iDriveSoCal's Professor, Clinton Quan, is dialed into all the best automotive events and experiences throughout the Southern California Region.

In this iDSC Podcast the Professor explains just what an autocross event is and how you can get yourself access to future events.

But you have to hop to it because there's not nearly as many of them as there once was.  Not to worry, sign-up for the iDrive SoCal newsletter and we'll keep you posted on all the best automotive events.

***Transcript***

Recording date – August 21, 2018, in Los Angeles, CA

Compete in a Brand New Beamer

Clinton Quan: BMW Ultimate Driving Experience is an annual event where you get to drive.  It's a timed event, so it's a lot of fun.

You get to compete in one of the new vehicles and this year they had both the 5 Series, the eDrive, and the BMW X2.  It's measured to the 1,000th of a second, as soon as you pass those first set of cones the timing begins.

Tom Smith: Welcome to iDriveSoCal the Podcast, all about mobility from the automotive capital of the United States, Southern California. Tom Smith here with our good pal the professor, Mr. Clinton Quan. Say hello, Clinton.

Clinton Quan: Hi, Tom!

"It's measured to the 1,000th of a second, as soon as you pass the first set of cones the timing begins."

Tom Smith: Hello! Happy hot Tuesday. We're recording this on a Tuesday in downtown Los Angeles and it is still darn hot here and I guess we're on the last third of August, huh?

Clinton Quan: Yes, I believe it's in the mid-90s.

Tom Smith: Uh-huh (affirmative).

Tom Smith: I was out at actually Rock Honda as well as Ontario Volkswagen for different reasons today and it was definitely hotter out there.

Clinton Quan: Triple digits I'm sure, right?

Tom Smith: Oh, yeah. At any rate, today's Podcast, this here little thing we're doing is on the BMW Ultimate Driving Experience. We actually had this one automotive event posted on iDriveSoCal.com, the events page, and pretty much I'd say 95-98 percent of our events page is curated by the good professor here, Mr. Clinton Quan, and Clinton, of course, attended this event and he's gonna tell us all about it. So, what do you have Prof?

Autocross @ Santa Anita Race Track

Clinton Quan: Well, the BMW Ultimate Driving Experience is an annual event where you get to drive a brand-new BMW vehicle on an autocross track and it's a timed event, so it's a lot of fun. You get to compete in one of the new vehicles and this year they had both the 5 Series, the eDrive, and the BMW X2.

Tom Smith: So it's a timed event but the location was out in Arcadia, the Santa Anita parking lot?

Clinton Quan: Yes, Santa Anita Park in the parking lot.

Tom Smith: In the parking lot. From the competition perspective, you're just running against other people's times, right?

Clinton Quan: Correct, other people's time.

Tom Smith: How do they do it? Do they lay out cones, pile on kinda things, and you just follow the course through the cones?

"In a regular autocross competition, typical event, there would be a two-second penalty if you hit a cone."

Clinton Quan: For those of you who don't know, an autocross is basically a timed competition where there are cones-

Tom Smith: For those of you who don't know. Myself, included.

Clinton Quan: No, a lot of people ask what an autocross is.

Tom Smith: I know, it's just funny. It struck me as funny a moment later.

Clinton Quan: You have cones set up throughout the course and-

Tom Smith: Right. And you do donuts around the cones. I'm just kidding.

Clinton Quan: Well, you try to get around the course as fast as you can with...