2007-2008 District Calendar
| April 25, 2008 | BMW Performance Driving School |
| May 15, 2008 | Annual Golf Outing |
To receive notices of these meetings, please contact Allison Grealis at agrealis@pma.org or 216-901-8800 Ext. 104.
The recent BMW driving school supported by the Carolinas district of PMA was a great experience! There were about 65 people in attendance and attending individuals were divided on-site into 2 groups. The group I was in attended presentations on the BMW organization and the building program they are conducting at the Greer site. We saw a video of the major construction project of their production line. They shut down production the second week in December and started production back up the third week in January. In five weeks they tore out the existing two production lines and built one production line capable of producing any of there cars. Having done both steel and concrete work myself, I was amazed at the short time it took for the project. As I mentioned to one of the presenters 5 weeks was not enough time for the concrete to cure out. His reply was that nothing had fallen apart yet. They worked 2,000 people 24/7 to get the project done in time. When they installed the production equipment, teams from their plants in other countries came in and helped get things going. It was truly an amazing project that took a lot of coordination and effort.
In the afternoon my group got to drive. We further divided into 4 groups for the driving activity. We got to drive all the different BMW models during 4 exercises. The exercises involved slalom, cornering, accelerating, braking, and road racing. For someone who has never been into fast driving, going through a slalom course of cones at 45 mph was a challenge. We drove with a partner and my partner had evidently done some racing so he did each exercise first so I could learn from him. I almost tossed lunch when he drove through the first slalom course but by time we finished the afternoon I was comfortable doing any of the exercises. When you finish the course you feel more able to handle emergency situations. As a wrap to the driving, one of BMWs driving instructors took each of us around a road race course part of which was wet. When they went through the wet area which was a large circle, the car was broadside all the way around. Needless to say the heart rate stayed up all afternoon whether you were driving or riding. It was a great experience.
Bob Dickerson
Red Education Consulting Services, Inc.
7925 Pineslope Drive
Apex, NC 27539-8650
919-662-5106
RedEdConsulting@aol.com
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