rglbegl

I am just here to help. . . and to get us to page 13

holminator

I know and we will get to that page together. Team work my friend.

Noah Fect

Synchros. Who needs 'em, anyway?

holminator

Gasoline powered. Who needs that?

Hudyman

Seriously, coming out of the bowl at Lightning in third and grabbing fourth coming onto the front straight is such an awesome feeling in a manual transmission car. You just don't get that sense pushing a button on the steering wheel or pulling a paddle. A friend of mine has a PDK 991S on Trefeo's b(extremely fast car and driver) but he doesn't get out of the car with the same grin as me! Good luck with those buttons and paddles video racers!

holminator

There are a lot of good people here with track time. After 40 years of driving in 50 countries (almost all stick time), track time, off-road experience and years of driving on the Autobahn, I appreciate your point of view, but if you're serious about the track, it's time to up your game to PDK. No offense intended, sir. You would have the advantage of faster manual shifts, both hands on the wheel at all times, and more brain power focused on the road rather than cockpit controls off-axis from the wheel. Just my two cents. You'll be faster (stats indicate it), which you will certainly need when the track is more crowded and challenging.

chuck911

Holmi, your two cents looks to be worth upwards of $200 at current MT/PDK exchange rates. Can you imagine how anyone gets out of an MT car with a smile after losing a car length, every shift, every lap? That would be some act. Of course it would never stand a chance with the Academy...

rglbegl

So I gotta ask;
How many people in this thread are professional racers? They use their Porsche as their primary race car, and primary source of income?
I am not talking about weekend instructors, weekend warriors, or even Auto-X drivers.
I want to know who is a sponsored, professional race car driver using a PDK Porsche.

Now let's compare that number to how many people in here are car enthusiasts who want a car built they way that makes them happy.

mrstep

+∞

Sure, now you want to use facts... Wait, you can't possibly argue about having fun with people who ask - seriously, mind you - why anyone with PDK even uses the paddles when the computer times the shifts better or expound about how moving your hand and foot to shift upsets the balance of your car.

Have you not heard that MT drivers are stuck in the past, should get steering that only turns in 10 degree increments, brakes that you have to down-shift, manual windows, hand-crank starters, switch to Miatas, and now, as though we didn't already have enough problems, we're also suffering from fantasy car-length losses that leave us secretly crying when getting out of our cars. Who knew?

WTF? I've posted on this before in less irritating terms, but in the interest of throwing some water on the grease fire for the subset of paddlers who seemingly can't understand that it's possible to prefer MT - and can't let it go without ever more bizarre and specious arguments:

Apparently preferring MT to PDK is like arguing with someone that you prefer oil paintings to the fake "oil filter" effects applied to photos and being corrected that "well, Photoshop can convert a picture more accurately and faster than you could paint a scene by hand". This is of course true, right?

I prefer shifting that doesn't hinge on firmware updates, find it amusing to see people posting about the wonderful 'crisp' shifting with auto-downshift rev-match gurgles that the computer makes for them (I mean wow, a computer can do that!?!?), already have a sedan and SUV for boring automatic driving on the street, and have paddles on the wheel attached to the Xbox in my living room. Click-click - or worse yet not even that - aren't that thrilling to me. So it goes.

And I still wouldn't argue that Porsche shouldn't have the PDK option, I just don't want it myself. Radical, right? Apparently.

Bart Baeyens

All of the above and this:
An automatic has always been for people who are too lazy to drive a car and have fun with it. It's always been slower but that didn't stop them from buying an automatic (you know, with the skill involved and stuff), now that the PDK is quicker than a manual, suddenly they think they're all race pilots...
Sometimes -when I see how the PDK guys keep coming back to "prove" that they are right- I just think some guys need to make up for something. They're trying so hard to convince us it's almost like "If I can't use a shift anymore because I ordered the wrong gearbox, I don't want you to have the pleasure anymore to use your stickshift, so, if Porsche would just go ahead and only make PDK cars, I don't have to worry about missing out on all of the fun".
Ymmv...

holminator

Tropic Thurder--OMG, I felt my IQ drop like 20 points, watching that movie! Hahahaha! Perfect clip though.

From my understanding, there on people commenting in this thread that either in part or in full making there living from driving cars in ways that have not been mentioned in this thread.

That said, with regard to personal choice live & let live always.

Is PDK, however, more race efficient than an MT? Yup. Is MT going away? Yup. Has it already disappeared for Ferrari? Yup. Is there a solid reason? Yup. Modern sports cars are built for speed, for moving forward, not nostalgia. Do I miss my first dozen MT cars? Sure, but my 991 is better than all of them. Is everyone, who uses a PDK, a lazy poser on the way to the club and retarded? Maybe, but that has nothing to do with PDK. Are you a right-wing nut? Who cares; I'm all about cars. Hope it is not making anyone angry by expressing it a couple of times. See everyone in the club tonight. MT guys/gals, you are welcome to come along on the magic ride, too, as long as you leave the angry part at home.


Respectfully (your pal),
Pavlov

Art Caputo

I just can't understand why the various racing legislatures don't allow fully automatic transmissions! They must surely come to their senses. If a computer can out clutch a human, the computer can certainly better decide which gear should be chosen in any given situation. The experts at Porsche believe this. The driver shouldn't have to use valuable mental and physical energy for this mindless, time consuming, not to mention, archaic excercise doing something a computer can do better and faster. Speeds are much higher and attention to the track is critical. Why would anyone want the distraction of deciding when to change a gear, and loosen the grip on the steering wheel to just push or pull a button. Any moron should understand this. The number of shifts that are conducted during a race can be in the thousands. Think of all the energy and time wasted, not to mention the lost focus which can be applied to the skills needed to win a race............... Oh, wait a minute. Can you remind me again what these skills are?

holminator

Not sure what you mean by fully automatic. If you have PDK, you can manual select your gears 100 percent of the time if you like. In F1 racing, you select your gears with your hands on the wheel. NASCAR, not so much but then NASCAR isn't real racing. It takes more driver skill to exceed 100 mph on the Autobahn for 50 miles in real world traffic than it does to drive in a circle and crash into someone's tailpipe a few hundred times.

This comment was a good one: "Why would anyone want the distraction of deciding when to change a gear, and loosen...." It is perhaps not a black or white, all or nothing, perspective. By keeping your handles on the wheel with each shift, you minimize and mitigate distractions, not eliminate. Good day, sir.

Exhibit A: F1 driver with hands on the wheel shifting his "automatic" on the way to the club. Note the number of gear changes and the rapid pace as well.

Art Caputo

My post was somewhat satirical. I understand the capability of the PDK. The racing legislatures have decided that fully automatic transmissions are prohibited. There was a time when no one gave a thought to removing the hands off the wheel for less than a second to shift. Perhaps one day it may be thought that disrupting the grip on the wheel to operate a paddle may be considered loss of control. I'm wondering where the technology advances will take the sport. Skills that were once valued may no longer be relevant. This comes from an old timer that still gets euphoric driving/racing old 911's and 356's, as well as the current models.

holminator

Oh I see your point now. Good one for sure.