What would you all recommend as a first driving school? It can be anywhere in the country, although something on the West Coast is preferred. Thanks in advance.

Vishal,

You can start off by going to events that BMWCCA (Los Angeles, San Diego chapter) or you can try out Driving Concepts @ www.drivingconcepts.com . Most of the tracks will be at WillowSprings and Buttonwillow International Raceway. Laguna Seca, Sears Point, and Thunderhill raceway are a little far ways from Orange County.

I can see that you also have a supercharger. Make sure your cooling system is in good condition and maybe put a bottle of Redline water wetter in it. Your blower will become extreamly hot to the point were you might experience horsepower loss since you dont have an aftercooler (or do you?)

Come back to us or I on the board if you need any advice on vehicle preparation.

No, I do not have an aftercooler so thanks for the advice. I will definitely come back to the board before I go anywhere.

Now, is it better for me to participate in a Driver's School with my own car, or should I first visit one of those places where you use their car, such as Barber or Bondurant?

The type of school you particiate in is your personal preference.
Professional schools like Derek Daly, Bob Bondurant and Skip Barber furnish you with a specific car for each type of driving (i.e. a car set up for skidpad w/ outriggers or a Neon for slalom, Viper for track). These are great but you do pay the price, usually $1k per day. Whereas, in the BMW CCA schools you drive your own car and this will run you between $200-500.
I personally prefer to use my own car as I am able to learn the limits of my car in a safe environment w/ an instructor at my side. This instructor is observing you as you make inputs into throttle, steering and braking. He/she will then make comments as to what you did right or wrong. It's a wonderful experience and you do learn the limits of your BMW.
FYI. Porsche Club and SCCA also hold driving schools. Just contact your local chapter andfind out about them. Many times these schools are open to other makes and non-members. SCCA is where I attended my first school 20 years ago when I was in high school. Been loving it since then.

I think it is a good idea to take a class like the skip barber 2-day.
I am signed up to take the BMWCCA car control clinic on the 12th around monterey and hoping for the 22nd at Thunderhill. But I will say that learning how to correctly recover from some things (i.e. the skidpad) is great the first few times when you don't care what happens to the car. At skip Barber we used Dakotas with bald neon tires on the back and they slid all over the place. The nice thing was that when you messed up you didn't vare about it, or the damage when you hit a cone hard.

Now that I have some experience I think I will prefer the upcoming experience with my car.

Alex,
I just did the Skills Class (control clinic) at NHIS and it was a great experience, the Boston BMW Club guys are a great bunch, giving all that time and effort to teach us. I feel like I know my car 10 times better now than before, you'll have a great time!
The wet figure 8 is awesome!! It's great fun to watch other people's cars on it too.