull the pins.
  2. My OEM pads didn’t exactly slide out and I had to really push and pull on them to move the piston back enough to get them out.
  3. The brake pad monitoring system cables on the back right and front left brakes doesn’t just pop off or snap back in without some help. I used a flat head screw driver to help pop these off and to help push them back into place on the track pads.
  4. The new thicker track pads didn’t just slide into the calipers. I was able to put my fingers inside the calipers to push the pistons in to open up the space for the new pads.
  5. The video doesn’t cover bedding in the new pads. I used this article from TireRack on how to bed in new brake pads once I got the track pads installed.

These pads are not intended for daily driving and tend to squeak. I put up with that annoyance for the few days between installing the pads and heading to the track. The Hawk DTC-60s have noticeably more bite than the OEM pads and performed great on the track. The challenge was getting used to how much pressure to apply to the brake pedal. When I wanted to lightly brake I just had to think about pushing on the pedal to get a little brake pressure.

After a weekend at the track, putting the OEM pads back on the M2 was much easier. I knew what I was doing and the components had all been cleaned so they went in and out smoothly.