718 GT4 Clubsport - Thunderhill West "Code Brown"
10-03-2019, 08:58 PM
#1
Rennlist Member
Thread Starter
718 GT4 Clubsport - Thunderhill West "Code Brown"
Those of you who have been following me on social media these past few months, know that I've spent the majority of this summer testing and club racing a 718 GT4 Clubsport here on the west coast. This past Monday and Tuesday, I had a two day test at Thunderhill Raceway here in Northern California, where we spent the two days working on and optimizing some setup changes. The car ran incredible throughout both days, and I felt like I was very confidently starting to pick up some speed which was reflected in the overall consistency in my lap times.
After two days of successful testing, I had a bit of an incident in my last session where one of the thrust arms decided to let go on the front left side of the car, while decelerating from 130 MPH in heaviest braking zone of the circuit. I don't want to speculate on what happened just yet as I would rather wait for an analysis of the part from Porsche Motorsport, but wanted to share some footage from the session with you all as I thought my driving was at its best, just before the suspension decided to let go. My team did an incredible job all weekend and gave me a perfect car, and I'm confident that we will be back up and running in no time! Now I just need to order some Molecule to clean the brown stain in my Alpinestars suit
After two days of successful testing, I had a bit of an incident in my last session where one of the thrust arms decided to let go on the front left side of the car, while decelerating from 130 MPH in heaviest braking zone of the circuit. I don't want to speculate on what happened just yet as I would rather wait for an analysis of the part from Porsche Motorsport, but wanted to share some footage from the session with you all as I thought my driving was at its best, just before the suspension decided to let go. My team did an incredible job all weekend and gave me a perfect car, and I'm confident that we will be back up and running in no time! Now I just need to order some Molecule to clean the brown stain in my Alpinestars suit
10-04-2019, 01:18 PM
#3
Superbly handled, and a fine ride until the surprise. 
10-04-2019, 04:25 PM
#4
Rennlist Member
Thread Starter
10-06-2019, 04:08 AM
#5
Race Director
I recently had the opportunity to drive a 718 GT4 at Road atlanta thanks to a kind owner-friend's offer, and I was thoroughly impressed. It feels like it has considerably more torque than the 981 GT4 CS, and retains all the beautiful handling, fast shifting, and grip of that car. It makes it very easy to go fast relatively quickly, and I was doing 1:33's comfortably after less than 10 laps. I did however make a pretty dumb mistake coming out of turn 7 onto the back straight as I had started to use the curbing too much and experienced a bit of a tank slapper. No harm done except bruised ego feeling pretty stupid doing that in a friend's car.. I thought I was at a comfortable 7/10's for my ability and yet I was careless enough to cause that event. I guess that was "my" code brown for the day and I said "thank you and I apologize" before bringing it back to the pits. My friend was a true gentleman and played it off... i owe him one.
Anyway.. simply amazing car, much more fun than a GT3RS around the same track for example.. the absence of weight and slicks is so much more enjoyable than the otherwise perfect and more powerful but significantly heavier RS.. Never thought I'd say that as the RS was always the epitome of "the perfect" track car in my mind. I must admit that the enjoyment of catching up to and passing 650hp vipers was quite special.. we were lapping GT3's and 458 Speciales.. There is simply no substitute for a light car on slicks.
Anyway.. uhm, I learned to be more respectful of the curbing.
Anyway.. simply amazing car, much more fun than a GT3RS around the same track for example.. the absence of weight and slicks is so much more enjoyable than the otherwise perfect and more powerful but significantly heavier RS.. Never thought I'd say that as the RS was always the epitome of "the perfect" track car in my mind. I must admit that the enjoyment of catching up to and passing 650hp vipers was quite special.. we were lapping GT3's and 458 Speciales.. There is simply no substitute for a light car on slicks.
Anyway.. uhm, I learned to be more respectful of the curbing.
10-06-2019, 01:06 PM
#6
10-06-2019, 02:48 PM
#7
Race Director
Originally Posted by fantom
Thanks for the excellent report.
However, I'm quite surprised, since I didn't think there were ANY 718 GT4's in the USA yet.
However, I'm quite surprised, since I didn't think there were ANY 718 GT4's in the USA yet.
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fantom (10-07-2019)
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10-06-2019, 07:32 PM
#8
Rennlist Member
Thread Starter
I recently had the opportunity to drive a 718 GT4 at Road atlanta thanks to a kind owner-friend's offer, and I was thoroughly impressed. It feels like it has considerably more torque than the 981 GT4 CS, and retains all the beautiful handling, fast shifting, and grip of that car. It makes it very easy to go fast relatively quickly, and I was doing 1:33's comfortably after less than 10 laps. I did however make a pretty dumb mistake coming out of turn 7 onto the back straight as I had started to use the curbing too much and experienced a bit of a tank slapper. No harm done except bruised ego feeling pretty stupid doing that in a friend's car.. I thought I was at a comfortable 7/10's for my ability and yet I was careless enough to cause that event. I guess that was "my" code brown for the day and I said "thank you and I apologize" before bringing it back to the pits. My friend was a true gentleman and played it off... i owe him one.
Anyway.. simply amazing car, much more fun than a GT3RS around the same track for example.. the absence of weight and slicks is so much more enjoyable than the otherwise perfect and more powerful but significantly heavier RS.. Never thought I'd say that as the RS was always the epitome of "the perfect" track car in my mind. I must admit that the enjoyment of catching up to and passing 650hp vipers was quite special.. we were lapping GT3's and 458 Speciales.. There is simply no substitute for a light car on slicks.
Anyway.. uhm, I learned to be more respectful of the curbing.
Anyway.. simply amazing car, much more fun than a GT3RS around the same track for example.. the absence of weight and slicks is so much more enjoyable than the otherwise perfect and more powerful but significantly heavier RS.. Never thought I'd say that as the RS was always the epitome of "the perfect" track car in my mind. I must admit that the enjoyment of catching up to and passing 650hp vipers was quite special.. we were lapping GT3's and 458 Speciales.. There is simply no substitute for a light car on slicks.
Anyway.. uhm, I learned to be more respectful of the curbing.
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got2go (01-16-2023)