What is a Driving School?

Driving schools teach you to improve your driving skills. We will emphasize the relationship between driver and car, making them function in unison and giving you, as a student, the opportunity to learn your limitations and expand your capabilities, thus creating safe driving skills and habits in a controlled situation.

We run the school on a racetrack under the close supervision of experienced and trained instructors. You will learn how to handle and control your vehicle at speeds not normally attained on public roads. This will help to prepare you for emergencies in normal driving. It will also allow you to explore your capabilities as a driver and those of your vehicle.

You won’t be pushed or encouraged to go any faster than is comfortable for you. Participants are organized into run groups in accordance with experience and skill.

What you learn on the track depends on your driving skill. Beginners are taught driving style (smoothness, consistency, the ability to read the track), and more experienced participants continue to work on consistency while developing new skills such as trail braking, and threshold braking.

For the most experienced drivers, you can be “signed off” and drive solo when you have proven to your instructor and the Chief Instructor that you understand the basics of high-speed driving, you can consistently drive the correct line, and you show proper etiquette on track. Maturity, good judgment, skill, and significant experience will lead to being signed off for solo driving. Advanced students may be accepted into the Independent Study Group, where you will work with instructors in their own cars, have special classroom sessions, and may have special on-track exercises.

You won’t be pushed or encouraged to go any faster than is comfortable for you. Participants are organized into run groups in accordance with experience and skill.

Event Format

Your day is divided between driving with an instructor on the track, classroom sessions, and free time.
You will be assigned a specific instructor who has been selected to match your needs.
Students are grouped into on-track run groups based on skill, experience, and any prior evaluations.

Classroom

In the classroom, you learn high-performance driving theory. You learn everything from ‘why low-profile tires are better’, to what is the difference between an early and late apex. Car physics, such as what is really happening when I brake or why my car understeers or oversteers is also discussed. Each classroom normally has a question-and-answer session.
Though you are on a racetrack, with 20+ other drivers of similar driving skills, it is not a race. Passing is coordinated with hand signals, and you are not expected to go screaming through each corner with the tires squealing.
The safety of the event is of the utmost importance. Driver conduct will be diligently monitored throughout the day by the staff, instructors, and corner workers. You are responsible for knowing and following our Procedures and Rules.

BMW CCA Membership

You don’t need to own a BMW to be part of the club and participate in our Driving Events!

We offer a huge variety of events to our community all across the country, making club membership a rewarding and worthwhile experience. Annual membership costs $48 and includes a subscription to the fantastic BMW CCA magazine, Roundel. Due to our not-for-profit status and past IRS rulings, all participants in our driving schools are required to be a member. If you are not a member you can become a BMW CCA member and then register for an event and enter your new membership number. The BMW CCA website will provide your membership number immediately with your enrollment.

Registration and Payment

Please register using Motorsport Reg. When you register for the school, you are not yet accepted for the school. The event coordinator determines who is accepted into this school. If you are accepted into this school, you will be notified by email and your credit card will be charged.

What you need

You need an appropriate car in safe working order, an approved helmet, a valid driver’s license (18+ years old), and a desire to be safe, have fun and learn something. For all the specific requirements, see the Procedures and Rules.

Novices

If you have no previous HPDE event experience, attend an Advanced Driving Skills School first, if schedules permit. ADSS events are held in a parking lot (usually at NHMS) and provide low-speed training to help you better understand your vehicle before coming to the track.

To encourage novices to experience the excitement of an HPDE driving school, some events offer a $100 novice discount for students with absolutely no previous on-track experience (other than autocross, karting, driving simulators, or video games).

Each Spring, a Ground School is held in the Boston area to introduce driving events, meet the people involved, and get inside tips. Try to attend if at all possible. You should also read the First-Timer’s Guide. Check the events calendar for the date.

Independent Study Group

For advanced students who want to extend their skills in a safe, fast-paced coaching environment, the Boston chapter of BMWCCA offers its Independent Study Group (ISG).
To promote continuous advanced skill development for experienced, independent drivers, ISG encourages students to identify the areas in which they want to improve, then allows them to create a personalized curriculum for achieving their goals.

At each event, every ISG student is assigned a coach who will work with them to achieve their goals. ISG drivers are often offered additional solo track sessions and the opportunity to drive in the instructors’ run group.

ISG Qualification – Soloed drivers with substantial experience and the skills to drive a consistent line, at an advanced run-group pace, on a variety of race tracks are eligible for consideration. After passing a thorough checkout drive with an ISG instructor, which emphasizes awareness, safety, consistency, and pace, the ISG candidate is admitted into the group.

ISG on Track, Classroom, and Exercises – On the racetrack, ISG drivers spend working sessions with their assigned coach to execute their personalized plan. Classroom sessions comprise lively discussions of driving lines, corner approaches, speeds, data analysis, and a wide range of additional topics. Specialized exercises are offered to improve situational awareness, increase comfort levels in close-quarters driving, and practice passing.

ISG, Serious Car Control – For advanced car control methods, essential for the final reductions in lap times, ISG students are invited to two Advanced Car Control Clinics (AC3) each year at Lime Rock Park. An AC3 event begins with a discussion of tire dynamics and grip, balance, weight transfer, and an introduction to suspension concepts that alter the understeer/oversteer characteristics of the car. Then, on the handling course and skid pad, drivers learn the methods for inducing controlled oversteer with the throttle and brake, while learning to correct and prevent understeer.

Questions?

For answers to questions regarding our Driving Schools in general, please use the Driving School Information email link at the top right of this page.

If you are an instructor for other chapters or car clubs but have never instructed for the Boston Chapter, please contact the instructor registrar.