Yay~ I got the "Most Improved" award ( just another way of saying that I sucked so badly in the beginning ) at the BMW Autocross event. ^^. The trophy was a miniature cone (The orange cone used in marking tracks during autocross events). Dave could have gotten the award for being the fastest had he not knocked off a cone. My time was 21.86 and his was 20.23. Man, that was fun. It was kinda different from the Mazda Revitup event. I think it was less of a school compared to the Mazda event, but good fun, nonetheless. I did like the fact that you get personal feedback from the instructor who always sits on the passenger side. They also had free cookies, brownies and drinks~ (I suppose it still doesn't beat the C-Spot event that provided participants with sushi... heh heh) I also got to see the new 5 series. I must say I was plesantly surprised to see it in person. Trust me, it looks 10 times better in person. I thought it was fugly in the magazines, but I'm not too sure now that I've seen it in person. You be the judge. The event was somewhat dissapointing since it was so short, but we really did get to take those cars to their limits. We really abused the breaks on the first practice session where we were supposed to just stomp on the break full-throttling on a straight run and also while cornering just to get used to the breaking and the ABS chracteristics of the 330i. I must say that I was thoroughly impressed with the breaking power of the 3 series.

My driving impresion of the 330i was that it felt much more firm and nimble compared to the Mazda 6 or my dear Bora. I think its suspension set up makes the biggest difference. Mazda 6 handled well, but I think 330i handled better. The car didn't really have as much torque as I had hoped. I'm a bit spoiled by my car's full torque coming out at 1950RPM... That initial oomph was slightly less felt with the 330i. It may also have been the shifting characteristics of the automatic that we were using, though. Given that the upshifting seemed overly smooth, the computer may have been shifting a bit to quickly (I'm not sure, cuz I was never watching the dash. You know you gotta constantly be looking in the direction you wanna go~ :P )

The recurring theme while driving cars other than mine is that I really need a new steering wheel. The 3 spoke steering wheel on the 330i was compact with a nice grip. The same was the case with the Mazda 6. After I modify my suspension, the steering wheel would have to be my next mod.

I'm seriously considering making this a permanent hobby starting next spring. This is not only fun, but believe it or not, it makes daily driving much more enjoyable as well (and safer, too) ^^. If I ever have kids, I'm definitely going to put them up in some sort of performance driving school for a couple of days as soon as they get their license.

Alright, going to have dinner with cubbie and Caro tonight @ the Olive Garden. :D