My Path to High Performance Driving with the Porsche Owners Club

[thstone]

Many readers of the racing section of the 986Forum are familiar with my Spec Boxster thread (Spec Boxster Build) which chronicles the building of my race car along with getting licensed, going racing, obtaining sponsorship, and the ensuing fame and riches. Well, at least the racing and sponsorship part.

But I still get a lot of questions from people asking what happened prior to that - how did I get to the point where I was ready to build a dedicated racing car and go wheel to wheel racing? How to get started? What does it take? How hard is it? What does it cost? What car do I need? Can anyone do this?

This is the thread to tell that story and help anyone else who might be interested in a similar path.

The moral to this story is that anyone can do it.

I, probably like you, had never been on a race track, yet I had always dreamed about it. I have dreamt of car racing since I was a little kid. I grew up watching Indycar drivers like Al Unser Sr, Rick Mears, Emerson Fittipaldi, Al Jr, Danny Sullivan, and Bobby Rahal battle it out on the track each season. And in the back of my mind, I have always been the kids in this video;





But at 48 years old (2009), it seemed like that dream was well behind me. Everything that I read said that if you weren't born with a last name like Andretti or Unser and if your parents didn't start you racing karts at age 4, then it was hopeless - and I can guarantee that when I turned 4 yrs old in 1964, kart racing wasn't even in the same universe as my father!

Fast forward another 44 years and I had a wonderful and busy life full of work, wife, kids, a house, etc, that mostly consumed all of my time and the majority of my money. Sound familiar?

So I thought nothing of it when I signed up my (then) 17-yr old son for a teen safety driving course to be held in the parking area of a SoCal racetrack. He already had his driver's license, but in California only 6 hours of paid instruction are required; the other 50 hours of drivers training can be and are usually taught by parents (which is what we had done). And while I thought that I was a decent driver, I knew that I wasn't a professional driving instructor and wanted my son to have some additional behind the wheel training by a professional before turning him loose on LA's insane freeways where the everyday commute looks like the Daytona 500. Just slower.



While signing him up for the class, I saw that the organization also offered a "high performance driving day" using their cars out on the race track (I was driving the family BMW X5 SUV at that time).

Hmm.... Sounds interesting. Rather than watch my son drive around cones all day, I could take a class on how to drive fast... In someone elses' car... On a real race track... And fulfill a dream...

Honey, I have an idea...

And that is how it all started.



Furthermore, as part of the class, they taught the famous "Rockford" or J-turn. For those of you a bit younger, this turn was made famous by being repeatedly featured in the 70's detective tv show, The Rockford Files.

First day on a track with J-turn instruction? How much friggin' fun was that?

Stay tuned for more, I haven't even bought a Porsche yet...

[Timco]

I wish I was racing in every race I watch.

[Pdwight]

Originally Posted by thstone

Many readers of the racing section of the 986Forum are familiar with my Spec Boxster thread (Spec Boxster Build) which chronicles the building of my race car along with getting licensed, going racing, obtaining sponsorship, and the ensuing fame and riches. Well, at least the racing and sponsorship part.

But I still get a lot of questions from people asking what happened prior to that - how did I get to the point where I was ready to build a dedicated racing car and go wheel to wheel racing? How to get started? What does it take? How hard is it? What does it cost? What car do I need? Can anyone do this?

This is the thread to tell that story and help anyone else who might be interested in a similar path.

The moral to this story is that anyone can do it.

I, probably like you, had never been on a race track, yet I had always dreamed about it. I have dreamt of car racing since I was a little kid. I grew up watching Indycar drivers like Al Unser Sr, Rick Mears, Emerson Fittipaldi, Al Jr, Danny Sullivan, and Bobby Rahal battle it out on the track each season. And in the back of my mind, I have always been the kids in this video;





But at 48 years old (2009), it seemed like that dream was well behind me. Everything that I read said that if you weren't born with a last name like Andretti or Unser and if your parents didn't start you racing karts at age 4, then it was hopeless - and I can guarantee that when I turned 4 yrs old in 1964, kart racing wasn't even in the same universe as my father!

Fast forward another 44 years and I had a wonderful and busy life full of work, wife, kids, a house, etc, that mostly consumed all of my time and the majority of my money. Sound familiar?

So I thought nothing of it when I signed up my (then) 17-yr old son for a teen safety driving course to be held in the parking area of a SoCal racetrack. He already had his driver's license, but in California only 6 hours of paid instruction are required; the other 50 hours of drivers training can be and are usually taught by parents (which is what we had done). And while I thought that I was a decent driver, I knew that I wasn't a professional driving instructor and wanted my son to have some additional behind the wheel training by a professional before turning him loose on LA's insane freeways where the everyday commute looks like the Daytona 500. Just slower.



While signing him up for the class, I saw that the organization also offered a "high performance driving day" using their cars out on the race track (I was driving the family BMW X5 SUV at that time).

Hmm.... Sounds interesting. Rather than watch my son drive around cones all day, I could take a class on how to drive fast... In someone elses' car... On a real race track... And fulfill a dream...

Honey, I have an idea...

And that is how it all started.



Furthermore, as part of the class, they taught the famous "Rockford" or J-turn. For those of you a bit younger, this turn was made famous by being repeatedly featured in the 70's detective tv show, The Rockford Files.

First day on a track with J-turn instruction? How much friggin' fun was that?

Stay tuned for more, I haven't even bought a Porsche yet...

the videos do not work...it says "Video Private "

[thstone]

Originally Posted by Pdwight

the videos do not work...it says "Video Private "

They should be working now. Please let me know if there is still an issue. Thanks!

[BYprodriver]

The 1st professional car control instruction I got was from the man actually doing the J-turns on Rockford Files, Bobby Ore.

[Timco]

Originally Posted by BYprodriver

The 1st professional car control instruction I got was from the man actually doing the J-turns on Rockford Files, Bobby Ore.

That's funny. We always called that pulling a Jim Rockford.

[Perfectlap]

I grew up in a kart (also had a motox bike). But no helmet for either.... Safety was a different story back then! Some guys I knew continued down more formal racing avenues (beyond our empty parking lot races), a few with success while others ran out of money too soon. When it came time to earn my driver's license it was second nature (although I remember that right foot braking felt WEIRD). One friend upon obtaining his learner's permit had his father take him to the autocross to learn how to drive! LOL ... Talk about pressure.

But autocross has always been by far the best route for a late bloomer. Formal driving courses with professional instructors are loads of fun but are also typically super expensive and only a natural driver can absorb all that instruction over the course of a day or two. It's very difficult to mate what the eyes are doing with what's happening in the cockpit and do so without hesitation. Seat time is required of most mortals, and plenty of it. Tricky with autocross because of the limited running, getting the feel for the dynamics of an abruptly moving car is a long journey. Even after many years of experience only a really small % of drivers looking to go further with racing ever really tap into that extra sense that can keep a guy alive when pushing for that last bit of speed at the outer limit. Or simply the ability to shave off that half of 1% on the time sheets and live in that zone at each new track. It's pure instinct of innately sensing where your tires have the best grip before you even get to that spot on the racing line. I think that skill is something that is honed at a very, very early age, and that's assuming the kid shows that ability to build on that early on. There have been some been big exceptions, Damon Hill comes to mind and I think former Jordan GP driver Tiago Monteiro didn't step foot in a racing car (Porsche Cup) until he was in his 20's and Vitaly Petrov formerly of Lotus F1 had no karting experience at all.

p.s.
I was at Daytona last weekend and what strikes me about the pros isn't their speed but their ability to avoid lethal mistakes in a split second moment, time after time after time. And how awful NASCAR are at spectator track safety!!