The Best Driving Schools in the United States

Turning the steering wheel and pressing the accelerator is what most people think of when driving. But, with the right car and the right circumstances, driving goes from routine to exciting.

Drive a car to the limit and you can experience the adrenaline side of any four-wheeled machine. However, you must learn to do this in a controlled environment, guided by professionals. Learning to drift, staying on the racing line, dealing with understeer and oversteer, snowy roads, they all need small steps and a teacher willing to help.

Here are some of the best driving schools in the USA where you can learn the art of driving performance cars to the limit.

BMW Performance Advanced M School – Palm Springs

BMW pushes most of the technologies developed in its motorsport programs to the M Performance division for street cars. Thus, BMW M models come to market with outstanding performance, allowing the owner to immerse themselves in the thrill of tight turns and fast straights.

The BMW M Driving School utilizes Thermal CA’s superb Thermal Circuit to deliver some of the finest driving instruction in the United States. Leader-follow scenarios will get students accustomed to increasingly faster laps around the circuit, while braking points are explained and discussed individually.

Oversteer and understeer are covered in the Drifting course. At the end, students can take a full tour to test their acquired knowledge, potentially aiming for a professional career.

BMW Performance Two Day M School – Spartanburg, SC

With scenery as beautiful as California, the BMW Performance School in Spartanburg, South Carolina stands out from the competition with its technical track and wet concrete skidpad.

The Two Day M school will bring together students with a professional instructor, to teach them how to tame and drive a BMW M Performance. Specifically, the course covers topics such as Drifting, Figure 8 driving, Autocross (with specific technical turns) and Time Attack scenarios. By the end of the course, the student will have a good understanding of the driving elements needed to balance the car on the track and save time on every lap.

Skip Barber Racing School – Braselton, Georgia

One of the oldest of the bunch, Skip Barber Racing School got off to a rocky start in the mid-1970s, with rental cars and just a handful of students. However, he has become one of the best known names in the racing school industry.

Currently, Skip Barber Racing School offers traditional courses in racing, as well as more street-oriented courses for defensive driving or high performance driving. Skip Barber Racing is one of the few driving schools to offer single-seater training as part of its amateur and professional racing courses. If you’re looking to take racing seriously and want to learn from industry veterans, Skip Barber is a great, cost-effective solution.

Bridgestone Winter Driving School – Steamboat Springs, Colorado

Where else to learn the art of snow driving than with the best snow tire manufacturer in the world? It’s no secret that many current racing champions, whether rallying, single-seaters or touring cars, first learned to race on ice and snow.

The Bridgestone Winter Driving School offers programs aimed at both improving driving safety and reducing road damage, as well as performance courses to improve racing skills on slippery surfaces. In the one-day program, students learn the basics of weight shifting, cornering, low-grip braking, and crash avoidance.

Bridgestone Winter Driving School’s Performance Driving Experiences dive into more advanced topics, including driving techniques proven by champion rally drivers. These topics include threshold braking, extreme weight transfer, and skid control.