BMW Driver Training: Through the desert with the X5 and Paris-Dakar winner Jutta Kleinschmidt
Munich. Men kneeling in the desert sand to let the air out of the mighty tyres
of their BMW X5. "That gives you better grip", says BMW instructor Jutta
Kleinschmidt, "and that's the only way to get through the Sahara safe and
sound." The world's No 1 female rally driver has put together this five-day
trip through Morocco in BMW's new X5 sports activity vehicle, choosing
authentic routes in the Paris-Dakar Rally from Marrakech across the High Atlas
Mountains all the way to the edge of the Sahara.
Certainly a great challenge perfectly tailored to the BMW X5, the vehicle
combining driving features and motoring comfort typical of BMW with the most
advanced four-wheel-drive technology: The superior power of the 4.4-litre
8-cylinder developing 286 bhp, permanent four-wheel drive with four-wheel brake
control, Dynamic Stability Control (DSC), and intelligent Hill Decent Control
(HDC).
The participants need only a few miles to make themselves acquainted with this
unique vehicle that drives like a passenger car and therefore qualifies as a
genuine all-roader as opposed to a conventional off-roader. Responding
instantaneously to the accelerator, the X5 leaves "normal" cars and the many
carts drawn by donkeys far behind. Then, reaching rough terrain, the drivers
are greeted by palm trees in the valley with snow-covered 4000-metre-high
mountains rising up in the distance - truly a majestic scene. The track takes
the team beneath rocks and cliffs rising up above, through rivers without any
kind of bridge, down steep gradients. But the X5 remains cool, calm and
collected wherever it goes, its perfectly tuned suspension taking the
passengers along even the bumpiest tracks smoothly and comfortably.
At appropriate, particularly challenging points Jutta Kleinschmidt gets the
group together to discuss the best driving strategies: Pitholes? Take your foot
off the brake! Crossing a river without suffering water damage in the process?
Make it slow and steady! Particularly tricky terrain with sharp rocks? Watch
out for punctures!
The word "road" soon disappears from the roadbook, the only appropriate term
being "tracks" or "rough terrain". And there is dust everywhere. Stopping over
during midday in a Berber tent, the dark cloth provides some well-deserved
shade. Time to enjoy some fresh peppermint tea, the national Moroccan drink,
with couscous and bread from the open fire.
The next leg of the journey leaves the mountains far behind in your rear-view
mirrors, taking you on into the desert full of camels accompanied by herdsman
on flimsy bicycles. This is the right time for Jutta to brief the participants
on how to drive in sand. And there can be no doubt that there has never been a
more unusual test track in more than 20 years of BMW Driver Training.
It certainly takes courage to simply let the X5 go down the dunes nose first
into the desert. And indeed, this looks spectacular but actually is not that
difficult - at least not with this kind of vehicle. Smoothly and safely, the X5
plows its way through the deepest sand with its Hill Descent Control. Driving
in the dunes is fun and gives you a good idea of the "impossible" terrain such
a modern vehicle is able to handle without the slightest effort.
Berbers wearing bright blue scarves on their heads to protect them from the
eternal sand have set up a night camp for the group. Loud thunder is to be
heard in the early morning - and, indeed, rain is a very rare event here.
Precisely this is why the last leg turns out quite differently from the way it
is described in the roadbook. Wadis, otherwise dry river beds, are quickly
transformed into tearing rivers. Where yesterday there was a bridge there is
now a river full of clay and mud. Always ready for any challenge, Jutta gets
out and says: "Okay, I'll walk across!" And what about driving? No, the best
idea is to walk across first, following the old offroad rule that as long as
you can make your way through a river on foot your offroader will make it, too.
On this day the 10 BMW X5s are the only vehicles able to cross the river,
clearly confirming the message they bear on their doors: "BMW Driver Training -
An Initiative for Greater Superiority in Road Traffic". Also in Morocco.
INFO
This trip is organised roughly twice a year at an all-inclusive price of
approximately CAN$ 5,500.-. (Starting from Casablanca) For further information
and all other BMW Driver Training offers, please contact:
BMW Driver-Training
Daimlerstrasse 19
D-85748 Garching
Germany
phone: 01149/ 89/32903-969
Fax: 01149/89/32903-362
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