RebKell's Junkie Boards

[herrade]

Monday morning I was in the sleepy New England town of Mystic, Connecticut. Monday night I fell asleep in Birmingham, Alabama. Tuesday, I was on one of the top five tracks in the world driving a Porshe Carerra S at very high speeds.

My friend and I took the one-day high-performance porshe driving course at the Barber Motosports Park. I can't say enough about the course, the instructors, the track and the amazing automobiles we got to experience. The students consisted of about 20 good ol boys and me. The instructors were experienced racing drivers, including Hurley Haywood! The students were broken into 4 groups and rotated around a number of different activities: autocross, skid-pad, track time.

Our group first headed to the autocross. I was a bit wimpy at first -- driving someone else's pristine 2005 Boxter is a bit intimidating. Then, we went down to the skidpad, where I kicked ass in a Carerra. My considerable experience driving in snow and ice helped quite a bit. We had gotten a lesson on the causes and corrections of understeer and oversteer, but when I was in the car and the back end started to swing out, I didn't think -- my feet just did the work.

Then, it was to the track where we got the hang of the line in some delicious 2005 Carerras. Barber is a challenging course -- tons of turns and elevation changes make it a bit intimidating for the newbie.

After lunch, we headed back to the autocross where our team competed in a relay-type fashion against other teams. I'm sure some of the guys were thinking they should get a handicap for me, but I handled myself well, and our team took first place! We beat all the other groups -- which included some professional drivers -- by a healthy margin.

Then, we did a bigger autocross in a Cayenne. Wow. You can't call those machines SUVs -- they are high performance racing machines. They are so powerfull, so stable, so smart. I would love to go back and do their two-day Cayenne course, because we only got a glimpse of everything they could do. Truly impressive automobiles.

Finally, back on the track in the Carerra S. After all our experience that day, the track was much easier, and we were easily doing 110 on the straightaways. Coming out of the corkscrew turn and throwing those babies into fourth was like a rollercoaster ride. Amazing. Just when we were feeling good about ourselves, our instructors took us for a turn around the track at racing speeds. Wow.

This was easily one of the most exciting experiences of my life. If you like cars, speed, or some combination thereof, and you've got the cash to spare, get yourself to Birmingham!

http://www.porschedriving.com/
http://www.barbermotorsports.com/

_________________
A single act of carelessness leads to the eternal loss of beauty.

[Admiral_Needa]

[herrade]

mercedes?! bah! porsche is the real deal!