911-TOUR

This past Wednesday I flew out to PEC Atlanta for the Carrera T "Master the Manual" course - what an amazing experience and I highly recommend everyone do this course in your favorite P-Car. I've been driving 911s for close to 27 years now (almost all of that time in air-cooled cars), and I learned more about driving these cars well in 90 minutes than I ever expected. It was truly an eye-opening and valuable experience.

The session started with my instructor, Byron, discussing the "modules" in the course, and talking with me about what I wanted to get out of the day. I was mostly interested in learning about emergency handling and getting a chance to experience PASM intervention in a safe and controlled environment so that I would know what to expect in when things don't go as expected. I also wanted to see how the PASM intervention degraded through Sport and off, and how close this was to my old 993, especially with Rear-Axle Steering in the mix. Beyond that, I told Byron I was an open book and there to learn and have fun...and man did we ever...

The car for my class was a brand new, 290 mile white Carrera T with RAS, buckets and base brakes. About as close to my car as I could have hoped for. Stepping in and getting settled, I was immediately at home, and found my normal driving position easily enough, save for the slightly too upright for me buckets.

1st module was the (very narrow) track - learning the line, braking, and shift points. In the Carrera T, the track is really a two shift, 5 braking point track - all of it either in 2nd (the esses) or 3rd, the straight and sweeper. The 9A2 engine is so flexible that one is always in the powerband with just the two gears. Pretty amazing. It's a short track, so the focus is on precision of braking points, corner entry, apex and exit angles. I was really rusty - it's been maybe 10 years since I've been on a proper track (and I have never really been a track guy) - but Byron was patient and gave me a lot of constructive criticism. I think the hardest thing for me was trusting the grip on the car - once the tires are warm, this car just sticks...you can brake later and turn in later than seem real. At one spot, the best line for turn in is literally 3 feet from the water barrier. The car shouldn't be able to do that - but it does! Every. Time.

After working the track for about 15 minutes, we broke off and headed for the second module, one of 2 kick-plates in the US. For those not familiar (I wasn't) - you drive straight onto a polished, low friction, wet surface. Then as the car crosses the threshold the kick-plate throws the rear-end of the car left or right at random, and you try to recover. Byron told me it simulates hitting black ice - and is one of the most challenging exercises to master. In a rear-engine, rear-drive car, hitting that plate at 25 MPH, recovery is very tough, and at 30 MPH it's not guaranteed even if you are perfect, even with PASM. After a few tries, I was able to get it reliably at 20 MPH, but any faster and it was hit or miss. This is apparently where the AWD cars really hold the advantage. A good driver in a turbo or C4 has a much better shot. Interestingly, however - as we watched the AWD cars give it a shot, none of the other students we saw were able to get it. My takeaway is that recovering in this type of situation is very hard without a lot of practice. Interestingly we did it with and without PASM, and the surface was so slick, that there was really no difference - the nannies can't help if there's no traction at all.

Next up was module 3, wet skid-pad exercises. We did power on oversteer, overcooked understeer, and lift-throttle oversteer exercises in all PASM modes. This was the first time I could really feel the PASM step in, and it was LOUD and OBVIOUS. Here, for me, the clear benefit was in the understeer correction - this was always something I had to be careful with on the 993, as it's narrow front tires would push if not warmed up, and the lift to regain traction was always a little hairy as 9/10 times it would trigger lift-throttle oversteer which required another quick correction. With PASM on, this is non-event - the car simply does what you intuit. With PASM off, it's exactly like the 993 - however it's clear that the 991 is far easier to control rotation than the 993, and I think that's both the stiffer chassis, and RAS. Interestingly RAS was totally transparent during this exercise, a very unexpected result. Lastly we did lift-throttle oversteer and some drifting work (I couldn't get the throttle to modulate well enough to get it to consistently drift on the skidpad - even with a lot of patient coaching. That will be a goal next time I go back :-)

Module 4 was the low-friction course, which focused on late-apex and using lift-throttle oversteer to point the car in a controlled way. This was a great way to learn how PASM sport and PASM off change the allowed slip angle, and how to do controlled drifts in tight quarters. Frankly, this was the most fun module for me - and something that's just super hard to practice outside a specially designed closed course. This also really helped to understand how quick the steering on the Carrera T (and all 991s) really is. By the end of this module I was very confidently placing the car on the course sideways with PASM off, even though I could have been more consistent from run to run.

Module 5 was slalom - with the goal to pull equal Gs on the G-force meter both left and right. I failed. What I learned here is that I strongly favor sight-lines on the driver side of the car, and am much less confident turning right than left. Again, something I'll work on next time I go.

Module 6 was launch and threshold braking - I learned how to launch at max effort smoothly and using the rev-limiter feature in Sport+ and how to generate max braking effort. Goal was to get to +0.7Gs Accelerating and -1.2G's braking. I got to 0.62 and -1.3 (anyone that knocks the base brakes needs to try this exercise - they give up nothing in max performance - the only diff is how many times in a row they can do that). We did 6 full effort stops in a row - no fade. The last run was the -1.3G run. Wow.

Then back to the track to tie it all together for some max effort laps, and then we swapped seats so Byron could show me the 10ths I was missing - I ended the session with a huge smile on my face, and a brain scrambled from all the lessons learned.

My full on takeaways:
- Like I learned when I was flying - a course like this is a license to learn. I now know a whole lot more about where my strengths and weaknesses are. I've got to start thinking about how to improve those weaknesses in a safe way.
- The "lowly" Carrera T is a fierce beast. It's way faster and more capable than I realized. We were on the same track as Turbos and GT3s, and easily passed them all simply because I learned to trust that the car would hold the line if I would. On a short track, power means a lot less and any 911 can be fast.
- This car is a scalpel. The steering precision really surprised me, even after driving one for over a year. If I can learn to modulate the slip angle a bit better with the throttle all sorts of fun is there for the taking
- 4 way seats were right for me - the buckets were okay for 90 min, but my shoulders hurt badly Thursday from being hunched. Thank goodness for choice :-)

Oh, and for Pete Stout - there was an easter egg in the museum :-)

Cyberbug

Awesome write up, thank you

I am thinking of doing this in June. I much was it? They dont list the price foe this course. It just says call to schedule

911-TOUR

$475 I think.

Bob Z.

A steal...cannot wait to go myself. If anyone in FL that wants to make an overnight roadtrip one day let me know.

pittspilot

Did this a couple of months ago. So much fun. Just took the wife to PECLA and did the Carrera S manual experience. Wife did hers in a pdk Carrera S. Price for me in Atlanta was 475, but I added the 50 to lower my deductible to 2k if I hurt the car so 525 total. I'm glad this is not in my city as I would spend way too much money going again and again.

BlackOptic

seis-speed

Zeus993

Such a great write-up. Tku!

96redLT4

Great review. Thanks. I did the GT3/Turbo and master the manual at PEC LA. I am scheduled to do the 4 hr 'accelerated GTS' course in April which is just what you describe above, but 4 HOURS of it. I am thinking about changing just to a regular 90 minute drive as I remember it being almost too much sensory overload.

J

S S

Really well done. You definitely got way more than your money's worth!

ẞ

911-TOUR

I think my next time around I'm going to do two classes, broken up one morning and one afternoon. 4 straight hours is too much in my opinion. When I say my brain was scrambled after 90 min - I'm not kidding. It took me a good hour to unwind / decompress before I could really reflect on the experience. Hats off to the instructors who do this 4x / day every day.

cheers!

Guaji

Tlaloc75

stout

Great pics, and it looks like a great day! Anyone who hasn't done a course there, grab the added insurance and enjoy. The kick plate and other low-grip exercises are exceptional teaching tools.

Ray Shaffer is one cool dude, and a dedicated 000 reader, but was still surprised when I saw that stack the first time...

96redLT4

This is what I did the first time I was there. It kind of bugged me initially that a 2 hr session was actually 90 min to let the car cool off, but you really do get a lot of driving/thrashing in that 90 min.