My review of Camp 4S
02-16-2015, 06:48 PM
#1
Racer
Thread Starter
My review of Camp 4S
Hope it's OK in this section of the forum since this and the Cup forum are really the only places I spend time 
Dave04porsche and I went up to Canada to a place called Mecaglisse for Camp4S last week and it was nothing short of amazing. I'm not being paid by Porsche to write this or anything, it was just such an awesome time I felt I had to write this to convince more people to go...
For the short months northern Canada isn’t frozen, the facility is a rally track. When I first caught a glimpse of the trees and mountains that sort of surround this small motorsports paradise I got goose bumps. Or maybe that was the -20°C weather.
Look closer to see the manmade snowbanks forming the course and the sheet ice you’ll be driving on and realize they have about 15km of various corners and straights for you to go play on. What’s harder to see is the 4 skid pad like elements that we start on. I couldn’t help but make mini-Nurburgring comparisons as I surveyed the landscape. There are hills, off camber corners, straights, chicanes, mini kinks, very tight hair pins, you name it they have it. The big difference is that on snow and ice the speeds are a lot slower and it’s quite a bit safer than doing this at the ‘ring or another more normal track facility.
So what exactly do you do on this track? Well Porsche lines up 10 C4S’s, 5 Cayman S’s, and 5 C2S’s (realize why it’s called Camp 4S yet?) All of our 911s were 991’s equipped with PDK, sport chrono, and most importantly the cold weather package. The Caymans were the latest 981’s.
The 3 day school is broken up roughly into a day and a half of skills exercises and a day and a half of lapping sessions. The larger group is broken into groups of 10 drivers and everyone rotates through the various skills exercises with their group, and then the groups get combined for the lapping sessions.
All groups start day 1 and day 2 on a different skid pad working on inducing oversteer and then keeping the car balanced on the throttle all the way around the circle. It’s a fantastically fun exercise once you figure it out but it can be frustrating depending on the car you’re in.
The C4S, for example, requires that you get the car sideways with steering and throttle, and then you have to straighten the wheel before you apply throttle to keep the slide. If you start turning the wheel too much whilst sliding, the car will send power to those front wheels and the car will obnoxiously correct the slide.
After that, our group worked on learning the Scandinavian flick in Cayman S’s. They set up a specific section of the course with cones and used a corner with an uphill approach to help exaggerate the required weight transfer. I’m sure everyone has seen the flow chart graphics or videos of how to execute one, but in practice it’s slightly more difficult to do properly.
After lunch we worked on using trail braking to rotate a 911 C4S through a slalom, and the final exercise of the day was to use throttle to induce a pendulum effect through a different slalom. Throughout this first day your instructor is watching you closely and giving very specific feedback and instruction on the radio. They explain what the car is doing, what you should be feeling, and how you should be reacting, just in case you can’t get the feel for it yourself. If you listen and execute on their feedback you will find it far too easy. You have to learn to resist a lot of your own instincts for how to correct and/or maintain slides because on ice the traction is obviously very different when compared to asphalt.
I would not go so far as to call this a drifting school, but it is more of a car control and skills development school where you happen to be drifting a lot. In fact the instructors reward oversteer with clapping, fist bumps, or encouragement over the radio, while understeer is greeted with some light hearted derision or further instruction for what you’re doing wrong.
On day 2 you start with the skid pad again as a “warm up” and then move to a larger part of the track to practice the trail braking slalom, pendulum slalom, and a ½ circle to slide through. We were a little more cocky on day 2 and one of the Aussies in our group got the C4S properly stuck:
Our instructor's reaction was awesome. He called us over for a group picture, told us how it went wrong (AWD, front wheels got grip, driver didn't feel it nor correct in time, car went in the direction it was pointed...) and then we had to clear the track while the Cayenne yanked the C4S out.
After lunch on day 2, they split the facility into 2 halves and combine groups so 2 groups go to one half of the track while, and the other newly formed group uses the other half. At this point the instructors also combine and feedback becomes quite a bit less personal. The radios are kept quiet except for safety information, or pointing out egregious mistakes, and the instructors want to see each driver navigate the course quickly and safely on their own. They let you decide which technique you want to apply where to make it through without understeer.
Finally all 4 groups are combined and we're just rotating through drivers and then through cars and open lapping the whole facility. They try to space you out, because they don't allow over taking, but some people do spin, some are slow, etc so we ended up catching folks ahead of us on more than one occasion.
I didn't even cover the great resort that is included in your registration price, or the fantastic dinners each night. You meet a lot of amazing people on trips like this. People from way different backgrounds who all share a love for the 911 in common.
I'm so hooked on this I'm ready to go back for Camp 4RS next.
Dave04porsche and I went up to Canada to a place called Mecaglisse for Camp4S last week and it was nothing short of amazing. I'm not being paid by Porsche to write this or anything, it was just such an awesome time I felt I had to write this to convince more people to go...
For the short months northern Canada isn’t frozen, the facility is a rally track. When I first caught a glimpse of the trees and mountains that sort of surround this small motorsports paradise I got goose bumps. Or maybe that was the -20°C weather.
Look closer to see the manmade snowbanks forming the course and the sheet ice you’ll be driving on and realize they have about 15km of various corners and straights for you to go play on. What’s harder to see is the 4 skid pad like elements that we start on. I couldn’t help but make mini-Nurburgring comparisons as I surveyed the landscape. There are hills, off camber corners, straights, chicanes, mini kinks, very tight hair pins, you name it they have it. The big difference is that on snow and ice the speeds are a lot slower and it’s quite a bit safer than doing this at the ‘ring or another more normal track facility.
So what exactly do you do on this track? Well Porsche lines up 10 C4S’s, 5 Cayman S’s, and 5 C2S’s (realize why it’s called Camp 4S yet?) All of our 911s were 991’s equipped with PDK, sport chrono, and most importantly the cold weather package. The Caymans were the latest 981’s.
The 3 day school is broken up roughly into a day and a half of skills exercises and a day and a half of lapping sessions. The larger group is broken into groups of 10 drivers and everyone rotates through the various skills exercises with their group, and then the groups get combined for the lapping sessions.
All groups start day 1 and day 2 on a different skid pad working on inducing oversteer and then keeping the car balanced on the throttle all the way around the circle. It’s a fantastically fun exercise once you figure it out but it can be frustrating depending on the car you’re in.
The C4S, for example, requires that you get the car sideways with steering and throttle, and then you have to straighten the wheel before you apply throttle to keep the slide. If you start turning the wheel too much whilst sliding, the car will send power to those front wheels and the car will obnoxiously correct the slide.
After that, our group worked on learning the Scandinavian flick in Cayman S’s. They set up a specific section of the course with cones and used a corner with an uphill approach to help exaggerate the required weight transfer. I’m sure everyone has seen the flow chart graphics or videos of how to execute one, but in practice it’s slightly more difficult to do properly.
After lunch we worked on using trail braking to rotate a 911 C4S through a slalom, and the final exercise of the day was to use throttle to induce a pendulum effect through a different slalom. Throughout this first day your instructor is watching you closely and giving very specific feedback and instruction on the radio. They explain what the car is doing, what you should be feeling, and how you should be reacting, just in case you can’t get the feel for it yourself. If you listen and execute on their feedback you will find it far too easy. You have to learn to resist a lot of your own instincts for how to correct and/or maintain slides because on ice the traction is obviously very different when compared to asphalt.
I would not go so far as to call this a drifting school, but it is more of a car control and skills development school where you happen to be drifting a lot. In fact the instructors reward oversteer with clapping, fist bumps, or encouragement over the radio, while understeer is greeted with some light hearted derision or further instruction for what you’re doing wrong.
On day 2 you start with the skid pad again as a “warm up” and then move to a larger part of the track to practice the trail braking slalom, pendulum slalom, and a ½ circle to slide through. We were a little more cocky on day 2 and one of the Aussies in our group got the C4S properly stuck:
Our instructor's reaction was awesome. He called us over for a group picture, told us how it went wrong (AWD, front wheels got grip, driver didn't feel it nor correct in time, car went in the direction it was pointed...) and then we had to clear the track while the Cayenne yanked the C4S out.
After lunch on day 2, they split the facility into 2 halves and combine groups so 2 groups go to one half of the track while, and the other newly formed group uses the other half. At this point the instructors also combine and feedback becomes quite a bit less personal. The radios are kept quiet except for safety information, or pointing out egregious mistakes, and the instructors want to see each driver navigate the course quickly and safely on their own. They let you decide which technique you want to apply where to make it through without understeer.
Finally all 4 groups are combined and we're just rotating through drivers and then through cars and open lapping the whole facility. They try to space you out, because they don't allow over taking, but some people do spin, some are slow, etc so we ended up catching folks ahead of us on more than one occasion.
I didn't even cover the great resort that is included in your registration price, or the fantastic dinners each night. You meet a lot of amazing people on trips like this. People from way different backgrounds who all share a love for the 911 in common.
I'm so hooked on this I'm ready to go back for Camp 4RS next.
02-16-2015, 06:57 PM
#2
Three Wheelin'
Cool
Thanks for taking the time to post.
Thanks for taking the time to post.
02-16-2015, 07:36 PM
#3
Rennlist Member
Great report. I have been considering this one, your story is a big help.
Thanks
Thanks
02-16-2015, 09:04 PM
#6
Racer
Thread Starter
Thanks for the kind comments. I'm glad I shared now
I think since the schools for this year are just about done there's no more registration link but it's run by Porsche Canada so it will probably be on a page like this one soon for next year: http://www.porsche.com/canada-pde/en/winterdriving/
The fees seem expensive (around $6.5k Canadian if I recall correctly) but it includes 3 meals a day, transportation to and from the track, and to and from dinner, as well as the 4 nights in a very nice resort-esque hotel. It is 3 full days of driving other people's cars too
I think since the schools for this year are just about done there's no more registration link but it's run by Porsche Canada so it will probably be on a page like this one soon for next year: http://www.porsche.com/canada-pde/en/winterdriving/
The fees seem expensive (around $6.5k Canadian if I recall correctly) but it includes 3 meals a day, transportation to and from the track, and to and from dinner, as well as the 4 nights in a very nice resort-esque hotel. It is 3 full days of driving other people's cars too
