1999Porsche911

Driving skills have little to do with the car. Cars today are easier, for various reason to get around a track. People with less driving ability are able to navigate more safely than they could years ago and therefore do not need as much skill. This is not to say that there are not some great drivers who drive these cars, but their skills were not developed by driving with "sissy" controls. You need to learn YOUR limits and then take your car to it's limits to acheive consistant safe, fast track times. A Porsche that gets around a track faster than a Honda, in no way, accurately reflects the driver's skill.

Show me someone whose only experience is tracking a car with these "sissy" controls, and I''ll show you someone I can still most likely beat around the track running 2 Toyota's with 12 inch wheels. Fear is a great educator. It's amazing how the skill level of a driver will drop when he is not wearing a parachute.

You want a faster, safer track car, use PSM. If you want to hone your drivng skills to the maximum, get rid of it. Focus on corner speed and not track speed. The straights can be overcome with power. The corners are the classrooms.

BUT, since I do not track anymore, who am I to state my opinion.

TD in DC

I bought a n/a 944 in order to learn how to drive. So I am not disagreeing with you.

However, I think that there are distinct skills when it comes to driving. PSM would not slow down anyone who is already a great driver. That is the part that many people cannot understand. If it is good enough for Walter, why isn't it good enough for me. Well, it probably is if (1) you are already a great driver; or (2) you will never drive anything else. If you never drive anything else than a Porsche with PSM, then why bother learning how to drive without it? Really. I mean, you should learn on the tool that you use. Of course, if you want to learn recovery skills, which you should learn if you ever plan to drive anything else, then PSM is a barrier. But then again, so is e-gas.

1999Porsche911

Like I said earlier, I am not debating track speeds, just required skills. I agree with you about e-gas. It sucks, especially if you MUST get out of the way of something bearing down on you when the roads are a little slippery. Let ME decide when the throttle should be backed down.

Dr. Car

At this point, this thread is:

mglobe

I'm not a particularly experienced track driver, and I'm certainly not very fast. I do think however I have the awareness to know when a car has past it's limit and requires correction. I think that I've experienced this with my 997 numerous times, and that I've actually been able to correct and bring the car back into trim. I've had the back end reasonably far out, and been able to tuck it back in with no help from PSM. Without that correction, there have been many times when I believe PSM would have kicked in at any moment.

Todd, I'll be very curious to hear your impressions when you get the club coupe out on the track. We all know you will, resistance is futile!

RonCT

Oh brothers, here we go again...

You can never turn PSM off in a 997... Period. Live with it or sell the car and get a classic. Yes, you can turn the button off, but engage ABS in 2 wheels and it comes back on by itself. Get Sport Chrono and it kicks in when 3 go into ABS. I don't suggest you play the game of pressing the button ever time you use ABS -- focus on the driving and not whether or not PSM is on or off.

Those of us that actively track 997s (the guys I know) don't pay any attention to the PSM button -- on, off, irrelevant. I put my car sideways, drift 4 wheels when I want to, trail brake, do all sorts of things and PSM has NEVER kicked in or come into play. I adjust. The only time it's ever winked at me was cresting the uphill at LRP when slightly sideways (I was trying to place the car a bit more left than usual to see how the car liked it over there as my speed through the turn increased -- and the sideways torque and the near weightlessness was enough to finally see that PSM actually does exist in the car).

Hinting that those of us that track our cars hard in 997 products "sissies" shows ignorance of the vehicle and / or the drivers out there. 1:02 at Lime Rock in Black run group on stock suspension (track pads and RA1s) is not bad from what I'm told. 2:15 at Watkins Glen. And I'm just learning a rear-engined format (convert from E46M3) and have more time to shave.

There may be a point on the learning curve where you need / want to explore the limits and see what the car will do when you do "..." this to it. If you have a car that has no PSM -- great! If you have a 997, learn to live with it in the background... But once you are at a high skill level, you can drive anything fast regardless of whether it has PSM, DSC, training wheels, 2 wheels, etc.

Sounds to me like some people would say we should remove all safety / back-up features (PSM, ABS, etc.) from cars to learn to drive the most raw version possible. Me, I say enjoy what you have and learn, and if you have a 997 product, then you are going to have PSM whether you want it or not (heck, read the Synergy article in Excellence a few months back -- on that race car they couldn't even remove PSM).

TD in DC

I know. Sadly, I know.

At this point, I have only had a chance to do parade laps, but it was at my home track, which I know very well, and I was a little bit of a bad boy in that I created a lot of space before every corner so that I could push "a little" to see what it is like.

It is "almost" too capable. Seriously. The power is incredible. The suspension is very good for a street car, and it is very nimble. It nearly drives for you. Whereas in my n/a 944 with no electronics or ABS, I had to work to be fast . . . the club coupe is so good that you would have to work to be slow. For those of you who have never known anything other than a modern Porsche, it would probably be very easy for you to take for granted how much work the car does for you. You owe it to yourself to drive an older car someday. It is "enlightening" to say the least.

kauai_diver

PSM (Please Save Me) has never engaged for me on the track and it does not help you drive faster. If it's engaging a lot on the track you're doing something wrong. I've never turned it off.

Dr. Car

I suspect some of you are unaware of PSM when it is correcting your course. It is considerably more subtle than other traction control systems.

kauai_diver

B.S.

mglobe

+1

RonCT

Some of us, yes, I'm sure you are correct. That a less experienced driver that is trying to figure out where the flagging stations are, what the line is, etc. could easily miss PSM kicking in. But for many of us that are more experienced, the answer is no -- we can feel it in our fingertips, toes, inner ear, etc. -- whether or not PSM has engaged. At this point (2.5 years in Black and 21 hours in the new 997S on the track), I'm pretty confident I know what the car is doing. The car really is a marvel and fairly easy to correct. Not quite as neutral as my E46 M3 was, mostly due to the rear weight bias.