especially this green eared newbie.....

but I've been around A LOT of racing. What is raced bears virtually no resemblance to what you buy in the stores.

Fact - synthetics have not had widespread usage in racing until recently. I personally know people that race stock cars and many say they know NO ONE that uses synthetics. Most of its usage is part of promotions.

Fact, and I've verified this personally, add one quart of synthetic to 4 quarts of regular oil and it flows beautifully at 10 degrees. ..much better than straight dino oil. Thus one of the chief benefits of synthetics can be realized with only 20% blends (ever wonder why they come like that?)

For high performance cars, and particularly BMW believes this (and I've bought their Castrol TYS motorsport 10W-60, yes a full 50W range! at $8 a quart)....you need HIGH range for high performance. Running vettes and so forth on 10W-30W Mobile 1 and going like hell makes no sense whatsover.

Such much improved, high W rated oils have only been recently available at reasonable prices to the public.

Mobile 1- any 30W version ....well....every car I put it in....it always burns to some extent.

I've run into MANY hard core fans of CASTROL BMW standard 30W synthetic for BMW cars....so I've investigated that. They say they use it in all the "family cars" and it doesn't burn, doesn't affect gaskets, anywhere near what the Mobile 1 does. It's also reasonably priced from BMW.

Before you say I'm crazy....do your own personal experiment. Check your oil usage using mobile 1 and then do the same thing with Castrol bought from a BMW dealership. I've done this in several cars and there is a difference.

In one experiment, I took my wife's former truck, a 120k mile Blazer and ran it on Mobile 1. Sounded pretty much like a sewing machine. Under the BMW castrol, oil pressure was higher, and it didn't burn out like the mobile 1.