Kent M. Wood

Help me drive smoother at speed. I'm taking delivery in Europe of a new Carrera 4S. I've considered going to Porsche Driving Experience, but am not thrilled about learning how to better drive a RWD Porsche and then wonder what subtle mistakes I'm making in my AWD C4S that are keeping me from being a smoother driver at speed and thus safer.

Experienced advice and references welcome...

Thanks, Kent

JC in NY

My feeling is that if you are a novice then you should not let yourself be concerned with these subtle things right now. There are a vast amount of basic techniques to master and you will need alot of practice at these things first.

If you start to think about the non-essential subtle elements of high performance driving (like AWD vs RWD and rear engine vs mid engine, etc) as a novice, or if you get obsessed with car modification too early you are destined to fall into the trap of being in a few years a fast but entirely mediocre Porsche driver who at the zenith of his driving career is passed by slower cars, driven better.

Kent M. Wood

JC, I learned to drive at 14 in a Porsche 356, had excellent training by my two older brothers and spent countless hours driving hard on country roads to hone my skills. I am confident that I could fit into the category of a lower level advanced driver, possibly higher advanced when I was in college.

My experiences with driving a porsche is limited and this is my first time with AWD porsche. I can successfully pull a 911 out of understeer, whether intentional or not, but am really anxious for that level of education in the C4S.

I understand and appreciate your recommendation although curious as to what labeled me as a novice. : )

Thanks, Kent

JackOlsen

There might be a miscommunication here. JC in NY probably assumed you were talking about learning about driving the car on a track. Many of the posters on this board go through the steps of taking their street cars and learning about their capabilities and limits on tracks at Drivers' Education events or at autocrosses.

If you're just asking about driving your car fast on the street, it's a different thing. If that's the case, then your 'hard driving on country roads' makes you as experienced as anyone else. The difference between a C2 and a C4 really isn't that significant at safe speeds. The C4 is going to have more understeer built into it. It's a little more forgiving in turns.

If you're talking about really learning how to drive your car at the limit, then he's right to call you a novice, since the only place to do that is a track or autocross course. On a track, you'll first have to overcome a lot of the 'skills' you acquired on those country roads.

Then there'll be a whole set of new things to learn that will actually result in your being a faster driver.

I've done a lot of track events, and I don't believe I've ever been passed by a 996 Turbo -- although I've driven with dozens of them. Obviously, the 996 Turbo is a faster car than mine. But the thing you learn on a track is that the skills of the driver account for much more than the specifications of the car when it comes to fast lap times. I'm sure the guys driving their hundred-thousand-dollar supercars have a lot of excuses as to why my 20-year-old 911 is faster than them, but the bottom line is that I've taken the time to slowly learn the basic skills associated with track driving. I'm not a particularly gifted track driver, even. But I've taken the time to un-learn a lot of what I thought made me courageous or clever in driving on public roads.

And as a side note, the more I drive on tracks, the less interested I am in aggressive driving on public roads. One, there's no real trick to it. Two, there are about a thousand factors you can't control that could result in someone getting hurt. And three, driving on a track gives you about a thousand times more of a rush than driving on some winding country two-lane.

Kent M. Wood

Jack, after being speechless for the past 1.5 hrs driving home after reading your post...as a result of all of the assumptions being thrown my way, i've settled down a bit.

I'd love to know what you consider skills that need to be unlearned and what I could not possibly have learned and perfected on the road. Seriously, I'd like a list and descriptions because I know that I'm like everyone and can't possibly know everything.

In addition, this particular forum is called Racing and Drivers Education....thus the question for specific driving nuances of the C4S from experienced C4S drivers...although you didn't mention having experience in one, I'll still consider your viewpoint on track vs. road skills.

Thanks, Kent

Z-man

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Originally posted by JackOlsen:
<strong>If you're talking about really learning how to drive your car at the limit, then he's right to call you a novice, since the only place to do that is a track or autocross course. On a track, you'll first have to overcome a lot of the 'skills' you acquired on those country roads.
</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Well said!
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Jack again:
<strong>I've done a lot of track events, and I don't believe I've ever been passed by a 996 Turbo -- although I've driven with dozens of them. Obviously, the 996 Turbo is a faster car than mine. But the thing you learn on a track is that the skills of the driver account for much more than the specifications of the car when it comes to fast lap times</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva"></strong>
I myself have passed 996 turbos in my meager little 944S2, while I have also been blown away by 924S's and 'lowly' 914-4's. Biggest factor is DRIVER experience, like Jack said! Side note: in my PCA regions DE program, I am classified as an intermediate driver. And I haven't done any Time Trials or club races. In other words: I HAVE A LOT TO LEARN!
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Jack AGAIN:
<strong>And as a side note, the more I drive on tracks, the less interested I am in aggressive driving on public roads. One, there's no real trick to it. Two, there are about a thousand factors you can't control that could result in someone getting hurt. And three, driving on a track gives you about a thousand times more of a rush than driving on some winding country two-lane.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">I complete agree with you Jack! People expect me to drive very aggressively on public roads becuase I have a Porsche, but I have the same attitude: 1. It's no big thrill, and 2. It's not safe: too many unknowns in the 'wild' (public roads, that is).

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Originally posted by Kent:
<strong>I can successfully pull a 911 out of understeer, whether intentional or not, but am really anxious for that level of education in the C4S.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Yeah, that's simple enough: you just have to slow down! Just about every car in the USA has understeer engineered in it, because in a panic situation, most people will hit the brakes, which will most likely bring an understeering car back in control. An OVERSTEERING car, on the other hand, requires a different approach.

Kent:
May I suggest that once you take delivery of your C4S, that you sign up with your local Porsche Club. Attend an autocross event: many people think it's silly to 'race around cones' in a parking lot. It will teach you things about driving you never learned, no matter how well you drive on the street. Next, sign up for a DE event where you can take your car on the track, and learn to drive it like it's meant to be driven. After you try these two venues, I think you'll better understand why people would consider you a 'novice' driver.

But then again, what do I know: heck, my car's engine's not even in the right place! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" />
-Zoltan.

JC in NY

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Originally posted by Kent M. Wood:
<strong>I understand and appreciate your recommendation although curious as to what labeled me as a novice.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Kent, it was an assumption. My bad.

I haven't attended the Porsche Driving Experience but I've heard good things about it. However I would guess that they have a pretty locked in curriculum to cover and giving you personal instruction in AWD vs RWD might be beyond the scope of that program.

I'm sure if you attended a few PCA driver's ed events and got to know some of the instructors you would eventually find a few guys to help you out there.

Another approach would be to find a pro driving coach in your area and pay for a few lessons on the specific things you want to learn.

Mike in Chi

Try the 2 day PDE course. It's a wonderful experience. (Edited: in the original, the first line was lost somewhere in cyberspace)

You will get proper instruction. It will be in a car that is nearly identical to yours.

You'll have a great foundation for further learning in DEs autoxs, whatever.

As a novice, it will probably be a while before the subtleties matter anyway.

Have fun.

Kent M. Wood

Guys, have you noticed yourselves. You don't seem to be wise enough to ask questions. Too busy talking at me. Do you know that I haven't driven around cones, created understeer and oversteer on purpose in parking lots and at airports to learn how to control it, do you know that i can't come off the street and out do your times on the track. you don't know these things, but you are so eager to tell me what i don't know.

i'm here to seek advice from people wise enough to learn about me by asking questions and giving pertenant advice on the car specified. With the right questions, you'd know my high end capabilities and deficiencies.

Re-read my post: smoother at speed, once you get good at "race" driving, then you can get great by learning the differnce in driving hard at speed and driving smooth. I can drive hard, I'm anxious to drive a C4S as smoothly as I can other cars...keeping as much balance and tire footprint on the road with the "subtle" understanding that only great drivers understand.

Again, humble yourself enough to ask questions...you'll have more friends.

JackOlsen

Kent, I don't mean to **** you off. Obviously, I know next to nothing about you. I've read two of your posts on an internet BBS. You could be Michael Schumacher, posting under a fake name. You could be a four-year-old girl. You could be an ordinary guy who loves driving Porsches. All I have to go by is what you post.

But I can say this for just about any driver who hasn't been on a track. If the two of us showed up at a track that neither of us had ever driven on, tomorrow, with me in my hopped-up 73 and you in your C4S (or you driving a 996TT, or you driving my car, it doesn't matter), I promise that I would be faster around the track than you. And believe me, I'm not really that great a driver.

99% of the guys who show up for their first day at the track harbor a secret fantasy that they're going to be a 'natural' driver -- that their inner reserves of fearlessness, or their incredible hand-eye coordination, or some deep-seated greatness that springs from their love of motorsports is going to well up out of them when they hit that first curve, and they're going to be lapping lesser men (and women) all day long.

I felt the same way on my first track day.

And then you get out there, and you'll make one rookie mistake after another. You may have read all the books, and studied all the videos you could get your hands on, but you're going to come into corners too fast and too early. You're going to get timid when you're drifting through high speed sweepers, because -- even though you've broken the tires loose on that favorite stretch of road a dozen times before -- suddenly you're in a situation where your four tires are almost never in solid contact with the track. You're going to haul *** on the straights, but you're going to brake a lot earlier than you need to. I know, not you -- you're a great driver, after all.

Believe me, you will.

I took my brother to Thunderhill with me last spring, and I have to say, I think he's a much better 'natural' driver than I am. He took to it like a fish to water. He's got a lot of karting experience under his belt, and he's an engineer for Chrysler, so he thinks about this most of his waking hours. I think if he decided he wanted to do it, he could be a very successful club racer one day.

Like I said, he's good. Smart. Great understanding of the physics behind it, and a lot of time spent driving a lot of different types of cars.

So I was only 12 seconds a lap faster than him.

Let me repeat it: he's probably got more natural driving skill than I do. But that won't matter for him for a long time. There are skills involved in going fast on a track that simply have nothing to do with street driving. You have to drive on a track -- with instruction, and with patience, and repeatedly -- in order to begin to master it.

Once again, Kent, I don't know you, and you might just be the most pheonomenal driver on the planet. I'm basing my posts on the assumption that you fit into a reasonable statistical liklihood -- that you're a guy who loves driving, and has spent a lot of time honing his driving skills.

You may also have zero interest in tracking your Porsche, which is cool. (Although I assume you do, since you're posting in the 'Racing and Drivers Ed' forum.) A stock 996 is a great car for any use. If all you ever do is tool around on public roads, you're going to have a blast.

But my point is pretty simple. For 99% of drivers, driving on a track requires patience and practice and repeated visits to the track. I thought I knew the limits of my car before I had an instructor drive it at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. I got out of the car after that drive with a 100% different understanding of what driving a 911 could mean.

You may still disagree with me, but I'll tell you this. I honestly believe that if you took your new car and attended three track events, with instruction, you'd come out of the experience believing that there is no other word to describe someone who's never been on a track than a 'novice.'

Again, I could be wrong, and I don't write this to antagonize you. But I believe that the real experience of performance driving is something that simply doesn't happen on public roads.

Take your car to a track, get some instruction, and you'll be amazed at how much there is to learn.

Anir

Kent,

You're getting a lot of good advice from Jack and the others. I think you should take a deep breath and re-read their posts. They are taking the time to help you.

Jack is so right. Until two years ago, I had never been on the track, but had done all the things over 20 years of driving that you've described. NONE of it helped as much as a single weekend at the track doing DE events.

I admire and respect your goal of being "smooth" rather than "fast". You seem to appreciate that fast will come eventually, if you learn how to be smooth. Very astute.

Getting back to your original question, I have a 993TT, which as you may know, is also AWD. As I see it, one signficant difference is that the AWD models have a greater tendency towards understeer, which can be a bit disconcerting at first. After many times to the track, I eventually decided to solve this issue through mechanical means - wider tires up front (245/35-18). This made my car incredibly more fun to drive at speed.

The AWD models can send between 5 and 40% of the power to the front wheels. This, coupled with the rear weight bias of 911's, allows you to get on the power earlier coming out of corners - on the street or track. Therefore, one suggestion of mine would be the classic "slow in, fast out" guideline with respect to corners.

Another thing (again, forgive me if this is "basic" for you - I'm just trying to help as are the others) would be to practice heel-and-toe downshifts all over the place during daily driving. If you get good at this, you will be inherently much smoother at speed. Abrupt braking and acceleration is the easiest way to unsettle the car.

If you've never driven on the track, you owe it to yourself to take your street car to some DE events. They are incredibly fun, and you'll make some great friends. You'll learn that there's a lot to learn <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> , and will be a better street driver for having had the experience - even if you never intend to race.

One last point: I agree wholeheartedly with those that now drive much more quietly on the street since beginning track days. The most spirited street driving simply pales in comparison to being on the track, and there are simply too many variables that you can't control.

Greg Fishman

Guys, don't bother with this fool. He won't listen anyway. I hope I am not in the passenger seat at his first DE, he obviously knows too much for his own good. He asks for help on an Internet Board and then procedes to tell those that are trying to be helpful, how we should answer his question and complains that we don't know anything about his situation. Maybe Mr. Schumacher should learn to phrase his questions in a better way first before he bothers posting again.

Greg Fishman

Good timing Anir. Good post also, I just have a feeling you are wasting your typing skills on a troll....

Pete.

Kent, I think that you might be confused by the "Driver's Education" title of this forum.

Driver's Education doesn't mean "tell me how to drive fast on the street, Driver's Education are course taught at the track.

All of the info that Jack et al have given you is spot on.

I think the best answer to your question is to hit the track and get some instruction. It's loads of fun and truly makes driving on the street pale by comparison.

It will also help you with basic terms like "understeer" which, based upon your post on the 996 board, you seem a bit confused about.

"Wait a second...one person says lift off the throttle, another says give it throttle to control the understeer. Ah, someone is wrong.

Undesteer has been controlled by giving it throttle during understeer since the 1950s. The person that says to correct understeer by lifting off....please explain your reasoning in more detail...

thanks, Kent"

If your car is understeering you lift to transfer weight to the front tires...

Anir

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Originally posted by Greg Fishman:
<strong>Good timing Anir. Good post also, I just have a feeling you are wasting your typing skills on a troll....</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Hey Greg,

We'll know soon enough. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

Missed you tonight. Hope all is well with P & M.

Kent,

Pete is right. Lift a little to transfer a bit of weight to the front tires to aid turn-in, and then gently (but firmly - if that makes any sense) back on the throttle again. It's all about feathering the throttle. Not abruptly "on" or "off". So, the people who say less throttle and those who say more throttle are both partially correct.

With respect to your suggestion to correct understeer with more throttle, Greg must certainly remember one of my first track events, when I apexed way too early in turn 8 at Putnam and was running big-time wide at the track out. He was yelling at me to lift slightly, but I misunderstood and thought he wanted me to put my foot in it. So, I obliged by giving it max throttle. Sure enough, understeer increased, and I put the two right wheels onto the dirt. Fortunately, I managed to get it back on track in one piece. I'm sure Greg lost a bit of hair that day!

Kent - crystal ball shows a track day in your future.