The adventures of Debbie the girl : racecar driver
 

I think I may have created a monster .....

I've known Debbie about 6 months now .
When I met her she had little to no interest in cars .
She has had a couple of cool aircooled beetles in the past and her current car was a new beetle turbo .
Because she liked the colour .
And because she thought it was cute .

I bought the boxster about 5 weeks ago now ..
I was putting too many miles on the 997 , there was a lull between projects after modifying her beetle and getting my 964 back from the painters , and it was cheap ...

I decided it would be an awesome idea to put her on the insurance .
I could then volunteer her as designated driver and get as drunk as I wanted too :cool:

Fatal mistake ...

She made comments along the lines of :
it feels so good around the corners ..
I can't believe how much fun it is ..
It wants me to drive it faster ..
Etc . Etc.

And so the seed was planted .
I suggested doing some training in the car to make her understand it a little better and become a more competent and safer driver in the process .
We talked about autocross and how it was easy ... Just driving around cones in a parking lot :rolleyes:

Well , she got so excited she couldn't sleep !!
(Oh ****************)
So I contacted a couple of pca instructors and started the process of getting her some professional advice whilst learning .
I'm a firm believer in practice does not make perfect , it makes permanent ..... You have to be practicing the right things from the start ;)

The car still is not ready (project car and all will be revealed in a week or two) , yet there was a pca autocross this weekend at el toro , and a mentioned we may want to go and check it out ....

Another fatal mistake , another sleepless night .

So sometime after lunch on Sunday we finally arrived ...

Daunting .
Apprehensive .
Scared .
Nervous .
I'm not sure how to describe it , but the was still enthusiastic even though she was surprised by the size , speed , and professionalism of it .
(Oh ****************)

Later that day she did convey her main worry from our spectator session :
She had never worn an helmet before .
(Oh ****************)

With this , I realized I had missed a vital step on the racer ladder .
Go karts !!!

How could I be so stupid !!

It is the logical first step .

So suggested we go karting sometime before her first autocross .
Another mistake .
Another sleepless night ..

So that is what we did tonight's.
I researched local tracks , and go kart world in Carson seemed ideal .
6 tracks , different speed karts , competence testing for faster carts , and gas powered .
It seems all the local tracks now use electric karts , and I have never driven one , so I wanted gas as imho it takes that long to pick up scrubbed speed due to bad driving i learned pretty quickly the best way around the track (plus the fact I had a 250lb pipe fitter catching me up and "bumping" my rear every time I messed up :D

A bit of background before I post the pics and videos ...

Debbie has been driving over 30 years now and has never had a ticket .
Up until 6 months ago Debbie had never been in a porsche
Up until 6 months ago Debbie had never been in a car doing 100 mph
Up until 6 months ago Debbie had never been in a convertible
Debbie thought I was stupid when I suggested bend and slip road speed signs where merely a suggestion of the minimum speed .
Debbie involuntary screamed when I demonstrated pdk launch control .

Debbie's that smooth at driving , I fear she will be a better driver than me :rolleyes:

Debbie said her first time karting was awesome then went strait to bed .
I'm still up now at nearly midnight , struggling with the adrenalin rush and typing an essay online :rolleyes:

Yip .
I have definitely created a monster
:D

So we had to do a skidpan track session , and a half-speed car session to qualify for our "licences" to drive the big boy carts .

We did this together so there are no pictures of Debbie finishing and me waiting for a marshall to push me back onto the track :rolleyes:

I decided to hold a 30 minute drivers meeting where i would teach her everything I know .
After a minutes talking , a few seconds explaining that racecar spelt backwards is racecar , and five minutes silence , we decided to abandon the lesson and go strait to the track .


Hers a pic of debbie being nervous and excited , yet looking kinda cool ..

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And her is a pic of her "instructor" looking like a dick in an oversized helmet .

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Obviously I kicked ass and was the most awesome driver they had ever seen , so I sat out the next session so I could see where Debbie went wrong and show my other main skill .
Photography .

the pics may seem to show she calmed down each lap and got tighter and faster .
I am disputing this .
I say her girls wrists couldn't handle the pressure and she had to ease off as the laps went by .
It is obvious she was going faster the first few laps as she was sideways in the corners , weakening out to sideways on the exit to the straits, then weakening out to be flat throughout .
(I am not jealous or bitter )

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Fix the links!! :)

I can't !!!

I'm used to forums with a youtube thing :)

The Internet is another one of my awesome skills :rolleyes:


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Just grab the url and forget the forum formatting!!

Manly ass-out through the corner
Jul 22, 2013 - YouTube


Iffeminate ass-out exiting the corner
Jul 22, 2013 - YouTube


And girly smooth driving all the way through .
Jul 22, 2013 - YouTube

Good strategy, distract the other drivers with Debbie so you can get an edge. :p

Now she'll be asking if you can build her a racecar too, and you'll have to unless you want to share yours.

Another Porsche convert :cheers:

I'm not sure about a racecar !!!
She's more than happy with a relatively stock looking car and knowing how to drive it ..


I just hope it stays that way :rolleyes:

A have 73 racecar shell in storage as a long term project .
The idea is to make it into an rsr style hot rod to be used on the streets for summer sunday blasts etc .

If push comes to shove it would be cheaper to keep that as a racecar than a roadcar , but I doubt it would be as competent as a boxster .

Who knows what the future will bring :D

Just image her reaction to speed yellow !!

It's still yellow from its race days ...

Gulf colours is where it's at :D



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Steve Lindberg built?? (I may have the speeling wrong) I met him at the Mid Ohio SCCA Runoffs when I was crew chiefing for two SCCA Porsche's!! One ran in GT2 and the other in GT3 (circa 1993 or 4.. I have slept since then)

I don't know brad .
I'll have to look back through my emails to see .
I bought it off don Ramsey at aircooled classics in Knoxville .


Just been karting again
, great fun , but no pics as we where the only two there on the fast karts so we went on together .
I only managed to spin off 3 times :D
One recovered and two needing Marshall assistance :rolleyes:

Oh and this time I also picked a helmet off the rack by trying different ones for size , rather than grabbing the biggest I could find for comedy value .
This meant i could drive with 2 hands on the wheel , rather than one on the wheel and one holding the helmet on .

We're going to k1 in irvine tomorrow to try out the electric karts ..

Managed to get a REAL good deal on a pair of bell sa2005 helmets today ....
If anybody takes a size small and wants an open face helmet for ax etc send me a pm and ill pass on the details . (I'm pretty sure it's a pricing error)

No pricing error, just closing out old stock Ian. The 2005 helmets expire and become obsolete for most motorsport events in 2015 so they are priced to move now. If you don't need date compliance they are at a very good price right now.

Sounds like you guys had a blast. I plan on going carting with some friends soon!

Reduced down to 200 everywhere I've looked .
Not a great deal compared to the prices of sa2010 variants .....

I got them for less than 40 each .

That's LESS than it costs to replace the peak ...

A great deal if you don't have a helmet , even if it only lasts until 2015 comes out .
I thought I read that 2005 will be good until the 2015 versions are actually tested and available and this is normally a year behind (2016) ?
Either way , it was an irresistible bargain !! :D
If we get a dozen AXs out of it I'll be happy .

Now I have to see if the gas karting place will let us use open-faces then we don't have to wear their scabby helmets and head socks !!!

:)

The electric karts at k1 where great fun .
We got there early and there was only 2 other guys on track with us .
One was even wearing our local pca region tee shirt , but he left before I could say hello .

It's a lot neater and more "corporate" than the gas engined place .
The carts where new , and more importantly the helmets where new and had padding in them and where sized correctly :)
Even the head-socks where "one use only"

A different experience as the track was flat and the karts where electric , but was awesome .
I highly recommend you try them out if you have a place local .

No pics though .

I went and did 60mph karts with some friends. Crazy stuff!

Glad you had fun !!
it is one of them things that EVERYBODY should try ..
We had planned on doing gas Saturday and electric Sunday again .
But it got too late once I had finished installing her rear muffler so we missed out on Saturday .

Did two 14 lap goes on the electrics again this morning though !! :D

Awesome fun , and we both shaved a second off our best lap time on the second go .

I think these are 40mph karts .
Have yo seen the f1 karting thing ?
I think it's in minn or somewhere . Open outdoor track and 100mph rotax karts :eek:
I wish that was as close as my local tracks are ...

I just had a quick look at our print-out from the 3 sessions we have done upto now ..
We are both getting progressively quicker with our fastest laps :D
Great fun and highly addictive !!!

The electric place we go to puts print-outs for the racers on a counter after each session , so I have been keeping these .
There is a graph on there , but I don't know what it means .
It also has a time for each lap .
Interesting reading ... On our 3rd session there was a 4 car pile-up that had us both stopped behind it and that lap time and graphline went through the roof :D

So this weekend I booked us both on our first autocross event .
San Diego pca at the Qualcomm stadium next Sunday :D

I have a bad back so no karting practice :(

I'm not going to be able to make it this time Ian, but I was looking forward to seeing this spectacle and meeting some new folks from the board.

My observation is that the San Diego group is a great bunch and friendly, but a little shy, so you'll have to make the effort to connect with them and break the ice.

I'll catch you at a future event soon...best of luck to you both.

I met one of them yesterday .
A very nice man called roger who was rebuilding his boxster ready for this event and came to buy a part off us .
We both will hopefully have an Instructor too so shouldn't be that bad :)

There doesn't appear to be any Oc events for a while so we may be heading back to San Diego for their next one .

Another thing of Note at the Auto-X is that if you are keen to race and want to get high in the points then the Class of your car is important as well.

There are the CC classes which most people race in and then theres the SS classes.

I found out that at the Tech Inspection they just lumped me in the SS class for my 986 "S" which turned out well.

There were only 4 cars in that class and I came in 3rd with a lousy time and the other guy being a DNF...BUT, because I finished in the top 3 I got much more points than if I had been in the CC class.

Just Saying its something to consider if your really into playing the game.

Times of course really determine your skill, and the SMILE on your face determines how much FUN you had.

My last race gave me a big smile because I finally felt like I had a good 1st run through the tricky cone slalom part, even though my times were lousy, timer failed to record properly on run 2 and I spun out on run 3, turn 1, figuring my 1st run was the best so just pushed it that much harder.:D

I need to send an email about that .....

I wasn't sure on classes so just booked us both into the one at the top of the list .
I think it was ss1

Points are immaterial ...

I now have a map .
Can anybody explain it please ?

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps63c4cca2.jpg

I missed your map post, so youll have run the course by now.

Did you have fun?

Give your rundown on how it went. Picturs.

How did race girl like it?

I'll be at the next months race for sure.

So yesterday we took the c4 and boxster to San Diego for the autocross .

Obviously I am an awesome team chief and i had everything planned to perfection .
so I was still fitting the new wheels and tires where on the boxster about 7 hours before we had to set off , then rushing to the FedEx store to print our inspection sheets :rolleyes:
But it seems i forget to check the so called "important" stuff .
The scruteneers overlooked the fact I had fitted nice new wheels and failed the boxster as I hadn't secured the battery :D

So we both shared the carrera .

We had an awesome time , and I'd like to thank the sd pca for being great hosts , and our instructors for having patience , a sense of humor , and a great deal of knowledge to pass on to us :D

Due to the carrera being a pdk launch car it was well specced by the factory .
But the car came with LSD , sportPASM , M030 etc so they all added up to put it in the cc11 class even though I only added 20 class-points for the gt3 cup-lip .
And THAT is my excuse for finishing bottom in class :D
( we are ignoring the fact my car is about 100 times more capable than my driving is )
;)

The timing office put Debbie in the cc11L ladies class .

Which she won ...

Great ... She gets a medal , I get to pay for a new set of tires .... Typical !!!

Out of the 119 racers I was expecting us to come in 118 and 119 , but we both did well !! :D

I only got a"talking to" once too !!
First lap first corner spin-off , followed by another spin-off around the half-mile point :D

Remarkable considering I was expecting to get banned from San Diego and a bill for damaged cones :)

I didn't get any pictures , but did manage a few videos of Debbie driving .

Here she is at the start , and driving past me on the first strait
I think it gets around 70-80 mph before braking for the 90* left ?

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7start - YouTube

7start - YouTube

I just found some pictures online .
Photography by Greg Phillips and Ted Whitte from San Diego pca


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Glad you had a good time.

I'd stick to the cheaper tires and rims for awhile until you feel your skills getting to the point where it will really make adifference.

Im using Hankook V12's which are grippy enough, cheap and will last ~5 race days.

These are cheap rims and tires . :D
The car needed new rears due to uneven wear and and annoying road noise .
I will eventually get her tires on the old stock rims , The new ones are just for show :eek:

I don't think there is anything happening now until October so I have plenty of time to get the boxster ready ....


I'll just puts the stock potenza on mine as the fronts are still good .

Today I booked us onto the 3-day weekend performance driving school in San Diego in October . :D

None of the local pca chapters have an event listed before then , and she is desperate to do it again , so I also talked to the coordinator of the local bmw club and got permission to attend that at the el toro airbase in September .

In the meantime , she is customizing her helmet with the free martini porsche stickers that our local dealer has at the parts counter , and is practicing helmet wearing .....


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Sounds like you're both progressing fine! Keep it up! :cheers:

Your gonna love the Performance Driving School and learn some neat tricks in keeping your car in control on wet soapy pavement.

Ever since that course I drive the car with total confidence and can take it to the edge of traction and over while fully in control.

Learning all the race type turning tactics on the Friday is priceless and will go a long way towards making you faster on the track.

Saturday you'll be driving in soapy wet short courses to illustrate various techniques.

Sunday you will be doing mini Auto-X.

I would also bring the Boxster as they will group you according to car type and you will learn that cars specific handling tricks.

It was funny to see the 911's group losing their tails all day long (Rear weighted and power) while the Boxsters just kept going faster and faster around the soapy oval and took a bit of practice to actually make them loose their tails.

My instructor actually had to grab the parking brake to make the tail end slide out as I had new Hankook V12's and they are really good in the wet.

Its better if you just use your regular worn tires for this course.

You are also going to hit a lot of cones during this course so bring some wide blue masking tape and do your front spoiler edges up to the back of the front tire well and that will keep things pristine. You will hit cones dead center as well so do the whole front bumper/spoiler

Heres our motley crew after fun weekend of throwing the cars around all over the track.
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Second on the Hankook Ventus V12s. Much more grip than the Michelin Pilot Super Sports I had on before.... and less than $500 for a set of four mounted and balanced from SD Tires in Escondido.

Ian, very lucky girl. Bonus points she has a passion for cars. :cheers:

Thanks for the tips guys .
I have made a mental note to check prices on v12s ....... I think we will beekeeping the stock wheels for ax-ing ...

After dropping the boxster at thepaintshop , we Went and did a couple of races karting earlier this evening .

We cannot find the printouts from our first 3 visits , so went onto the k1 website to check lap times .
It only told us her fastest lap from her first 3 races ... Progressively better each time .
But her first race today she dropped back around a second , then pulled it back in the second race to 27 seconds :D

The full printout tells a better story though ...
It gives the times of each lap , and the average over a 14 lap race ...

So the fact her best lap in the 5th was over a second faster than her best lap in her first is great ,
But the speed in the first race could not be sustained and could count as a fluke :eek: yet in her 5th race she beat it by a second EVERY LAP :cool:

So not just getting faster , but getting consistent AND consistently faster :D
Not counting the first lap due to standing start , and the second lap to get upto race speed , EVERY lap was in the 27 range ...

She wants to go again on Thursday , so I will try to keep the printouts for a thorough comparison :rolleyes:


Does anybody on her go K1 karting ?
I still can't work out what the graph means ..

I always thought it would be fun to go Karting but wondered if the electrics were good. It sure sounds like they could be on the expert setting.

I had been looking at Adams Track in Riverside as they have a nice long track and some fast gas karts.

I think would be fun for a bunch of us PCA racer type folks to go some time and meet / race and oogle our Porsches in the parking lot.

Hmmmm, maybe combine this with a group run through the Ortega twisties or somewhere on the way there.