rpilot

1) What do you folks who track your cars do to keep cool in hot weather? A/C, no A/C to take load off the engine? If the latter, do you open the windows or sunroof, drop the top or keep it up for a cabrio ? Or is the drag on the car with open windows/roof too great and you just suffer the heat?

2) Do you wear a helmet for track events? or other protective gear? like regular car racing?

Never been to a track event, hence I don't know.

chuckbdc

PCA requires (and anyone at any event where a car like a 911 can be exercised with any sense) wears a certified helmet. AC is automatically disabled when the engine is under max load (even in a Prius). Sunroofs and other movable parts like roofs are kept closed. Long sleeves and cotton clothes (for fire protection) are usually required. Lots of regions and organizing bodies require fire retardant racing suits on cars with any modifications to cooling or fueling systems. In hot weather, you get hot. After a run when you are finished lying to your mates about lap times, you may notice it.

rpilot

Thank You!

chuckbdc

Take advantage of the PCA Driver Ed program near you. It is likely to offer fully appropriate instruction, be safe, provide thrills well within the capability of your car, and put you in touch with a lot of great people.

chuck911

+1 to that. A friend and his wife once told me if the price they paid for their Boxster S was like a PCA initiation fee, then it was worth every penny- so the car basically came free!

ny991

In the track days I've run you are required to run with windows down. If you are going 80+ mph, the breeze will keep you comfortable! That is if you even have the chance to think about it. If you do, you are not driving as hard as you can!

chuckbdc

PS Pilot, at track speeds with a helmet, ditto re buffeting.

simsgw

Just for clarity, the convertible tops must be up, but the window must be down next to any occupied seat.

Both those requirements are open to debate with modern cars and trackside equipment, but the procedures are built around those rules that have existed for the last fifty years or so.

You won't need any special equipment, rpilot, except a helmet. That can be rented, usually for $25, but I suppose it varies between regions. As Chuck says, if you ever start modifying the car, the type of safety equipment required increases as well, but none of that applies to stock cars.

We also provide instruction, starting with protecting yourself and your car and moving up as far as your skills and desire take you. As someone just said, if you thought of buying a used roadster as tuition to this program, it would be cheap at twice the price. The actual cost isn't free, typically $120-$200 per day, because we have to rent the race track and so forth. In the world of performance driving instruction, this is as close to free as anything comes. We teach because we enjoy it.

Besides all that, it's a hell of a lot of fun for instructors as well as students. Once you get past the first stage of learning the safety procedures, it's like being able to drive the best sports car road you ever saw, with no speed limit and no chance of a motorhome coming around the next blind corner. And no law enforcement, except us instructors watching for yobbos. In our brand of enforcement, fast is fine. The only offense is stupid.

Many regions also run a teen-driving program. We're starting one this year ourselves.

Gary

chuck911

Oh how I wish I could post a video of the time I came around turn 6 at the old SIR and found a BMW pointed straight at me. He had somehow spun, and there was no tire smoke and his timing must have been perfect because there was no flag either. But hey, other than that, they do tend to mostly go the same direction.

simsgw

Well, yes. Once in a while, we do get that sort of thing. But he isn't a motorhome and he darn sure better not be moving toward you! Besides, you're an alert fellow, right? You probably had time to cut your speed in half, pick which side to go past him, and still find a spare hand to offer him. Right?

That's actually one of the tests we apply to signing off a student for solo driving. How well do they handle an unexpected obstacle that forces them off line? Usually, we're talking about a pylon somebody has bumped onto the track, but in fact my last two students had that same thing happen to them. And it isn't that common really. A spin without a flag to warn you, I mean. They were just fortunate to get the chance to show me how talented they were.

It certainly brings home why we teach novices to always look at least one corner ahead.

It's also true that such lessons in track positioning apply directly to everyday driving. When you can handle that sort of surprise, very few things on a freeway will catch you off guard. The one that always impressed Cindy the most was completely safe, but startling. We were in her new NSX driving the 405 Fwy in fast/heavy traffic. We were running at moderate speeds for the 405, about 75 mph, with cars spaced about as close as human nature considers safe, which has nothing to do with DMV rules on safe spacing. Probably a hundred cars per mile per lane. Maybe a little more. I hesitate to compute how badly we would pile into each other in those conditions if anything ever did trigger that hypothetical "everybody go to full ABS" incident. Pretty badly, I'm sure, but it would only be expensive, not deadly, because everyone is moving the same speed. (Low closing rates.)

The crowded, high speeds were why Cindy asked me to drive her beloved new NSX home, so naturally I am alert for debris and other routine hazards to bodywork. We're in lane one, the leftmost lane, going under one of those multiple-junction overpasses that occur all along the 405. One car spacing ahead of us in lane two is a pick-up truck with old-fashioned wheels. The kind that used hub caps. One of them came off his left rear wheel and flipped into our lane.

Not a lot of places to go when a flying saucer is coming at your windshield in those traffic conditions. All I could do was jink the car sideways seven or eight feet, putting it up against the wall, and hope for the best. What passes for a shoulder beneath those overpasses collects all sorts of crap that Caltrans clears out periodically with prisoner work crews. Little stuff like taillight assemblies up to truck tires. For that hundred yards, I just had to dodge one auto-sized tire leaning against the wall and a couple of odd industrial lumps that might have caught the airdam. Otherwise I kept the bodywork as close to the left wall as I could get it. Say 12"-18" inches.

The UFO missed our windshield and even the outside mirrors, but it did scuff along the passenger door panel. It was over and I was back in the lane proper before Cindy could finish her second cuss word.

All the times I saved our lives with recovery techniques learned on a race track and the one that impressed her the most was my dodging a hubcap without hitting the wall. But it did keep her car out of the body shop. All the damage buffed right out.

Gary

rpilot

Now that's a good story, Gary. Really.

You gentlemen are making me feel guilty ( especially after Gary's long write up) about not planning to go on a track. Sigh. I asked about the helmet requirement because well, ummmm.... I don't do helmets, simply put. Don't ask why. I suspected that was the case but decided to ask out of curiosity. I have not ridden motorcycles in my life just because of that reason. I ride my bicycle when I do without a helmet. I don't even wear hats or caps for that matter unless it is a choice between wearing one or falling sick in bitter cold. Maybe some day when I have more time on weekends, I might change my mind about the helmets. I did make an exception for skydiving once... Oh well, thank you for your kind responses.

simsgw

Well, sky diving is different. That's a public service. To contain the splatter just in case. As for motorcycles, people didn't wear helmets often with them when I was growing up, and never with bicycles. The once or twice I rode one wasn't repeated for other reasons, not the helmet. Mostly, lack of affection. I didn't like any motorcycle well enough to protect it by wrapping my body around it as a crush zone.

As for feeling guilty, don't worry. Somebody else who just bought their first Porsche will appreciate the information.

Gary

chuckbdc

Pilot, when driving your 991 safely at speed, braking and cornering rates you never thought possible, you are not likely to notice a helmet (or ambient lighting, glare from interior trim, the 2 inches of length over a 997, paint color, crests on headrests, base or S, deviated stitching, wheel style, PDCC, radio (only certain ex racers would hear the difference as speed) or any of the other "critical" things one (may agonize) about in the armchair. It all gets Porsched.

rpilot

Well, in my case it did save my noggin, not because the chute did not open but because where I landed.. but that's a different story

What are your thoughts on the Porsche driving school in Birmingham, AL? It is only a short drive away from me here in Atlanta, and I thought maybe I would take a 1 or 2 day course at the cost of $1800-$3200 to help me be a better Porsche driver. Somehow I think I would feel more comfortable initially pushing someone else's brakes and tires hard vs mine . Also once cost for PCA insurance for track events is added in, while i am sure it is cheaper overall, it just seems easier to go to Porsche school for some basic skills if I don't want to do this regularly.

rpilot

Well the 2" of length, crests, deviated stitiching, wheel styles & PDCC was not me in all fairness , I understand what you are saying though.

I guess showing up at the track with a rolled up linen shirt, shorts and sandals with starbucks in one hand and driving with the other wasn't going to work