What's the news?
Well, if you're going to set a world record, set it in style, right?
The fact that BMW has set a new Guinness World Record for the longest ever drift in a car, using the new 600hp M5 is perhaps not that dramatic. Fast-car, switchable four-wheel drive, wet track, and previous world record drifting holder (and BMW driving instructor) Johan Schwarz at the wheel. The record was set at the BMW Performance Centre in Greer, South Carolina.
Schwarz's previous record involved drifting a previous generation BMW M5 for a staggering 82km (51 miles). That record was broken again in 2013 and 2014, so BMW was determined to take it back, in some style.
By circulating a specially-prepared wet skidpan in the new M5, Schwarz has extended the record... by 230km (143 miles). The record now stands at 375km, or precisely 232.5 miles.
That is not the cool part. The cool part is this; the M5 did not have enough fuel on board to keep drifting (which, let's remember, in this case involves revving the engine hard for eight in low gears for some eight hours of continuous drifting). Instead of doing the sensible thing and installing a long-range racing-style fuel tank, BMW went one better. In collaboration with tuning experts Detroit Speed, a car-to-car refuelling rig was created, so that the M5 could be topped up without stopping.
Wait, that's not the cool bit. The cool bit is that to refuel a car that is drifting, you have to bring another car, which is also drifting, alongside and have an actual human lean out of the window to engage the fuel hose (watch the video below).
Yup, BMW refuelled one drifting M5 from another drifting M5 while a crew member - Detroit Speed's Matt Butts, and yes he was wearing all kinds of safety harnesses - dangled out the window holding the fuel pump in place. The second M5 was driven by BMW Performance Centre Chief Driving Instructor Matt Mullins.
So, not only has BMW taken one world record, and invented drifting-car-to-drifting-car refuelling, it's also taken the record for the longest two-car drift, at 79.3km, or 49.2 miles.
"We knew going-in that if we were going to recapture the world record for longest sustained drift and set the bar as high as possible, we would need to find a way to keep the M5 going without stopping to refuel," said Schwartz. "In the end, the refuelling system worked flawlessly and the M5 performed as expected. It was a big win all around."
"Although we practiced the refuelling several times before the Guinness World Records title attempt, there was very little margin for error," said Butts. "We're excited to have played a part in Johan and BMW recapturing this record."
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