Porsche Driving Experience

Rec_Rider

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I had a chance to get behind the wheel of a couple of Porsches yesterday at one of the driving experience locations (LA). I didn't know what to expect and didn't know whether it would be fun or not. Boy was I surprised. I was grinning during the whole thing. There was an autocross track, a circle with water for traction control, a straight for using the launch control, and (the best part) a 1.3 mile test track. I can't tell you how much fun it was using someone else's cars to rip around the track. Even though they are production cars you sure get a feeling of what they can do. Most owners would never do that in there own cars. Drove both a 911 Carrera S and a Cayman GTS 4.0. It was a vendor event so I didn't have to pay but I'm sure glad I went.
 
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Porsche makes some fantastic cars to drive. Just don't own one unless you have VERY deep pockets. I learned my lesson there, big time. These things will nickel and dime you until the day you die.
 
I had a chance to get behind the wheel of a couple of Porsches yesterday at one of the driving experience locations (LA). I didn't know what to expect and didn't know whether it would be fun or not. Boy was I surprised. I was grinning during the whole thing. There was an autocross track, a circle with water for traction control, a straight for using the launch control, and (the best part) a 1.3 mile test track. I can't tell you how much fun it was using someone else's cars to rip around the track. Even though they are production cars you sure get a feeling of what they can do. Most owners would never do that in there own cars. Drove both a 911 Carrera S and a Cayman GTS 4.0. It was a vendor event so I didn't have to pay but I'm sure glad I went.
Sounds like fun.

Look up BMW ultimate driving experience, they do a similar, smaller scale, free program in most major cities once a year.
 
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Many years ago I went to something similar sponsored by BMW. It was ultimately responsible for my purchase of a 1998 M3/4/5. I took the car to the track multiple times and could not drive it to its limit in stock form.

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Indeed. It was an incredibly well balanced car!
It was a sad day when I sold it but it had sat for several years without much use, proceeds ended up getting me into my shale green tjr! I saw you just picked up a LJ that color, it’s a beaut!
 
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I did a one day Barber racing school years ago. It was a ton of fun. Learned how to threshold brake in a Neon with the ABS fuse pulled, how to handle a drift in a Dakota with 15 psi in the tires around a wet skid pad, and then we drove a Viper on an autocross track. The Viper on the autocross track was actually pretty stupid. Too big & too powerful for autocross.

At the end of the day we got time in a little formula dodge with a neon engine. Tiny little thing, but an absolute blast to drive. The instructor was driving an SRT Neon, and he had us follow him around the track to learn the line, then he said "just try to catch me". He was driving 10/10ths, absolutely getting everything he could out of that Neon. Not understanding what that little formula car could do it was tough to keep up. I kept feeling like I was going to lose it any second from pushing so hard, but in reality I was only driving at like 6/10ths. Didn't get anywhere close to what it could do.
It was a sad day when I sold it but it had sat for several years without much use, proceeds ended up getting me into my shale green tjr! I saw you just picked up a LJ that color, it’s a beaut!
I had to leave my '99 M3 in Florida when we moved here. So sad. I loved that thing.
 
Many years ago I went to something similar sponsored by BMW. It was ultimately responsible for my purchase of a 1998 M3/4/5. I took the car to the track multiple times and could not drive it to its limit in stock form.


Soooooooo nice!

I love E36 Ms! I've been looking for a clean Techno Violet for a while now.
 
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I had a 356 many years ago. I would get waves from most of the drivers in the newer cars. The only thing that came close to that brotherhood is my TJ. Kind of funny how that works with folks that love what they drive.
 
I've done a bunch of these over 20 years in the tire industry. Some are awesome. Both the recent ones I attended were really a blast. Ron Fellows in C8 Corvettes outside of Vegas, and Wide Open Baja in BC class off-road race cars in Baja Mexico. Did Ford Performance School in Mustangs at Charlotte Motor Speedway too.

Love my job some days.

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I had a 356 many years ago. I would get waves from most of the drivers in the newer cars. The only thing that came close to that brotherhood is my TJ. Kind of funny how that works with folks that love what they drive.
I have to disagree with your sentiment as far as it goes with the Bimmer crowd. Never had a Porsche, but I’ve run a wide spectrum of enthusiast crowds. The TJ cohort has been by far the best, with the big body Ford being a close second, but there are only like 250 of us on the planet so there’s that.

Bimmer crowds are filled with dickheads in my experience. I joined a parking club a few times at IMSA races, brought my M3 or 6 series thinking it’d be a great time where everyone has nice shit to say about each other’s cars in the lot. A lot of them were just Dinan cult members who loved to shit on older Bimmers. I had way more fun taking my BMWs to non-BMW events.
 
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I have to disagree with your sentiment as far as it goes with the Bimmer crowd. Never had a Porsche, but I’ve run a wide spectrum of enthusiast crowds. The TJ cohort has been by far the best, with the big body Ford being a close second, but there are only like 250 of us on the planet so there’s that.

Bimmer crowds are filled with dickheads in my experience. I joined a parking club a few times at IMSA races, brought my M3 or 6 series thinking it’d be a great time where everyone has nice shit to say about each other’s cars in the lot. A lot of them were just Dinan cult members who loved to shit on older Bimmers. I had way more fun taking my BMWs to non-BMW events.
You are absolutely correct. My son and I restored old BMW’s and the newbies were too cool to wave. We built an old M3, an old Touring and an old M5 and only the guys with old BMW’s were down to earth. That’s why I did not mention the BMW‘s. It’s kind of like the JK owners. I’ve stop waving to all the soccer moms because most of them don’t have time to wave back.
 
You are absolutely correct. My son and I restored old BMW’s and the newbies were too cool to wave. We built an old M3, an old Touring and an old M5 and only the guys with old BMW’s were down to earth. That’s why I did not mention the BMW‘s. It’s kind of like the JK owners. I’ve stop waving to all the soccer moms because most of them don’t have time to wave back.

This was my '99 I had to leave in FL. #TooSoon 😫 😫

It worked out though, in the few years I had it all I did was rebuild the transmission and I ended up making a pretty penny on it. That was in '16, it's probably worth a hell of a lot more now.

I swear I could drive over a stack of nickels and tell you if it was 15 cents or 20 cents. Absolutely amazing car.

But yeah, I'd bring this thing to Bimmer events and all the dickheads with new M3s & M5s that look like spaceships and have all kinds of blinking driver aid whizzo things would turn their nose up at my "old car". There were some folks there that appreciated it, but the vibe I got from the "Official" BMW guys was that they were dealership queens. Like the kind of guys that would actually buy that $75 BMW umbrella at the parts counter.

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We restored the earlier models. Here is the M5 and a 540 6 speed that we worked on.

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Here is a picture of the M3.
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This is the Touring that we worked on for my wife. She saw how much fun we were having and wanted to join in.

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Ahh the good old days. Great times!
 
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Here’s a ‘79 6 series that burned midway through the project. They don’t all pan out.