Porsche Sport Driving School

It is about 4:30 in the afternoon on the second day of my Performance Driving class at the Porsche Sport Driving School.  We are back in the classroom, wrapping up the program.  I am feeling great because as the song lyric goes, I’ve Had The Time Of My Life.

I can hardly believe that it was just two days ago when I was driving down Highway 65 from Nashville to Birmingham, with a detour to the Jack Daniels Distillery.  My wife and I went to Nashville to celebrate our 35^th anniversary, listen to country music and eat barbeque.  I was settling into the 200 plus mile drive to Birmingham, brimming with excitement.  Not because I had just left my wife at the Nashville airport.  Not because I was done listening to live music and eating barbeque.  Not because I was driving a Hyundai Elantra rental car.  A car I had been in for four days and still could not locate in a parking lot.  A car I had trouble starting because it was built with the ignition on the wrong side of the steering column.  A car that had a piece of the dashboard that always came off in my hand when I reached out to release the emergency brake, which was not where it should be, an act I did unconsciously throughout the trip.  No, I was brimming with excitement because my destination was Barber Motorsports Park, home of the only Porsche Sport Driving School in North America.

I had enrolled in the Performance Driving course as a 60^th birthday present to myself.  It was sort of an indulgent present, but with the Nashville trip and some shopping for my wife as the quid pro quos, I was good to go.  At least, I thought I was.

To be honest, I was also a little nervous on the way to PSDS.  I am not a racer.  I never will be.  I had taken my Cayman out to the track for one day about a year ago, a day my Cayman proved that it was a far superior car than I was a driver.  I like to think of that day as its Carmitzvah.  The car manned up, and I was stuck in adolescence.  After doing some research on PSDS, I felt that it was a better program than the one day program I did a year earlier, and I developed several of goals for myself.  I wanted to improve my overall driving, better understand car handling, run laps in a competent manner on a major race track, and decide whether my next Porsche will be a Cayman GTS or a 911.  I also wanted to avoid making a fool of myself in the eyes of the other participants.

As it turned out, I should not have been nervous in the least.  The PSDS is a professional program with high quality instructors whose capabilities are amazing.  Porsche has put a lot of thought into the course and the teaching process.  Everything is geared to each participant’s level, and the instructors try to group students with similar skill levels together.  Most of the other students in the class were there for the same reasons as me, sans the decision about their next Porsche, and I felt really comfortable and easily made many new friends.

Barber Motorsports Park is an unbelievable place.  The grounds are extremely well maintained.  The track is about 2.4 miles around with 16 turns.  It is challenging and well laid out for Porsches.  The fact that the track has lots of elevation changes just makes it more interesting, and also amps up the need for Dramamine, which was readily available all over the facilities.  Finally, the Motorcycle and Lotus Racing Car museum is off the charts.

The course is a combination of short classroom lessons, simple exercises, including auto cross laps, wet skid pad driving, braking and accelerating laps and heel and toe downshifting, and lapping sessions on the track, where we drive behind an instructor.  The first day and a half is used to build skills for the final lapping sessions and hot lap on the afternoon of the second day.  The technique the instructors use is repetition.  Every chance they get, including when ferrying us to the exercises and lapping sessions in a van, they go around the track talking about each braking zone, corner entry point, apex and exit, and acceleration zone.  When the instructors lead the lapping sessions, they speak into one way radios, which broadcast in our cars, repeating the same information and pointing out what we are doing well or need to improve.  This approach makes learning the nuances of the track manageable.  It also makes it reasonably easy to increase your speed and capabilities.

During the first day, I progressed pretty well until the final lapping session of the day.  During that session, I got really frustrated because I kept losing time on the three corners setting up the front straightaway.  At that time I learned the hard way that a 911S cannot catch another 911S on a straightaway, leaving me with the problem of how to get my line right going into the straight.

The night after the first day, PSDS treats us to dinner with the instructors.  It is lots of fun.  The instructors are professional drivers, with engaging personalities and interesting backgrounds.  They were very open and easy to talk to.  I spent some time discussing my issues and getting more advice.

The second day is when we pick up the speed.  I was happy to discover that I knew the track much better the second day, and as I got my line right and got more comfortable in the cars, my speed picked up very naturally.  By the end of the final lapping session, I was really pleased with my progress.  I had most definitely accomplished all my driving goals.

The hot lap with the instructor driving was the icing on the cake.  Thankfully, it was the last thing we did.  If it had been first, I would have been terrified.  After miles and miles at increased speed and a greater understanding of just how good these cars are, the hot lap, at about 90% of the limit of the car, was a perfect way to end the course.  I was relaxed throughout the lap, even if the car got a little loose in some corners.  I loved it.

Speaking of the cars, we drove a Panamera Turbo, a Boxster GTS, and a 911S on the track.  They were all great.  If you have never really exercised your Porsche, or someone else’s Porsche, you should.  These machines are wonderful examples of high performance, handling and strength.  After attending this class, I cannot stress how happy I am that I have one.

So did I accomplish my goals?  Absolutely…Well almost.  I improved my driving.  I had a much better understanding of car handling.  And I had competently run laps on a major track.  When I left I had failed to accomplish my last goal, though.  I loved the time I spent in the Boxster GTS on the auto cross and the track.  The car, which reminded me of my Cayman, is awesome.  Unfortunately, the 911S was just as amazing in slightly different ways.  I loved my seat time in it.  At that time I was really confused.

After I got home, I continued to waffle between the Cayman and the 911.  Then on the way down from an Angeles Crest Highway PCA run I found myself at Downtown LA Porsche drooling over a 3 month old CPO Cayman GTS.  In that instant I knew with absolute clarity what the right choice was.  So while there is a 911 in my future, it is still a ways away.  This is good news because as the slightly modified lyric in one of my favorite Country Music songs goes, The Road Goes On Forever and The “Porsche” Party Never Ends………