Not the drag strip but the real race track

Decided to finally bring the family hauler with me along with my E46 M3 for the one and only time to see how she would do on a race track just for kicks and giggles. A buddy of mine was nice enough to drive it down for me. It was a BMWCCA HPDE event so the people there weren't really familiar with Mercs. The fact that I brought a station wagon there got some laughs and thumbs up . But you really should've looked at some of the faces when they popped open the hood during tech inspection and all of them realized it was an AMG.

I ran in the advanced run group and took her out for only one session. I didn't go nuts with it or anything like I do with the M (i wouldn't hear the end of it from my wife if anything happens to it). I did two warm up laps and then really opened her up. The power is just never ending on the straights. The straights feel so much shorter in the AMG because it's able to cover the distance so much quicker. I even managed to pass a stripped down caged Porsche Cayman S with aero on the front straight (only to get passed again later through the corners). I could only imagine the look on his face when he saw my baby-on-board sign after pointing me by.

Overall the wagon handled much better than I expected for a 4500lb car. I really didn't have high expectations on its cornering abilities even in Sport2 mode but it held its own. The power is just amazing and most of the time I was just trying to find traction to put the power down on corner exits (the all-seasons Continentals didn't help). The auto tranny was a different story though. It was just too slow. I had it in manual mode and took me awhile to correctly time the actual down shifts before hitting the corners. The stock OEM brakes were more than adequate since I only did about 4 hot laps. No issues with overheating, the supercharger was engaging all the time.

In the last year and a half since I've owned this car, I've only opened her up a handful of times on the highway (too dangerous with this much power on the street) so it was a blast to really open her up in a controlled environment (plus I don't have to worry about speeding tickets!). I really wish more people would attend these HPDEs, esp those redlight to redlight street racers, because A) the cost of the event is cheaper than a speeding ticket + insurance premium hike and B) you won't put other people's lives at risk.

Here's a pic of both my cars in the paddock garage. BMWCCA NJ has a very strict policy on onboard cams, basically only hard mounted cams allowed - no suction cup mounts. so no videos, sorry!

 

Sounds like you had fun

 

sounds like a great day

 

Ha! I thought about taking the wagon out at our BMW CCA HPDE's during the instructor group but never had the ***** to. If anything happened the wife would literally kill me. No, really, she would.

 

Sounds like a good time and a safe way to let it rip! Love the baby on board sticker.

How did the 2 cars compare to each other time wise?

 

Yea I hear ya! That's why I only did one session and I came back in early too! I wasn't so concerned about my driving ability as much as something I have no control over, like an oil spill from the car in front or some brake failure from a car behind!

I didn't time the wagon so I can't say definitively. But I think it's a lot slower than the M lap time wise. It definitely lost a lot of time on the corners.