Tier1Terrier

So I just booked my Porsche Driving Experience at PEC Atlanta. I was disappointed that they would not have a manual transmission 911 available. I went with the 911 Carrera S because I wanted to have as close to an experience as I can get to driving my own 911 C2S. I realize I'll be driving a 992 instead of my 991.2, but that's as close as I can get I suppose to my own vehicle. I'm really not interested in doing the GT3 even though I'm fully aware as to how much fun it would be. My reasoning for wanting to do this is simply to learn how to handle my vehicle under adverse conditions and perhaps even take it to some of it's limits that I wouldn't necessarily have the opportunity to do with my own vehicle. I would love to hear people's experiences and thoughts on my conundrum of not being able to drive a manual transmission (which is what I currently drive).

also... I will not have my car with me. We are going on a family vacation in our SUV and this is just one stop along the way.

evio

I did it on a manual because that is what I own but you will have a last whatever car you drive. It is a bucket list experience. I totally loved it. You learn a vary assortment of different drive types and I found it very helpful. Good luck and have fun.

Gripster

I don't think it matters all that much. My wife got me a PECLA experience a couple of years ago as birthday gift. She doesn't know a Macan from a GT3, so she just booked me a Cayman and it was great! Personally, I don't think the car or the transmission matters all that much for the PEC experience. I had more fun on the ice-hill, dynamics pad, kick-plate and low-friction circuit than I did on the main track. None of those needed or could exploit a more powerful car, and the circuit is mostly done in 2nd gear. You will have a blast - even with PDK.

jackporsche09

My wife and I just did the experience 2 weeks ago in a 992 Carrera S at Atlanta great experience you will come away from it with a better appreciation of what our P cars are capable of we had a great instructor Chris if you are looking for a hotel the one right next to the center makes it that much better and very convenient to walk from one to the other. enjoy yourself you will not be disappointed. Cheers

Rich_Jenkins

Yep. Lots of fun.

https://rennlist.com/forums/european...l#post16133992

tl;dr:

"The entire Facility and staff at the PEC are first rate - Staff are uniformly excellent; the Museum, shops, hotel, restaurant, amenities, ambience; it was just a fantastic experience. It was a vastly more intense driving experience than I was expecting. I got several take-aways I can use to enhance my daily driving enjoyment. I feel better about exploring Driver Education events with my local chapter of Porsche Club of America, having been exposed to track and car. I have a new respect for my car’s handling and roadholding limits - they are very high. My skill level, however, remains near the bottom - but I could see some small Improvement in my car control ability."

I would definitely do this again. The lack of an MT car (I checked recently) would not dissuade me that much, I think. I'd also probably opt to go with one of the cheaper experiences, probably a Cayman, in PDK, having done the experience in one of their 991.2 7MT 911T's. Bear in mind I am not a track guy, so take this with a grain of salt: I think the exercises will show you more "generic" car control; any Porsche sports car you use will have Porsche DNA and feel about the same. As others noted, you really don't get up to any great speeds on the track; in fact on the short slippery track you learn to steer with the throttle and about weight transfer.

I don't know if I would drive up from Tampa again, though, probably just use Delta points and fly in to ATL and get a cab or Uber to the hotel next to the track. (The hotel is nothing special, but very conveniently located.)

The Restaurant at the track is excellent; it makes a great end to an enjoyable day, watching the final runs go around the track. I was born in and grew up in Germany, and found the food to be very good and very authentic.

Try not to miss the museum in the basement. While small, it apparently features a rotating display of cars, which are pretty interesting.

Fair warning: there is a lot of very cool stuff in the gift shop. I had a hard time resisting buying everything after the session - it really revs you up.

737gdog

Bummer, I have a gift certificate from Christmas of 2019 for it and was planning on the, “master the manual” experience. Drove a pdk car there in 2018 and it was fun. Still in separate cars from the instructor?

BSO

If you want to get much closer to your limits, look into the Porsche Track Experience in Birmingham. Not cheap but it was worth it for me.

SSFox

would I learn more with HPDE rather than the PEC Experience?