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I flew out to Birmingham, AL to attend the Porsche Track Experience (“PTX”) one-day Precision Driving course at Barber Motorsports Park this past Friday. PTX used to be called Porsche Sports Driving School, and is now in its 20th year of operation.
Precision Driving is the first rung on Porsche’s driver development ladder. The class I attended had about 30 students of varying experience with almost all owning Porsches. After student introductions, the classroom session began. This covered concepts such as managing load transfer, understeer and oversteer, and the friction circle. It only took about 40 minutes before we were headed to the track. There we were greeted by a fleet of new Porsches.
Instructors drove students three at a time around the track in Panamera Turbos to provide initial familiarization. Then we were split up into groups of five to do lead-follow drives on the track. My group started driving the 718 Cayman GTS with PDK. The pace was about 60% of what I would push at an open lapping DE session. It was enough to feel decent cornering loads and experience some full throttle acceleration. Next up was the PDK 991.2 GTS. Pace was upped to 70% on my scale with the difference being later and harder braking.
We took a break from lapping with some driving technique exercises. These were 1. trail braking (991.2 GTS manual), 2. wet skidpad (991.2 GTS PDK), and 3. autocross practice (718 Boxster GTS PDK).
After a pretty decent lunch, we returned to the track for more lead-follow. This time we took out the big dogs. Our group was split driving 991.2 Turbo S and 991.2 GT3 RS together on the track. I started in the Turbo S. It didn’t even take a full lap for me to think, “Holy poop, this thing is fast!!” Pace of this session jumped up significantly. I would say it was 85% for me. There were braking zones where I triggered ABS intervention. Swapping over to the GT3 RS, I drove similarly hard. It was the only car of the day to give me a bit of a scare. I overcooked my entry into a long sweeper and the nose began to run wide. I lightly lifted from maintenance throttle and the car tucked into the corner more than I expected. I thought a spin was coming up next, but the stability management only permitted a certain slip angle before intervening with its invisible hand to bring things back under control.
We did one more car swap to close out the track driving. The group was in the 991.2 GTS with manual transmission. We ran the most laps in this car when we were most familiar with the track. Because of this, I was able to run 90% of my DE pace most of the way around the track. The instructor was still lifting off before the end of the two longest straights to keep top speed in check. I didn’t feel too bad about this, as it gave me a chance to relax my grip on the wheel a bit and catch my breath.
After lead-follow lapping wrapped up, there were more technique exercises. We did a slalom course in the 991.2 GTS, Panamera Turbo and Macan GTS, launch control acceleration in the 991.2 Turbo S, and a timed autocross relay competition in the Boxster GTS.
The day at the track ended with instructor driven hot laps in the 991.2 GTS cars. These were really eye opening. I could feel the car squirming and moving around out of every corner. While mid-corner speeds didn’t feel that different from mine, the differences were braking later and harder into the corner and getting back to full throttle sooner.
Back in the class room, we were presented with our completion certificates, and the winning group in the autocross competition was announced. It was my group by a big margin!
I’ll post later about my on-track impressions of the different cars.
That sounds pretty fun!!!! more pics!!! I am only 2 hours or so from Barber but have yet to go.... i just recently got a 370Z which may at least be track worthy.
My son and i are signed up for the atlanta porsche driving experience in the 911T manual trans on May 22nd.... should be fun.... 90 minutes in the car (hopefully that is correct) for about $475 each.
Neither of us is a fan of PDK / paddle shifting so we had to schedule the only manual transmisson car they have.
That sounds pretty fun!!!! more pics!!! I am only 2 hours or so from Barber but have yet to go.... i just recently got a 370Z which may at least be track worthy.
My son and i are signed up for the atlanta porsche driving experience in the 911T manual trans on May 22nd.... should be fun.... 90 minutes in the car (hopefully that is correct) for about $475 each.
Neither of us is a fan of PDK / paddle shifting so we had to schedule the only manual transmisson car they have.
Careful with the 370Z. One of my friends tracks his religiously (big wing, massive front splitter, just one seat inside, stripped interior, etc) and he had to upgrade the brakes (typical) and add an oil cooler to keep it cool at the track. It will overheat very easily, even after just a few laps (if that), depending on ambient temperature.
Very cool! Seems like they let you play pretty good for the intro course. I ran my 991.2 GT3 at Motorsport Ranch this past Monday and turned off stability control for the first time (I did it all the time in the Vettes as I was familiar with them, but not this rear-engine 911) and it was incredible. The rotation and the way the car moves around under braking and accelerating out of a corner, you got a new measure of adjustability by letting the car rotate into corners under trail braking and then hitting the gas to get the back end to sit down. Porsche has definitely eradicated almost all snap oversteer in this chassis. You'd had to do something crazy stupid to induce it. I set a PB on that course for me, even faster than what I've run in the ZR1. It's so intuitive.
Fast forward to 12:03 of this vid if you want to see that 2:18 lap. Sorry for the crappy camera angle. I need to get a hard camera mount.
03-30-2019, 09:29 PM
Porsche Track Experience Precision Driving Course
