AutoX

chusteveb · #1 07-20-2007, 11:28 AM

Our local BMW group has an autox event every second Saturday of every month at the local sheriffs training grounds. I don't usually participate in the autox with my X5 but my track car was not track worthy at the time. My close friend with his M5 was attending for the first time so I decided to run the X5 with him. Here are a few pictures from the event and a few links to some vids.

http://www.ls1hp.com/chu/x5run1

http://www.ls1hp.com/chu/x5run2

http://www.ls1hp.com/chu/m5run1

http://www.ls1hp.com/chu/m5run2

The X5 actually did pretty good in my opinion. With traction control on, I can feel the the X5 really working to keep the itself from getting out of control even with driver error it would be hard to loose control of the X5.

Switching the traction control off made it very obvious that the X5 will not pull out throttle even when it means the vehicle will start to drift out. This made for not only a better time kicking the X5 out sideways (which I would never guess could ever happen on dry pavement especially with 315's in the rear) but also helped me improve my driving skills and learn the limits of the vehicle. The X5 is very driver friendly giving me plenty of stability feed back. Of course this was in Sport/ Manual mode where the steering allows the driver to get more feeling of the amount of traction where rubber meets the road.

My friend with the M5 did alright for the first time although he admits he needs to learn to sometimes use partial throttle sometimes.

Bottom line is we both had a ton of fun and will probably do it again soon!

Sorry if it was too many pictures, I know it kind of gets repetative. Also for those of you wondering, my 4.8is is stock.