Rennlist - Porsche Discussion Forums - Atlanta PDE and a Carrera T

This forum has been invaluable to my acquisition and enjoyment of my car so I wanted to contribute a bit for anyone who uses the forum like I do (lurk mostly, post a little)

This past week I found myself having a few hour layover in Atlanta. So I could either spend those hours sitting in the airport, or perhaps I could go and do a PDE at the facility which is right at the airport. So I chose wisely. After a few back and forth emails I was able to book a Carrera T Manual Experience. Uber back and forth from the airport. And I had a great experience. For reference, my background is basically; life-long gearhead finally gets a 911 in his garage. Owned and driven some esoteric stuff and enjoy a canyon road as much the next gearhead. Sole racing claim to fame is that I got to do a driver's school at the old Riverside Raceway when I was just newly minted teen driver in a formula ford. Also married a gearhead wife.

Atlanta PDE experience: Cost $525. $475 for the 1.5 hours and $50 to reduce my deductible from $10k to $2k in case I hit the armco immediately adjacent to the handling track. (I'd do it again, as it reduces the stress greatly). I arrived about an hour prior to my drive and so got to wander the premises and look at a bunch of cool Porsche stuff. Again, well worth the time, but then again I was looking at sitting at the airport as my other option. I spent a good deal of time looking at the 917 ('71 Lemans winner) and the Porsche powered Indycar and the '67 911R and the 919 among a bunch of other cool stuff. Then it was driving time. My instructor and chaperone was a really nice young fellow named Chad. He is a past motorcycle racer. He did a very good job and greatly enhanced the experience. There are plenty of other review about the track and the layout, so I'll be brief. The handling track is fun, fun, fun. I know there are a bunch of folks on here who have done HDE at some spectacular tracks (doing this is on the list), but hustling a 991.2 T around a well designed course (I think it's accurately described as winding country road) without having to fear for my license was just great fun. My instructor was helpful, enthusiastic and motivational. The course was immensely helpful in giving me concentrated time driving a 7MT 991.2 at 8-8.5/10's. The low friction track is also great for learning vehicle dynamics and is huge fun. Also, the hardest work. The slalom is educational and a challenge, and the launch and braking chute are good to work with. I was able to really work the gap between ABS and threshold breaking quite well. The kickplate is a total hoot and, again, educational. Perhaps I was getting tired (driving hard for 1.5 hours tired me out) but I didn't love the skidpad. I also think drifting a car, while it looks cool , is a little dumb and lately, a little overdone. I actually think the cost was reasonable. I wouldn't say cheap, but the experience was first class. I would also recommend that anyone going consider timing. My sense is that it has the capacity to get crowded and that would negatively impact the experience. Also, I considered the GT3 experience, but I am glad that I went with the T. It was all the car I need.

The Carrera T. I'm going to compare the T v. my car. I don't claim to be a Porsche expert. Just a lifelong 911 and car fan. My car is a 2017 S 7MT with sport chromo and little else. The Carrera T was also lightly optioned and I was told that it did not have the RWS. I believed it because the handling was almost exactly the same as my car, although I have not pushed my car like I got to push that T. My thoughts. The Carrera T had the fixed back racing buckets. I wouldn't order them on a DD, but they were great for this purpose. I never noticed the seat or my seating position once while driving the car and that is entirely a compliment. I really like the gearing. I think if I got to drive the T back to back with my S, there would be nothing between the lap times. Perhaps my car is faster in a straight line, most likely into the triple digits, but around this "country road", my sense is there is nothing between the cars (except for one thing I'll get into in a bit). Slight digression. Don't we live in a great time to be a gearhead? It's amazing how swift and sweet today's cars have become. In any event, I was glad to leave preferring my car to that T for the following reasons. The T had an Alcantara GT Sport wheel and shifter, while mine is the hard leather. While the Alcantara felt just fine, I think I have more feel with the hard leather and therefore I tend to grip the wheel less. I've also told my wife that the PDE only cost a couple hundred bucks because I decided that I prefer my shifter to the short shifter in the T. Again, it's a finesse thing. The short shifter is a less finesse device then the standard shifter. Also, and I don't know if this was an error with this car, or a feature of the short shifter, but the reverse gate did not work on this car, like it does on mine. On my car, I cannot shift left into the 1-2 gate into the R gate unless the car is stopped. On the T, it happened twice. Both times braking fairly hard at one of the fastest parts of the for relatively hard right hander. It's disconcerting to find oneself in the reverse gate when one means to get second. Of course, I did not press forward, but had to muddle back to 2nd prior to turning. If I had not left myself some room for error, that might have got quite interesting. I checked my car when I got home, and I am locked out of the reverse gate when moving at all. Is this a short shifter feature? I also did not notice much difference in engine noise. In the end, both cars are just great, and if I had found a used T like I found my S, I would have pulled the trigger, no question. As I said before, we live in a great era of cars, I just wish I had the money to buy them all.

Of course, YMMV. And as mentioned, I hope this is helpful to someone. Couple of pics from the museum.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...17535255bb.jpg
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...2484bf95ac.jpg