The BMW Performance Driving School has created a new program for their West Coast location at The Thermal Club in Palm Springs which allows you to suit up in a racing fire suit and pull on a full-face helmet before you get strapped into one of the latest race cars from BMW Customer Racing. This new course allows BMW enthusiasts the opportunity to experience the highly successful BMW Motorsport M4 GT4 race car first-hand as well as receive one-on-one race driving instruction at one of the most premiere race facilities in North America.
Introduced for the 2018 racing season, the BMW M4 GT4 is a serious piece of machinery. This isn’t an M4 with some BMW M stickers on it, this car was crowned “Race Car of the Year” at the Professional MotorSport World Expo Awards! Last season, it won three GS Class IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge races, nine SRO Pirelli GT4 SprintX races, and the SRO Intercontinental GT Indianapolis 8 Hour for the GT4 Class.
The BMW M4 GT4 is powered by the same 3.0-liter S55 inline 6-cylinder engine that is found in the BMW M4 road car and delivers more than 430 hp. This all depends on class regulations and balance of performance as there are different power sticks used to control the engine output. The power-to-weight ratio is significantly better that the road car’s though due to the M4 GT4 weighing around 700 pounds less than the M4 since the roof, hood, doors, front splitter and rear wing are all made from carbon fiber and the entire car has been gutted.
The race car comes with the 7-speed dual clutch transmission (DCT) featuring custom motorsport software which transfers power to 18-inch wheels wrapped with full racing slicks via a mechanical limited-slip differential. The chassis is reinforced with an FIA compliant BMW Motorsport welded safety roll cage. It features, three-stage adjustable motorsport anti-roll bars and specially-valved Ohlins motorsport shock absorbers at the corners. Plus, it’s equipped with fixed six-piston front and four-piston rear AP brakes controlled by a cockpit adjustable AP racing pedal box and a manually adjustable brake bias.
So to experience this serious race car, BMW invited us to their Thermal Club location back in February. You can read about our experience here. But we also wanted to capture the experience on video, so please click below and don’t forget to subscribe to our channel.
