Wednesdays are an off day for me, and if I'm not catching up on my sleep, I like to get an early jump, and head in the opposite direction of the commuting drones and take on one of my favorite 'twisty bits' for some practice. Well, the dogs got me up at 5:30am, so once they were taken care of and I got some espresso coursing through my body, I headed for the hills! I was doing a service on the Stradale, so the SL55 got the nod. As it had been a while since I used her in anger, this should be fun.

It is a good 45 minute drive to get to this great canyon road that heads to the lakes. Suburban sprall and lots of nice sweepers to warm the tires and get my blood flowing before I hit this 15 mile stretch of technical heaven.

What is usually emptiness on an early Wednesday morning had a fair number of 'blue hairs' in Buicks heading for the lakes as well. As I pick off one moving pylons after another, I spy an M3 doing the same thing several cars ahead. When I finally get behind the M, he suddenly starts to slow and waves me past. I oblige, give a wave and head for my fun. He didn't bother giving chase and away I went.

Several miles down the road is my 15 mile 'track'. With the locals out of the way, I am about to get into it and squeeze the loud pedal. A quick glance in my rear view for the boys in blue, reveals a certain M3... charging hard. OK.... "Let's see whatcha got"! With that I'm off and running!

There isn't much that can hang with the grunt of a 55, and I was quickly able to stop his charge, but the real fun is about to start and I figured he'd have my measure. if he had some skills and knew the road, with all the blind apexes, I could have my hands full.

Some days you are on, and others you are off. If you ski and are in the 'zone', stringing turns and moguls together, is like ballet. Much like lacing together corners on a track, and when one of those rare days pops up, you just enjoy the ride. If you've had this happen, you know what I mean. This apparently was one of my days, as by the 4th corner, there wasn't an M3 in sight. I took a breath to give him a chance to catch up, but there was no sign of him, and this road was begging to be spanked. So, back to flexing my right ankle!

Luck was with me, as I had a clean shot at the whole road... not a blue hair or tourist in sight! Heaven! At the turn around, I stopped to stretch my legs. After several minutes I headed back at a much more pedestrian pace. It wasn't until I was about 1/4 of the way back did I see my M3 buddy. He flashed his lights and a smile as we passed. It was a good morning for everyone!

 

I've noticed m3 drivers are more cocky compared to M5. The smaller the car the hyper they are. Good kill albeit ! lol

 

We've tuned allot of M3's and they are incredibly controllable cars. The way he was approaching me I figured he knew the road and was going to make mince meat of the SL55. I guess I knew the road better.