I had an absolute blast* at the DE at Putnam Park. My neighbor, Pete in his 86 911, and I were signed up. Two days of tires, gas, oil, and speed. Pete was in the D group, and I was surprised that they put me in the C group. The KYPCA DE is sponsored by the Bluegrass Motorsports, and there were a LOT of new Porsches there. We were driving the antiques. ( They give their new customers a DE event. ) My assigned instructor didn't show up, and picked up Jim Scarbrough for my instructor - great guy, couldn't have been happier or luckier to get him. It had been almost 2 years since my only other DE, but it came back to me pretty quick. I was glad that I was not in the D group - with a lot of the newbie Porsche owners, who have a lot more money than experience/skill. There was one couple with their new car (900 miles) that shared the car in the D and C groups. He really made me nervous in my group. His instructor told Jim that this guy was the most difficult student he had ever had. They did not return on Sunday. After the first session, I was getting back my speed, and feeling the car do different things and doing new things with the car. This time I had the 17's w/ 225's on front and 255's rear, and a better alignment than the other DE. On the first session, I was a bit disappointed as it seemed the car was understeering a lot. Don't know if I got used to it, learned how to drive differently, or the tires finally got warmed and scrubbed, or.... I learned about throttle steer - going into turn #8 - car wasn't turned in enough to hit the apex, lift the throttle a teeny bit, car rotates, points exactly into the turn, pour on the power at the apex and let the car drift all the way out to the other side on the exit at full throttle. Jim said, "whoaaa, that was cool, that was so cool". So stinkin awesome.. Used throttle steer several times to keep me out of trouble, too. Jim said he really liked the way the car was handling. Learning and doing a lot more heavy braking up to the threshold, and learning to quickly transition from heavy braking to getting back into the throttle right away. Jim was telling me to put on the power more often than hard brake, because with the speed and momentum I was now carrying I/we would have had trouble staying on the track if I hadn't put on the power to transfer weight back to the rear and balance the car. Jim got pretty escited one time as I came into 4 - pretty hot, braked late over the rise, and onto the camber change. He was happy that I kept it on the track. I ran my last 3 sessions solo - big difference without a coach to say "careful, Careful, CAREFUL" (Jim never got too excited, but I could tell by his frequency of "careful" that he was a bit concerned), and with 220 lbs less in the car. The car really accelerated, braked, and turned in quicker. Even though this is not "racing", we did a bit of cat and mouse with the other cars. I was definitely quicker than some of the cars/drivers in my class in the corners, but lacked the power that some of these guys had for the straights. My success of the weekend was walking away from the guy in the yellow 2007 911 Turbo from turn 2 thru 10, giving him a pass on the straight, and catching him again in the turns. So cool. I went off the track in my last session. Really fast, hot thru turn 5 and 6, stayed left for hard brake into 7 ,but drifted out too far from 6 and left wheels went off the edge onto the grass - not enough braking, but at the last second thought I might have been able to make it, then figured I was >50% chance of a spin so I put both feet in and rode it straight into the grass again. Checked my shorts, waited for the corner worker to flag me on, and back on track. Into the hot pits for a mandatory talking-to by the chief instructor, and back out again. Had a couple of heavy puckers coming out of Turn 1 - heavy brake at end of straight, (coming in a lot faster than the last DE) turn in, power on immediately, but drifted out a bit too far, and then was not set up right for 2. I was exiting 10 a lot faster, too. Had a ride with Tom Brentlinger in his 95 993 - stock engine he claims, but with all the suspension goodies and seats+harness. Wow, what a ride - knowing that my car could do that, even though I'm not anywhere near that yet.
Rained a bit on Sat afternoon - held up the sessions because of threat of lightning. But we stuck it out and they put together a set of quick sessions Sunday had a big storm approaching. And, there were a lot of no-shows and early departures, so the afternoon sessions were doubled up A+B, C+D, to allow us an extra free session. but the storm came up and Pete and I took off just before the storm hit, giving up our free session. I really wanted to have a session in the rain. Jim did too - he wanted to see how the C4 would do. Next time.

Pete was hooked. We got to play with each other in the last session. He had 2 off-track excursions for the weekend, but nothing bad. We are tentatively planning to go to Blackhawk Farms on Aug 15-17.

My car goes in next week for clutch, valve ad, plugs, and all the might as well's. May do the engine blanket. Thomas suggested pulling off the intakes and clean plus new gaskets. Any other ideas? obviously all that stuff is easier with the engine out. I would really like to have done all that myself, but it's only money, right?

As you can tell, I am pretty fired up.

Used up about $120 of gas. Had not considered that as a significant expense in a weekend DE.

*Except when our women showed up and started talking about shoes.

 

Sound like you had about as much fun as I did. Thank goodness the off track experiance did not hurt anything or anyone. Your Car looks great and the pics are sweet too.