I wanted to share some of my thoughts from the track. I recently participated in a POC (Porsche Owners Club) STS drivers clinic. I followed the class with actual time trials the next day.

First some background. This was my first time on an actual road course and the first time doing any kind of racing with my red beast. However, this was not my first time doing what I would call auto enthusiast driving. In my M3 I have done Auto Cross and a lot of drag racing on both 1/8 mile tracks and 1/4 mile tracks.



Let me start off with some of the concerns I had. Let me know if this sounds familier.... I bought my Porsche for a lot of reasons but one of them was the racing pedigree. I see plenty of guys racing their babies and part of me always wanted to get on the track but I was worried about, getting hit by another car, ruining my paint job, "money shifting", blowing my engine.... basically ruining my beauty being the bottom line. I can say now, a lot of my concerns were a little ignorant and stupid. I will expound on this point later.

I cannot say enough good things about the POC STS event. For about $140 I received personal instruction all day, a delicious lunch, and some ice cold beer to finish out the day.

The cannot place a value on this STS event. If it had cost me triple, I would have paid it. Some of the drills included, Braking drills, Apex drills, Skidpad/Drifting drills, and getting to know the tracks lines. All of these were designed to increase the drivers confidence with their Porsche. Those of you that have taken a motorcycle safety will find some similarities here. You could almost call this drivers event an advanced drivers ed. How often to get going as fast as you can and then slam on your brakes? This drill has both real world value and value for the track. Realizing how fast your car can slow down, and that you can control it greatly increased my confidence.

The other priceless event was the skidpad. I honestly cannot tell you how fast I was going in a circle but I can tell you with certainty that PSM in sport mode is awesome. I was able to take my car to the point where I was in a slight 1-5deg drift and then try to take it past that point and feel the PSM cut in.


Mobonic and I one the final skidpad exercise. They let just the two of us go out without instructors. I do not have a picture of it but Mo did this session with PSM completely off and at about 10-20 drift for the majority of the time. Needless to say, he had to change is rear tires afterwards.


The final event of the day was a "follow the leader" session around the Streets of Willow. With an instructor in the car I was able to learn the "line" at about 60% speed/effort. Beyond the obvious benefits of this exercise I also learned that 60% effort is still a blast but very safe. This taught me something, I could go out on the track have blast but never put myself in a position that was dangerous for me or the car.

Overall a great STS event for POC!

The next day was the time trial event. Again this was just an amazing event put on by POC. We started the day with a drivers meeting where the event organizers talked about the car classes, passing zones (the straights), and the overall schedule for the days events. I was put in the white group. I was basically in the second from the bottom group. It was my first event but my car is in the same class as the 996/7 GT3s so the white group made more sense.

I was assigned a personal instructor for the entire day. I cannot thank my instructor enough for his great insight! The schedule called for basically four 9-10 lap sessions. One 15min session and then three 20 min sessions. There was about an hour between each session which is good because my engine got up over 250 deg by the end of each of the 20min sessions.

The first session was a warm-up. Passing was allowed but this session was basically to get my mind and my car warmed up. I would say I was running at about 60-70% effort. I re-learned/remembered the line quickly and just started having a blast. Right off the bat I realized pretty quick that I was not going to get hit by another car unless something really strange happened. Passing was only allowed on the straights and you had to be pointed by in order to pass. In the more serious time trial events, passing is allowed anywhere but in my run-group passing only took place on the long straights.

I learned very quickly that my GMG setup 997S on Damptronics was quick car. I was passing GT3's and 997TT's with no problem. That being said, one of the quickest cars in my group was a heavily modded Cayman S.

I could a write a four page essay on my racing this day so I will give you the highlights.

All my fears about miss shifting/money shifting were expelled after some great advice from my instructor. He had me do the whole course in 3rd gear. Thats right, I did not shift a single time. This required some good control of momentum but it took the fear of miss-shifting completely out of my mind. As the day went on I would short shift to 4th on the straights. With this combo I was able to put down some respectable times.

The most fun I had is either when my instructor said, just see if you can keep up with that track prepped 964. Or when he got out of my car and let me do 20min on my own.

Here is me chasing down that track prepped 964. He was very very fast but I could stay with him throughout most of the track. In this pic we are stuck behind a Boxster and waiting for the passing zone.


To wrap things up I cannot tell you guys how much of a blast I had! I will be doing a lot more of these events in the future!

For those of you concerned that tracking is going ruin your babies. Dont worry. You can go out, take it easy but still have a blast and learn a lot. I am a huge perfectionist. Mobonic and Gomez will attest to the fact that I have an OCD when it comes to my 911 and I would not continue to do track events if I felt that I was ruining my car. Again, the payoff in participating in this event was huge!

One final pic. On this straight I had just passed a silver 997TT and a very clean 300ZX TT.



Jason

 

Fantastic! Glad to hear you got the car out for some fun and education. Learning to drive, for me, really only started once I went to a driving event and put an instructor in the car. There's so much to learn and, thankfully, so much engineered into our cars that NOT going to the track would somehow seem wrong!

Congrats on a great day out.

 

Great report......cool photo's....especially that last one!

 

Way to go...! Now you understand why I bought my Porsche.

 

Nice write-up - your car looks great.

 

It was great to read your write up. You really summed up the DE (drivers Ed) track experience for the first timer.

Tracking your car is IMO the only way to truly exprience how great these cars are in a safe manner and the PCA is a great place to do it.

PDK, S or Non- S, GT3, turbo, whatever. If you drive it only on the street you get to experience a fraction of the potential of the car.

I just got back tonight from 3 days at NJMP ( drove both of the two tracks), my fourth PCA ( 7th overall) DE event I have done since I started in April.

I passed TT's, C2S. C4S. boxster RS's and several high HP cars, like vetts and M3's in my group over the three days. I drive a bone stock 997.1; an exceptionally good track car and a great teaching car.

I have said it before in this forum, I don't care if I have the best or fastest car porsche makes, I want to be the fastest, safest, most technically sound driver I can be on the track with the car I have. That will be good enough.

 

Agree 100%

The best mod for any Porsche is a better driver and these POC, PCA events are a great place to start!

Jason

 

I had my first Drivers Ed in my 911 last week in Miami Homestead Speedway, it was a blast like you said! I hadn't been on a track for more than a year, and I kind of forgot how the 911s performed on the track...

I started the day in the "Amateur Class". At the first session I was terrible, the second I was bad, but on the third I was good! Even the instructor was shocked! He was simply amazed by how much my driving changed in just 2 sessions... At the third session he told me that he was going to move me from "Amateur Class" to "Intermediate Class" if I did that good in the 4th session, and I did move to "Intermediate Class" at the end of the day!

It just took 1 day to get my driving skills up and running... It was one of the best days of my life!

BTW I also love my car Jason, and I am as paranoid about it as you are I only had Clear Bra on my front bumper, hood, fenders. It was enough to protect the car from any harm! I kind of was harsh on the clutch but after what happened with the Carwash, the damage was already done...

 

Sounds like everyone had fun.

 

It is about time that you made it to the track. If you do enough of them your car will show some signs of wear, but IMO it is worth it.

 

To which one of us are you saying that to, me or Jason?

 

Blasphemer... The only wear my car is going to show is on its tires! Oh and maybe my front lip!

Jason

 

Correction Jason,

The wear you will see is:

Tires
Brake Pads
Brake Rotors
Clutch
and your arm polishing out those pesky tire marks ;P

 

your car look really nice, and the pictures, cam out really nice, but does the track rip your car apart?

 

You know what. I used some Griots Garage Wax and it took the tire marks right off with very little rubbing!

Jason