Originally Posted by simsgw

The Streets is what we call a 'technical' track, as opposed to a more open, high-speed track. It is one of nine tracks in the complex. Three of them are road courses. One seems to be devoted to shooting commercials; I'm always seeing parades of new cars with a camera car weaving between them. "Big Willow" is advertised as "The Fastest Track in the West" and it's where they test Indy cars and such. That's where all the Formula racing and SCCA racing happens. Now "little Willow", as we used to call it when they first built it, is the best suited to learning how fast road cars behave "at speed." That's why they re-named it "the Streets" and began inviting its use for tests. Road & Track comes to the Streets several times a year to do handling evaluations.

Don't let the name 'streets' convey the wrong impression. It is nothing like city streets. That name just distinguishes the track from the 150-mph monster next door. At my age, I won't run Big Willow. Going off happens at too high a speed for me to feel comfortable about the orthopedic prospects. My bones are too old. In fact, I never did like running any car at Big Willow that didn't have a full roll cage. It is legitimately a ball-check. Trying to run Big Willow at speed is where you find out if both ***** are pumping at capacity.

Little Willow is really like the sort of public road that becomes known as a sports car delight. It's run at much more realistic speeds, it twists about like a mountain road with the occasional straight to listen to the car wind out, and the most lovely aspect: no motorhomes coming around a blind corner using both lanes.

If that private group is as thorough as PCA, you'll get a ground school in driving technique and they'll explain the rules about letting people pass you and vice versa. So I'll omit all that stuff except for a paragraph at the end that talks about what to learn in particular about our Carreras. (They are so much faster than older Porsches that advice from another owner will help I think.) For now, back to the track itself:

A friend did his first track day last year and with permission of the Chief Driving Instructor I went out in his run group to follow him closely. The idea was to create a video of his driving for him to study at home. This isn't to let you study his technique because it sucks. You'd expect that in a first track day from a novice at Porsches as well as track work, but it lets you see how things are managed at a track day. This begins with our group being called and ends with my pulling off course while his novice run group continues their session. We're going slowly enough that you can use the video to learn the track. Besides, for his entertainment, I annotated the video and that will let you follow along with the description below. Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_Lx4...layer_embedded

Gino is in a 996, but he's only going relaxed road speeds and trust me: at those speeds, any Porsche would be the same, even one from the seventies. So the visuals are really just "a Porsche at Willow." I'll tailor my comments to your 997 and the speeds you will be going when you get settled in and your instructor lets you go faster. Don't try to go these speeds at first. Just think of this as a lovely mountain road that you're enjoying on a quiet Sunday morning. Focus on smoothness first, and the racing line, then add techniques like late braking and shifting techniques. It wouldn't hurt at all to run the whole track in third gear. Think of these speeds I mention as how fast your car can go comfortably whenever you're ready to ask for it. But concentrate on learning techniques first and letting your instructor show you how we pick that "racing line." Now check the video and here's the crib sheet:

1. The Sweeper. Turn 1. As we begin the first flying lap, we're accelerating uphill on the pit straight. You will reach eighty or ninety easily if you come out the preceding corner at the speed I expect you to use. You'll be near the top end of third gear, but leave it there and modulate the power to balance the car as you go around turn one at the end of the straight. You will feel like braking (as Gino does in the video) but you have no need at all for braking. Just quit accelerating and hold your speed. Try to feel the car accepting the g-load as you turn in toward the apex of this fast uphill corner.

2. The Hairpins at 2-3. Well, not really hairpins at these speeds, but a full race car feels that way because we come in a lot faster. First to the right, then back left. You come into the first one running uphill out of the Sweeper. Hold your power and don't brake prematurely. If you do, you'll feel like an idiot because the car slows very quickly. The hill is steeper than you realize. Our cars coming around the Sweeper at only 80-90 could easily park before turn 2. I'd even take bets on managing parallel parking for half a dollar, so let the car run until you're quite close before you brake. You'll turn right to run downhill on a 'chute', as we call it, that leads to the second hairpin, the left hander. These are like moderate corners on a public road. To me, they feel just like two of the hundred or so corners on Angeles Crest Highway above Pasadena. Except without the excitement of looking into a motorhome's radiator.

You'll be going about 35 mph around that first one. Now accelerate in second to near the top of its rpm range, but don't bother shifting unless you want the practice downshifting back to second in a few seconds. Do learn to accelerate down that chute after you take its measure. At first, you could easily leave it in third, as I said before, but eventually you want to learn the feel of our cars when you go from hard accelerating to braking. So give yourself some speed to shed before you turn in leftward. The second hairpin is faster. You can go around it at 45 at least and you can easily reach 65 in that downhill chute, so you dump 20 mph in the braking zone. After you get to higher speed runs that is. Turn 3 points you back uphill, so as you pass the "late apex" (c.f. your instructor), accelerate firmly to regain the speed you lost in braking and move left to set up for entry to:

3. The Esses. Turns 4-5-6-7. This is a lovely rhythm section although I admit it put me off the first time I ran my Carrera there. The transition from six to seven looks off camber, but after experience I decided it is an optical illusion because it's built sideways on that hillside we've been going up and down for the earlier turns. In fact, I think the road surface is level, but it took me a few laps (and building confidence in a modern Porsche) to believe it wasn't going to flip me backward into the desert if I tempted it. I mention that only because the optical illusion works at any speed, so you'll probably see it also, but you have nothing to worry about. For one thing, you'll be going 20 mph slower than I was when I considered myself to be tiptoeing around. That's good though. You learn more about control if the car is well in hand. Guys who slide around are just flattering themselves, not learning how to be really quick.

What you want feel in this sequence is the rhythm, the flow of grip from right to left and back again. Plan on accelerating up that hill to about 60 mph and then let your speed rise and fall from 50 to 70 as you move through the esses. At these speeds, braking is completely unnecessary, but if your instructor wants you practice that as well, then you can also learn the feel of alternating gentle braking with accelerating to position the car in turns. Put the car in third as you come out of that second hairpin and use the torque of the engine to carry you through the esses. Downshifting is just silly at these speeds. We have enough torque in *fourth* to keep with the speeds Gino is doing in that video. So climb up the hill, shift into third and leave it there as you weave through corners 4-5-6-7.

4. The Fishbowl, turn 8. Turn seven dumps you into a banked corner that must be about 180 degrees. In other words, another full reversal of direction, but this one is much faster than the hairpins. Our cars can go outrageously fast through the Fishbowl with the banking to help, but you're trying to learn the feel of the car and the track, so I'd suggest a target of 70 mph as you come out of turn 7 and turn right into the banking. Feel the car take the g-load and begin steady state cornering. Now turn it down toward the apex (they'll probably put a cone there) and ramp the power as you move onto the back straight. Let people pass here as need be, but plan on moving to the left side of the track after they pass. Starting from the high speed of the fishbowl you'll probably reach 100 mph down that straight. But plan to stay in third until you've had more practice. As you approach the end of this straight, the continuation isn't visible. At all. The track disappears over the horizon like one of those oh-so-elegant swimming pools at Four Seasons and the like. Where we're headed is:

5. The Waterfall. Turns 9-10-11. Roughly. I've never seen an official number scheme, so I'm not sure how many official 'corners' compose the Waterfall. And different cars take different lines using the same pavement. You can imagine that means it jinks around a little going through here. Watch the video to really get the feel, but in words:

We make the entry like a high-speed lane change on a freeway. You can back off as Gino does and not be ashamed. It takes a lot of training (and belief in your car and your reflexes) to take this entry without backing off the power, and the car is going to get a little light even going as slow as ... let's say 80 would be a good target for your entry. There's a cone (or at least an apex) on your right, but don't pay a lot of attention to that. Just don't overrun it because the edge of the track acquires a gutter that they only mend about once a season. Put your mind on the apex to the left. The road moves right at the entry, but the real turn is the downhill left-hander that isn't visible from the straight. That left side of the road is your apex for that corner and you want to focus on hitting it correctly. (Uh... to 'hit' an apex means to position your inside wheel exactly where you mean it to be. Not "hitting it" in the sense of taking out the cone.)

The entry is important because you're pointed downhill and carrying a lot of speed from that straight. Backing off will probably leave you going only about 80 mph into this apex, but that's bloody fast for your early track days. If you're going 70 mph by then, that's fine too. What you want to learn from this corner is the abrupt transition and how our cars handle it. (Just fine by the way.) Feel the car get light, then feel the weight settle back on the suspension. All that backing off is fine, but steel yourself not to brake yet. Take that apex at the entry to the Waterfall, start downhill toward the outside of the track and smoothly bring the car back to the left.

The PCA instructors put more cones at this section than it needs. Probably reflecting the different lines the different instructors like to teach. That covers a lot of different cars. I'm describing the line in our cars, the 997 Carreras. You should be using the same line as me, just at a much lower speed. So come into the entry after shifting right like a lane change, let the car's weight settle onto the right wheels as it flows down that hill. You're aiming at the right side of the track here, but that's fine. Let it move to the right, gradually taking more weight and beginning to turn back left. Now it's pointed down the second half of the hill and now you can begin thinking about braking. Plan on being at 60 mph here and don't worry how downhill-ish it looks to the eye. I'm at 85 by that point, maybe 90, and our cars are just fine with these transitions. When you've picked up the apex of the next corner and you can see you're on line for it, that's a good time to start braking. I actually go well past that next apex, at least half a second past, over 50 feet, but I brake a lot harder than you are likely to do. Your braking doesn't end until you're ready to exit the Waterfall to the left into:

6. The Chicane. Turns 12-13-14 I suppose. (Lack of official numbering again.) This is a pretty standard sequence that you see in everything from autocross set-ups to Grand Prix courses that they need to slow down to keep the cars on the planet. First we leave the Waterfall with a left turn that must be close to a full ninety degrees on the map, but we don't take it that way. Turn in as a mid-apex corner, which your instructor will explain. Neither terribly early or late braking is roughly what that means. The Chicane, as always, is laid out as a full right followed by a full left. As a mapmaker sees it. Of course, as drivers, we blend that into a single shape like an ess. Let the track-out of that Waterfall exit corner blend into the turn-in of the ess. Get enough rotation to be sure you're going to clear the central apex of the Chicane, hold it steady until the track beyond the apex opens up and then roll in the power. This sequence is where I catch the odd Lotus Exige or Porsche Turbo nine times in ten because inexperienced drivers try to make their car go through each corner as fast as possible. In fact, you want to drive it as one smooth sequence and the overall speed is what counts, not trying to impress spectators with wheel spin accelerating from one turn to the next down a thirty-foot 'straight'. This is a sequence to learn smoothness and balance. Like the Esses, but short-coupled. Every movement close together.

7. The Skidpad. The exit of the Chicane dumps you onto the skidpad if that private group runs the course the way PCA does. This is not a nickname; It is literally a skidpad. This is a set-up like the ones that Road & Track uses to determine how many g a car can pull. (I think they actually have one closer to their home office, and at sea level, which matters to cars with less power than ours.) It is paved differently than the rest of the track, but the transition across the paving is smooth and no problem. The important point here is to learn to accelerate up to a comfortable speed for a full 180-degree rotation and hold that speed as you move onto the front straight, the pit straight we began on. Here, you're learning how the car feels in steady-state cornering at the limit. Or... actually, at one limit. More about that in a moment. A lot depends on your tire choice in this corner, but I'd expect you to be going 50-ish with quite noticeable understeer.

Where to Learn What:

The Sweeper: learn to believe the car can go round corners at high speed. It won't fall off the Earth when the road curves.

The Hairpins: late braking, and eventually what we call "trail braking" if you ever care to learn that.

The Esses: rhythm and smooth transitions from side to side.

The Fishbowl: Learn to love side loads. This lasts long enough to really let you slow down mentally and absorb the feeling.

The Chicane: Being quick by being smooth. The esses with everything sped up.

The Waterfall: Confidence in yourself and your car. Remembering a turn sequence and setting up in anticipation because you can't see ahead.

The Skidpad: The limits of your tires and how the car feels at that limit. Marked understeer, almost certainly, unless you've fiddled with the suspension.

Closing comments: In that video, Gino had a 12-second head start. Notice how easily I caught him? My 997 wasn't working hard at all, and I wasn't driving it in race mode. I just treated it like a fast touring car outing on a bright sunny day. Frankly, I was still feeling my way into the handling of Porsches. This is the first one I've owned and in Formula Ford the drivers loved telling horror stories about how fast a Porsche can swap ends "in corners like turn five at Willow." That may have been true in *their* Porsches from the seventies and maybe even in the days when I was still actively racing in the eighties, but it certainly isn't true of our modern Porsches. When I got used to the car and took enough tire temps to be sure how hard I was working them at both ends, I moved into something as close to race mode as an old man wants to go. Just like I caught Gino in that video is how fast I'd catch my own car when it was only being used in "touring mode." (I set a faster time in my 997 than my co-driver 'instructor' managed in his GT3. That's how good our cars really are.)

The important point for you is that our cars are far faster than you (or your instructor if he owns anything else) will find out in a few track days. You can feel completely comfortable that the car isn't over its head when you go the speeds I mentioned above. For one comparison, once I trusted the car, I was taking that sweeper at turn one in fourth gear. Probably about 110 mph, though I was a little busy to look. Lovely cars and bloody damn fast when you know how to ask for it. Meanwhile, don't even try to ask. You're not out there to set fast-time-of-the-day. Just focus on enjoying a fast drive with no highway patrol (and no motorhomes) and learn driving techniques for controlling your car in all situations. That's the real benefit of track days because you can't really explore such cars on public roads.

You may get comfortable enough to find the touring-mode limits in one day, but probably not. Let yourself progress over as many track days as it takes and enjoy the process. When you get experience and you want to move "up a level" as the kids say, then let me know and I'll discuss racing techniques that let our cars go round that skid pad at least 10 mph faster, and that pick up a lot more speed on turns that aren't limited by the tires. But that's for later, and only if you ever really care.

For now, just enjoy knowing your car is very very capable and you can concentrate on how fast you are learning to go, not how fast your car is able to go. Find your own limits and learn how to raise those. The car won't let you down.

My best,

Gary

P.S. I've been killing time writing this because YouTube is taking forever to upload that video. No wonder. I just checked and it's nearly 600 MB. You won't have to download it of course, but I'll bet their software is compressing the daylights out of that file. If it comes up too low-res to enjoy, just give me an address and I'll send you a CD with the original version.

Hmmm. YouTube's upload page says 100% but it also just said: "This is taking longer than expected. Your video has been queued and will be processed as soon as possible." I need to go take care of Cindy, but I'll send this private message now. That is the link they promise will hold my video when it finishes 'processing'. Sigh. Next time I'll let my own software process a version for upload purposes. I gave this one to Gino as a gift on CD and never thought to check the file size tonight.

Originally Posted by KonaKai

Gary is nothing short of incredible. He's also given me much invaluable advice on everything from proper trail braking to tire management. We're very lucky to have him on this board.

I only regret that I don't live out west so I could actually track with the man.

Originally Posted by ///MJFDDS

crazycarlitos, which track day are you going to?