Speeding at the BMW Center in Seoul, South Korea
Next time you’re in Seoul, head over to the BMW Driving Center for your adrenaline rush.
Just outside Seoul Incheon Airport is the BMW Driving Center, where everyone is welcome to indulge their inner speed demon – i.e., get fast and furious in the centre’s driving range.
Built in 2014, the BMW Driving Center is a show vehicle for the entire BMW family including BMW, MINI, BMW Motorrad and Rolls-Royce. While it is a sales and service facility for Korean BMW customers, what makes this facility special is its focus on teaching performance driving skills to anyone who has the desire to learn.
During a recent eight-hour transit in Seoul, I visited the BMW Driving Center – a perfect way to make time fly by. The BMW Driving Center is immense with six different driving tracks, a Brand Experience Center, restaurant and bar, meeting facility, sales and service centre and even a “Junior Campus.”
For BMW enthusiasts, the centre showcases the latest models from each of the BMW brands. In addition, BMW thoughtfully includes some legacy models, providing a perspective on the company’s history that dates to 1916.
Hitching a ride
Without a doubt, the heart of the BMW Driving Center is the collection of six different driving tracks. Designed to meet the standards of the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), the tracks allow guests to experience the BMW family in a number of simulated conditions ranging from wet roads to high-speed highways such as Germany’s famous Autobahn.
Those who are merely curious about what it is like to ride in one of the autos that make up the BMW family can try the “taxi” service. These 10-minute demonstrations match guests with a professional driver who will take them on rides that can range from a gentle lap to a heart-thumping, full BMW experience. Naturally, with a pro at the wheel, safety is a priority and no experience is necessary.
Most visitors, however, want to get behind the wheel to sharpen their high performance driving knowledge and put their skills to the test. For these guests, the BMW Driving Center offers an array of experiences tied to one or more of the centre’s six tracks ranging from a circular drift track to a dynamic track and even an off-road track.
Depending on a driver’s starting and desired skill set, the Driving Experience Program offers seven different courses.
As a novice, I had pre-registered for the Challenge A course via the BMW Driving Center’s website. The 80-minute course promised to offer a “dynamic driving experience never to be felt in the city.” Drivers receive instruction on key skills such as acceleration, braking, and handling. The cost of each course depends upon the car group that one selects such as the BMW M, BMW i8, MINI and more.
Driver’s seat
After presenting my international driver’s license and signing a straightforward liability release form, protocol required that I take a blood alcohol breath test. One breath and seconds later I was issued a custom badge.
With German precision, a fellow student named Jihye and I were called by our instructor, Peter. We followed Peter into a classroom where he presented an overview of our course in both Korean and English. Aided by simple-to-follow slides, Peter’s presentation focused on safety such as the optimal driving position to minimise injuries should an accident occur. I learned that a bend of one’s knees and elbows helps dissipate the energy from an impact thereby reducing the chances of broken bones. To drive home the point that safety needs to be core to everything we were about to undertake, Peter concluded the presentation with three sobering photos of actual accidents that previously occurred at the BMW Driving Center.
With the initial classroom session complete, Peter escorted Jihye and me to a covered carpark where we were each offered a choice of 5-Series models – BMW’s midsize sedans. After ensuring that we had arranged our seats for the optimal driving position, Peter jumped into his own car and began speaking to us over a two-way radio that was in our cup holders. Before I knew it, Peter invited Jihye and me to follow him in our cars to the multipurpose track area.
Fast car
Peter provided instruction and commands to us over the radio in Korean and English. Our first instruction was on a slalom course to help us get a feel for our 5-Series cars’ handling. Following Peter’s lead, we proceeded through a tight slalom course that concluded with a 180-degree turn between two, narrowly positioned cones. Next, driving at 30-50 kph, we were asked over the radio to break as hard as we could, as if a child had ventured into the street. It was an enlightening experience to brake hard without a real accident – something that I wish had been part of my driving curriculum more than three decades ago.
After 25 minutes practicing lowspeed handling, our experience literally accelerated when we followed Peter onto the 2.5km track. During the first couple of laps Jihye and I followed Peter closely as he introduced us to the layout and explained the optimal driving line, with special emphasis on where to brake in order to
enter turns at the proper speed and weight shift on the suspension.
Before we knew it, Peter was putting the pedal to the metal on the straightaway allowing our speed to peak at 150kph. In all, we took a half-dozen laps.
Fantastic voyage
After our 50-minute track time flew by, Jihye and I followed Peter back to the car park and returned to the classroom for a debriefing. As it turned out, the 80-minute course was spot on for my level of experience and interest.
Next time I come back, I plan to sign up for BMW’s Advanced Program, a threehour experience that delves deeper into fundamentals. This, in turn, will qualify me for BMW’s M Drift course. Using the aforementioned circular track, students practice at speeds as fast as 70kph.
Savvy marketers know that brand loyalty takes root at an early age so it is no surprise that BMW also offers a Junior Campus. During my visit, there was a well-behaved school group for the kids driving school. Using kid-friendly cars on a simulated street, the driving school teaches the rules of the road so that kids will be safer when needing to interact with traffic such as when riding a bicycle.
The BMW Driving Centre also has restaurant and bar on the second floor where panoramic windows ensure that diners have an excellent view of the action on the six driving courses while dining on German-inspired food made with locally sourced ingredients.
Minutes later, I was back at Incheon Airport and glad that I had chosen to spend my time behind the wheel and cruisin’.