I was at my 1st track day with my 964 Turbo on Sunday. It was with the Porsche Club of Sweden so only porsches there (no bimmers!) and it was in Sweden at the Gelleråsen track.
First of all I would encourage all of you who have never driven on a track to try it. If you really are car enthousiasts this is the way to go :thumbsup: and it's a lot of fun. I have already registered for the next event on the 28th of September :cool2: . All I have to say is GO FOR IT ! Now some remarks :
1 - The 964 Turbo is clearly not the easiest car to drive on the track. You have to try and guess when the turbo will kick in and in the beginning I was afraid it would come too early so I punched th e gas pedal to late and had no power (not much happens with this car before 3500rpms) going out of curves. After a few laps I just gave full gas as soon as I had stopped braking and started the turn in. I decided no to go down to 2nd gear (I tried a few times and lost time changing gears). Of course at the end of the 20 min session the rear tires started to brake loose easily with this kind of treatment:haha: . Even doing this some non Turbo carreras had more power than I had coming out of the curves (more about this later)
2 - Brakes. A lot has been said about brakes on this site but I want to add my own (short)experience. Brakes are to me the most important thing. You need to be able to trust them 100%. At the end of the straight line if I had had the guts to push the car to the limit I would have hit 200km/h. I stopped at 190 as best and sarted braking too early each time mainly because I was thinking to much and because I didn't feel I could trust the brakes to 100%. As it turned out I had no brake fade so :thumbsup: to Porsche for that, but next time I will have some more maintenance done on my brakes beforehand.
3 - So how did I fare ? For the first 20 min session I started first and nobody passed me:hihi: . A guy with a mid 80ies carrera caught up with me towards the end and we fought over a lap but he couldn't pass. Then we got stuck into traffic but I could get out of it faster than he did (sometimes the turbo is not that bad after all). Then I caught up with a Boxter S and had a good fun puting some pressure on him before it was over. I did pass a lot of car including the dreaded 996 Turbo hiha (of course it was a "user error", I am not saying my car is faster, no flame there)
Second session I started first again and the Carrera guy was not far away... . Everything started as before but this time 1st a 993 caught up with me, I tried to hold a bit but had to let him go, to my relief it was a 993 biturbo and there wasn't much I could do, he had much more power coming out of the turns and it wasn't necessary for him to drive to the hedge to be faster! Then the Carrera guy caught up with me and I let him pass and tried to follow which made me make a few mistakes (coming too fast into turnsh: ). After cooling down a bit i drove very regularly and caught up with him again which needless to say, made my day:hihihi: . Then it was over again and it felt like only 5 mins had passed.
I talked to the Carrera driver in between sessions but he was not talkative. I just noticed he had very used racing tires on, so I went a bit relieved thinking hopefully he was not a beginner :confused2
Overall I was very happy I could hold my own with a difficult car but I was very tired (the whole morning was training on different sections before the 2 20 mins sessions) and I was very happy Gustav had joined me for the day and could drive me home. We had some "races" driving home, with an S3, a bike or two an instructor for the porsche club (I am going to be banned from the club!) and a 330BMW ! Gustav does have the right spirit hiha
Sorry for being so long but I am so happy I had to share:typing: . May be next time I will have had saved enough money to buy a digital camera and post some pics, as it is I just bought new tires ....
First of all I would encourage all of you who have never driven on a track to try it. If you really are car enthousiasts this is the way to go :thumbsup: and it's a lot of fun. I have already registered for the next event on the 28th of September :cool2: . All I have to say is GO FOR IT ! Now some remarks :
1 - The 964 Turbo is clearly not the easiest car to drive on the track. You have to try and guess when the turbo will kick in and in the beginning I was afraid it would come too early so I punched th e gas pedal to late and had no power (not much happens with this car before 3500rpms) going out of curves. After a few laps I just gave full gas as soon as I had stopped braking and started the turn in. I decided no to go down to 2nd gear (I tried a few times and lost time changing gears). Of course at the end of the 20 min session the rear tires started to brake loose easily with this kind of treatment:haha: . Even doing this some non Turbo carreras had more power than I had coming out of the curves (more about this later)
2 - Brakes. A lot has been said about brakes on this site but I want to add my own (short)experience. Brakes are to me the most important thing. You need to be able to trust them 100%. At the end of the straight line if I had had the guts to push the car to the limit I would have hit 200km/h. I stopped at 190 as best and sarted braking too early each time mainly because I was thinking to much and because I didn't feel I could trust the brakes to 100%. As it turned out I had no brake fade so :thumbsup: to Porsche for that, but next time I will have some more maintenance done on my brakes beforehand.
3 - So how did I fare ? For the first 20 min session I started first and nobody passed me:hihi: . A guy with a mid 80ies carrera caught up with me towards the end and we fought over a lap but he couldn't pass. Then we got stuck into traffic but I could get out of it faster than he did (sometimes the turbo is not that bad after all). Then I caught up with a Boxter S and had a good fun puting some pressure on him before it was over. I did pass a lot of car including the dreaded 996 Turbo hiha (of course it was a "user error", I am not saying my car is faster, no flame there)
Second session I started first again and the Carrera guy was not far away... . Everything started as before but this time 1st a 993 caught up with me, I tried to hold a bit but had to let him go, to my relief it was a 993 biturbo and there wasn't much I could do, he had much more power coming out of the turns and it wasn't necessary for him to drive to the hedge to be faster! Then the Carrera guy caught up with me and I let him pass and tried to follow which made me make a few mistakes (coming too fast into turnsh: ). After cooling down a bit i drove very regularly and caught up with him again which needless to say, made my day:hihihi: . Then it was over again and it felt like only 5 mins had passed.
I talked to the Carrera driver in between sessions but he was not talkative. I just noticed he had very used racing tires on, so I went a bit relieved thinking hopefully he was not a beginner :confused2
Overall I was very happy I could hold my own with a difficult car but I was very tired (the whole morning was training on different sections before the 2 20 mins sessions) and I was very happy Gustav had joined me for the day and could drive me home. We had some "races" driving home, with an S3, a bike or two an instructor for the porsche club (I am going to be banned from the club!) and a 330BMW ! Gustav does have the right spirit hiha
Sorry for being so long but I am so happy I had to share:typing: . May be next time I will have had saved enough money to buy a digital camera and post some pics, as it is I just bought new tires ....