The Key to Teenagers’ Lost Confidence Is a BMW Racetrack

I made a vow 22 years ago, while slaloming a BMW Z4 convertible between traffic cones — my jaws clenched, my shirt drenched with sweat, my knee bruised from shoving it against the car door. Invoking whatever Car Gods preside over the BMW Performance Center in Spartanburg, South Carolina, I swore: If I survive and have offspring, I’m making them take this class before they get their license.

My three days at BMW’s driving school — on a racetrack rather than regular roads — forever changed the way I drove. I was 33 at the time, and no one had taught me the basic physics of operating a motor vehicle. That might be why I’d gotten into three accidents and received two speeding tickets within my first year of having a license. Perhaps I wouldn’t have slammed into that concrete divider on the Long Island Expressway at 70 miles per hours if someone had explained the difference between video games and a 1984 Oldsmobile station wagon. At BMW, I learned how to approach a curve, correct oversteering, avoid target fixation and adjust my side mirrors so there’s no blind spot.