montoya

Lar - awesome, awesome. Experience of a lifetime.

Sounds like a steep learning curve to drive on snow and ice, who knew?

My daughter is in Iceland for a couple of months, other than a lack of trees where she's at, the environment seems pretty similar:

24Chromium

Day three started with the the prior day’s final exercise - the figure of 8. Except this track was a much larger one, so I found it much easier to master. Then we spent the rest of the day on the “handling courses”. These were small race tracks that allowed you to incorporate all that you’d learned so far, in a fun and challenging environment. We spent time on three different tracks. They were large enough that all 6 cars could be on course at the same time. The only downside was that all cars had to stop when there was a spin, and of course, you had to slow down (or even stop) in order to maintain a proper distance to the car ahead.

We were also treated to demo rides in a Panamera GTS. Three at a time got to experience a true master at speed on a longer and more challenging track.

We ended our final driving day with a big formal dinner. I believe it was a 6 course meal. All our instructors as well as the support staff joined us. The wine flowed and there was much bench racing and good natured ribbing.

After dinner I went back to my room to find even more swag from Porsche. A 1:43 scale model of the GT3 Cup in a special livery and gift box. Very cool!

TRAKCAR

Great trip, glad your enjoying it and all is going according to plan!
Collected any data yet?

stronbl

Wonderful thread. Thanks so much for sharing experiences, words, pictures, and insights.

997rs4.0

Thanks for a great thread. Really miss the ice driving. So much fun looking out of the side windows driving a car.😉😉

MJones

Great write up and pictures.
Imagine that you saw Colm there as well!

Chris3963

Great thread. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Safe trip back home.

SSTHO

Superb write-up Lar! Sorry we'll be missing the Panamera adventure at Sebring thos coming week.

You're making me strongly want to reconsider joining my group of friends for the Canadian version in Feb. Any chance to get some GoPro drifts on video? Do they encourage/discourage video? Thanks again for sharing your experiences in such detail. :-)

24Chromium

Ah, I wish that I could! If I had a helmet and race shoes, I'd be there in a heartbeat. In fact, I tried to stay in Finland so that I could do another class, but they are fully booked.

Wish you and Stephen and the GT4 all the best! Say hello to the Florida gang for me.

24Chromium

I had thought about bringing a GoPro, but it was too late to get it from my trailer (secure indoor storage). Sure enough, a couple of students brought them and to my surprise Porsche didn't object.

Finland was awesome. I can't recommend it enough.

SmokinGTS

Lars
I really want to do this course. Thank you for sharing your experiences. What was the most important take away that you learned from this school?

TRAKCAR

Christophorus has a nice article on Levi

gt38088

Great post and the learning experience is just so much different to any track based driving instruction.
Last year I tried the Tuthill Ice Driving experience in Sweden. It is similar but perhaps more focused on the driving and less on the hospitality. Not that the hospitality was lacking but you looked after yourself at the ski resort in the evenings. For the driving you could book a car to yourself so that an instructor was always with you giving tips and as I found you do get tired so you tell him to drive and show you for a stint then get back in. See the video link below. The 7mm studded ice tires are truly amazing. And as these are back to basics aircooled, caged rally cars - its a stick shift - so when they teach you handbrake turn it takes a bit of learning to co-ordinate the actions. Brake, heel/toe to 2nd, pull handbrake, into 1st as the car slides and power away. Easy when instructor does it but not second nature.
We had a blast and our immediate thought was that we would go back and do it again but so far there are many adventures to be had and all cost good money so this year we didn't go back.

http://www.belowzeroicedriving.com/about-us/video

24Chromium

I think the biggest take-away for me was "less is more". Less brake pressure, less steering input, less throttle, and especially less action (i.e.: more patience).

I was really frustrated after the initial figure 8 exercise. The course was small and tight, it was dark and I was tired. I kept getting no rotation at all on braking and turning at the waist portion of the figure 8, where you were supposed to do the rally flick (quick turn to the opposite direction of travel, then a quick turn back to the direction you want to go). It wasn't until the instructor sat with me in the car that she could see I was trying to brake too hard. Once she got me to give it a very light dab, boom! I was rotating with the car with the best of them.

Some of what you learn is counterintuitive for a road racer. There are times when you literally do nothing at all but wait. For example, when the car begins to rotate. I was stunned at how you could just count, slowly, out loud, "one, two, three"... all the while you just do nothing with your feet or hands. The other thing that's hard to get used to is the speed. Nearly everything you do at this initial class is very slow speed (I saw a max of 70 KPH, but we were supposed to be doing a max of 60 KPH). I kept going faster in almost every exercise. And that usually led to a spin or a huge understeer into the snow banks.

All in all, I highly recommend the school. Porsche treats you like a high-roller VIP. The resort is world-class. The cars are brand new and, even more amazing, they are shiny and fresh each morning. And the staff is beyond my expectation. They are world-class drivers and excellent instructors. Being an instructor myself, I was blown away how they could give spot-on feedback while standing out in the snow as you go by. I know I couldn't do that!

I'm anxious to go again. I'll be there next year for sure. I'm also signed up for a handful of events in the summer here at home as well as in Germany!

24Chromium

Oh, and one more thing... the students in my group were fantastic. Wonderful people. And even more surprising was how respectful they were. To each other as well as the instructors. As an instructor myself, I see my fair share of red mist, aggression, etc. in some students on DE days. Here, there was none. And there was no car-to-car contact in any of the 6 groups. Despite all cars from a group being on track all at the same time on the final day. That was amazing!

Bravo Porsche!