Brian P

You mean that 82 HP 914?

Z-man

Quiet you!

Dave

Did anybody check to see if that 914 had snow tires on it? I hear snow tires are worth 4 seconds/lap!

Brian P

I would LOVE to see someone show up at a club race with snow tires.

Mark GT2

No, I'm not a club racer. I have enough stress just getting around the track myself........besides.....I'd have visions of insurance deductibles dancing through my head every time I tried to duck under someone in a turn.

MJR911

Ah come on Mark, your DE insurance won't cover Club Racing anyway.

James Achard

I think they should change the meaning of "S" in GT to mean "snow" instead of "street"

James

GeoffD

Snow tires! My friend and I once shared my car for a high mileage DE at Shannonville. I was to supply the car for the weekend, and he supplied the wheels and tires as I didn't want to go through a whole set of race tires in the one weekend. We decided it would be interesting to use the well worn snow tires from his 928S4. We felt that, at worst, we would get great car control practise.

After about 5 laps, the snow tires melted! What was interesting was that they melted so evenly (front vrs rear) that the car was perfectly balanced....but with zero grip!!! You would turn into a corner and part way through, both ends would let go together and the car would go sideways. This happened to me in a fairly fast corner and the 8' lateral shift was a bit disconcerting. Needless to say the track wheels and tires went on the car shortly thereafter!

Sounds kind of stupid now but I prefer to think of it as a noble and selfless experiment aimed at defining the real world limits of snow tires.

gd

Brian P

Fascinating! My snow tires held up pretty well. Of course, that may have something to do with the 40 degree day. I wasn't the fastest car out there, but I wasn't the slowest either.

Ken

You were at least 8-9 seconds faster a lap than Z-man. Not slow at all!

Dave

Was that the lap Z spent stuck in the mud??

I gotta wonder if Zoltan was a little extra cautious the remainder of the weekend, he seemed to be going kinda slow...even for him.

MuffinMan

Some of these top speed claims seem a bit optimistic, IMHO. Bill Gilbert, an extremely competent instructor in NNJR, runs a similar S2 as Zman, and he only hit an indicated 120mph everytime I rode with him. A few years ago I hit just over an indicated 120mph in my 968, and I was running low 2:20s to verify that my turn-in speed at turn 1 was more than adequate. I was full throttle from turn 1 to the end of the esses. For another data point, I was driving a stock 993 doing ~2:17s, again full throttle from turn 1 to the end of the back straight, and I saw an indicated 140mph. While some of these sick modified cars like Rick DeMan's will surely yield impressive speeds at the end of the straight, some of the stated speeds in stock cars are most likely lower than indicated.

DrJupeman

I challenge that your 140 in that 993 is too high, Muffin. Based on tach readings, I believe I was doing about high 120's in my Boxster S (best laptime of 2:15:xx for reference) and maybe into the 140s in my 2000 Cup. I'm usually the one catching/passing people into, through, and out of the esses so I don't think I'm slow there, either.

MuffinMan

Which is why I listed indicated. I agree that the speedos often read high, and I should have noted the position of the tach.

MuffinMan

Didn't you have a 2000 cup? (how I miss that car )