Just earlier this year, Castrol Malaysia had a competition called the Castrol EDGE Experience Nurburging challenge, where contestants had to undergo several stages of challenges before ending up at the grand finals at Sepang where they underwent various driving challenges.

At the end of the day, everyone went back with something but there was only one person who would be heading to the Nordschleife to undergo an amazing driving program, all thanks to Castrol Malaysia. That lucky man was Khairul Izwan Razali!

Although the Nurburgring is closer to Frankfurt, we landed in Munich as the program included visits to the BMW Welt, the BMW Museum and BMW Classic. We would make our way to the Nurburgring via a 6 hour bus ride later.

BMW Classic is somewhat like a little historical car museum, but with limited access to the public, unlike the BMW Museum. It’a also a workshop where owners can send their classic BMWs to be restored by BMW themselves.

There’s plenty of evidence of Castrol’s long standing relationship with BMW here – there are so many old racecars with the Castrol logo on them.

This is a prototype E32 7-Series with a V16 engine. It was developed as a testbed for BMW as at that time they were considering introducing something more upmarket than a 7-Series.

The engine is so huge that the cooling systems could not completely fit into the engine bay – the radiator and other components were moved to the rear into the boot.

This is the James Bond E38 7-Series – you can watch it in action by clicking this link. It has been specially modified to be able to be controlled by a driver sitting on the rear floor behind the front passenger seat, so the car would appear to be driving itself in the movie.

This is a concept scooter with a roof produced in conjunction with Louis Vuitton – all the leather you see is by LV. You can find more photos of this scooter in the gallery after the jump.

We then moved to the BMW Welt, which was basically a huge BMW showroom with an amazing architecture pretty much devoid of pillars – they’re there but they’re kept to a minimum and very cleverly disguised.

This creates a feeling of spaciousness – you’re basically in a giant hall with a roof over you that looks like metallic clouds.

Customers from around the world (limited countries of course) could do what they call an “European Delivery” here. An American customer can order his BMW, then fly over to Munich and take delivery of his car in a grand way at the BMW Welt, drive through Europe for a road trip, and fly back to the US after you drop the car off to be loaded on a ship.

It was fun checking out all the models that we don’t get to see in Malaysia in the metal – an F10 535d M-Sport looks delicious!

This Castrol-themed BMW M3 Coupe was parked outside the BMW Welt. We didn’t know it at this time but we were going to be taken around the Nurburgring GP Circuit by Dirk Muller in this car.

Just next to BMW Welt is the BMW Museum. It’s exhibits include old and new BMW models as well as the more important concept cars that BMW have unveiled over the years.

The BMW Art Car collection is also on display here.

Lots of funky concept cars including the GINA Concept shown recently.

Now you may be wondering why a Castrol event had so much BMW intertwined in it – we’ve visited so many BMW buildings and then we’re heading off to the Green Hell to be guided by BMW driver trainers. Castrol has a long standing partnership with BMW and is BMW Motorsport’s Premier Technical Partner.

They work closely to develop lubricants. In fact, BMW says BMW M engines such as the one in the M3 and the M5 must run Castrol TWS 10W60, or Castrol EDGE 10W60. Castrol engine oils and functional fluids are recommended for all BMW cars and motorcycles. Castrol supplies BMW with first fill lubricants for new BMW cars.

The partnership between Castrol and BMW began in 1999 as a way of developing, testing and optimizing the combination of car, fuel and engine oil technologies.

As well as working together on the commercial brands within the BMW group, Castrol have worked in partnership across numerous motorsport properties in both the two and four-wheel categories with notable championship victories for Andy Priaulx in the 2005, 2006 and 2007 World Touring Car Championships.

According to Castrol Senior Development Technologist Simon Gurney, Castrol EDGE has been tested to the extreme – for example, their endurance test runs the engine at maximum power and fires a total of 147,000,000 times, more than 3.5 times than it would during a Nürburgring 24 hour race.

For events like the Castrol EDGE Experience Nürburgring, the importance of this level of testing becomes clear. According to Gurney, the standard engine speed for a BMW M3 on a lap of the Nürburgring is 7100rpm, with a peak engine speed of 8,400rpm. The piston speed inside the engine will be around 20m/s (approx 60mph).

On average the engine will fire 240,000 times per lap, amounting to 39,000,000 in a single Nürburgring 24hour race. It’s critical that drivers are able to rely on the highest level of performance being delivered on demand.

Anyway, after enjoying the BMW Museum, we loaded up into the bus and headed off to the Nurburgring. It was a very long bus ride, but the European scenery was pleasant and very different from what you see here in Malaysia.

The sun casts its shine a differently, which explains why European photos always look nicer, and you can have extremely bright days that hurt your eyes but the outside temperature would still be chilly.

A few hours into the bus ride, I started seeing an increased frequency of powerful cars and superbikes on the road. I had wondered if this meant we were getting very close to the Nurburgring. Sure enough, a couple of minutes later it was announced that we were 10 minutes away from our hotel.

Now that we are here at the ‘Ring, we will undergo a BMW Driver Training course for one whole day before we hit the Green Hell the next day. Here’s where the fun starts. More on that next week!
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Castrol Malaysia has been very busy with its Castrol EDGE Experience campaign which has selected one lucky winner who will be sent to experience the “Green Hell” or commonly known as the Nurburgring in Germany. Now that wasn’t the only contest which Castrol ran for the rather interesting campaign.

Local car clubs were also given the chance to win attractive prizes including RM5000 cash and a further RM5000 worth of Castrol EDGE products. Not only that, up to three car clubs took home to the top prize, collectively worth RM30000. In order to stand on the rostrum in the Castrol EDGE Experience Car Club Challenge, each club had to promote and create content about the Castrol EDGE Experience.

Up to 21 car clubs took part in the contest which ended recently and each had to promote the Castrol EDGE Experience via three online mediums including Facebook, Twitter and via the club’s online forum. At the end of the day, it was the Lancer GT Club, Nismo Club (Nissan Motoring Club) and Swift Club Malaysia which finished in the top. The Lancer GT Club came up with the most prominent key art feature while Nismo Club had the most active forum discussion. Swift Club Malaysia on the other hand made best use of social media.

Local clubs that ranked between 9th till 4th places which included the Ford Motor Enthusiast Club, Myvi Motorsports Club, Odyssey Club, Saga Club Malaysia, Team Hyundai Malaysia and the Vios 07 Club went home with consolation prizes, made up by Castrol EDGE products worth RM1200 each. Congratulations once again to all of the winners and to Khairul Izwan Razali for winning the Castrol EDGE Experience!

The big green box on the sidebar on the right is kind of hard to miss, so most of you would know that Castrol Malaysia has been running a campaign called the Castrol EDGE Experience Nurburgring over the past few months.

Castrol EDGE is basically having a global campaign where participants from each country will be sent to the Nurburgring track in Germany to undergo an exciting driving program over a few days which includes driving a BMW M3 around the Nurburgring.

Every country runs different campaigns to pick their representatives and Castrol Malaysia decided to pick it’s winners by challenging participants to a series of challenges over a few rounds. The challenge officially opened on the 13th of December 2010 to anyone who wanted to participate.

All one had to do was visit the Castrol EDGE microsite and answer trivia questions on the Nurburgring, which were split into 2 batches. This part was easy – we ran a series of articles on the fabled track and you can find the answers to the questions in our articles. If you got all of them correct, you could proceed to the next round.

Round Two called for participants who successfully made it through Round One to submit an answer to the question – “Why Your Car Needs Castrol EDGE”.

There were many creative and interesting responses and judges selected the 30 best slogans to proceed to Round Three.

In Round Three, all the 30 qualifying participants were given a free lubricant change to Castrol EDGE at a participating Castrol Auto Service outlet. There were quite a diverse number of cars involved from a Proton to a BMW 7-Series and there was even a bonafide E36 M3. After the oil change, participants were required to create a review based on the difference Castrol EDGE has made to their car.

Here are a few examples: Candice Lim, Kevin Lee, Dr Rashidi, Andrew Kuan.

Out of the 30 participants in Round Three, a total of 16 finalists were selected for Round Four, a physical challenge at the Sepang International Circuit to prepare the finalists for the challenge up ahead at The ‘Ring. Based on the performance of the 16 finalists at the Castrol Edge Nurburgring – Sepang Challenge, judges’ will select one Grand Prize Winner for the trip to The Nurburgring in Germany and other prize winners accordingly.

Participants were broken into three groups along with some members of the media and had to undergo three challenges. The challenges were done concurrently and the groups rotated between the challenge areas. Each challenge had an instructor/judge and participants scored points based on how well they performed the challenges as well as how good they were at listening to instructions.

Even Sanjeev Palar of Engine Block was there to join the fun and cover the event. Watch out for the event coverage on an episode of Engine Block soon!

At the Driving Lines challenge, participants were educated on what Driving Lines were and why they are needed to score the best possible lap time around a track. Participants were then judged on how well they followed the Driving Lines on the Sepang Circuit.

In this exercise, speed was not important – it was more of whether the participants understood the concept of driving lines and were able to steer the car around the track following the lines.

There was also an Obstacle Avoidance challenge where participants were taught how to steer around an obstacle. It isn’t as simple as you think – even psychologically you have to understand that if you look right at an obstacle it’s more likely that you hit it.

It’s better to look around it to where you want to go to be able to steer around it properly.

There are also many cars in Malaysia that still do not have ABS brakes as standard so alot of people may not even feel what it is to have ABS kick in and how to use ABS the way it’s supposed to be used.

Don’t be alarmed by the vibration in your brake pedal – that’s just the ABS working. While with normal brakes you have to pump it if it locks, with ABS brakes the system makes sure your brakes do not lock and the vibration is a side effect of its activation.

Participants were taught how to put their fears aside and stomp on the brakes as hard as they can and steer out of the obstacle’s way at the same time. They were then judged on their ability to do this.

The Autokhana Course was definitely the most action packed of all the three challenges. Participants had to steer their car around a low speed route defined by safety cones in the fastest time possible while avoiding hitting any of the cones at the same time.

The 325i was definitely very at home at this challenge – it was like its natural habitat. For many of the participants, this event was the first time they had ever driven a BMW, and there was even one member of the media who had never driven an automatic car before this.

This challenge had the most screeching tyres as well as safety cones that gave their lives for the purpose of fun! All the participants definitely had alot of fun here. Needless to say, all four tyres of the Autokhana BMW had to be changed after the event.

The finalists made new friends thanks to their common love of acceleration, speed and grip. They were all there with one goal – to win a chance to tackle the corners of the Nordschleife.

Things were competitive between the participants but most everyone had fun and even offered tips to each other on how to score well in each challenge.

And of course they all oogled at the BMW M3 Coupe there on display. The performed the exercises using E90 BMW 3-Series Sedans kindly sponsored by BMW Malaysia for the event but the grand prize winner will driving the BMW M3 at the Nordschleife!

At the end of the day, the scores were tabulated and we finally have a winner – thanks to the Castrol EDGE Experience Nurburgring challenge, Khairul Izwan Razali will be traveling on an all expenses paid trip to the Nurburgring in Germany to undergo a comprehensive driving program which includes driving the BMW M3 around the ‘Ring’s famous bends.

Of course, every single one of the finalists were winners – both in the sense that they had made it this far in the competition, and also the fact that everyone went home with a prize of Castrol EDGE lubricants and different Apple products. A big congratulations to you Khairul, we know you’ll have an awesome time at The ‘Ring!