Got to give the Porsche boys credit.....

[jt1]

....when it is well deserved. I went to a track event at CMP this weekend, sponsored by Carolinas PCA, and when I got my info packet I was stunned to see 125 cars signed up! Normally 80 or 90 cars is a pretty full event, and my thoughts were "this is gonna be a train wreck in a tunnel, what are they thinking?".

 

Boy was I wrong.

 

They pulled it off like clockwork. Sign in, tech, drivers meetings, pit traffic, on track management, and general track event issues were all handled with speed and precision. There were only a few incidents and they were dealt with resulting in a minimum of loss of track time. We got 3 1/2 hrs track time, which is pretty good for a two day event with 5 25 car run groups. They even had a five minute gap between groups for staging, so if your run was 20 min you got the whole 20 min. They did an awesome job.

 

Lots of eye candy too. A new Carrera GT ($458,000), a Ferrari Testarossa, a Ferrari 360, a Maserati, and my favorite, a 930s slant nose. Also a beautifully restored 69 911 that looked like it just rolled off the showroom floor.

 

Weather was nice, car ran well with no problems, my student was a great young guy, and I had a lot of fun running with some of the Porsche guys.

 

A really great weekend.

 

John

[randy 77zt]

i quit going to nasa events in norcal because of not getting my money's worth of track time.a lot of smaller clubs popped up that usually only have 50 or 60 cars .much better.

[mark]

Glad to hear your weekend went well. are you still going to the 3-25 day at CMP? I have to get mine back together AGAIN. I may not make unless I get really motavated. Nice to hear the porsche boys let you come and play. Could anyone there hang with the Z? I doubt it.

 

Mark

[Jeff]

I've run with the Florida Crown Region PCA at Roebling Road something like 5 times now and their events have all been flawless. There is always some nice eye candy and it's great fun to go out and mix it up with some high dollar machinery.

 

Myself and a couple of friends will be at Roebling with them on April 15th & 16th if any of you guys are interested.

[jt1]

Randy: I went to a NASA event and it sucked. Gave them a second chance and it was worse, I haven't been back since.

 

Mark: What kind of trouble? That sucks. I was going to go the 25th but may not if you're not going, since I'm going to VIR the next weekend I think. Let me know if I can help out with repairs. Tom Bobbit was there with his GT3C car and it was fast(real fast). We ran together some, If I was in front I could pull him on the straights but he would eat me up in the turns. If he was in front he would slowly pull away from me. His car could turn those laps consistently, after about 3 laps I would have my tires so hot I would really start dropping back. He was showing me his data acquisition system and it's amazing. Just the data acquisition stuff cost more than my whole car. Position and speed anywhere on track, lateral g's, brake & A g's, steering & throttle position, A/F, EGT, and enough graphs to keep Pete happy for a year. I would never figure all that out.

 

Jeff: Don't get down to Roebling much, it's over a 5 hr pull, but have a good time and wind her up down the frontstraight.

 

Most asked question of the weekend:

 

"What kind of 240Z is this?"

 

John

[mark]

From what I could tell, laying on my back looking thru where the clutch fork goes in to the tranny, looks like the collar pulled off the made in China pressure plate. Never seen that before. Next time good parts. I'll know more when I pull it apart.

Well if you are going to put pressure like that on me I guess I'll have to go now if the car will cooperate.

Mark

[Mikelly]

John, I had no idea you were instructing...

 

Sad to hear about NASA, as I was leaning towards doing some of their events... I really liked the last event at VIR with the TRIAD Zcar Club and THSCC. I'll keep those guys in mind when I sign up for future events... I really want the Z back together... Don't want to beat on the Vette to much more...

Mike

[jt1]

Mark has too much power for chinese clutches!

 

Mike, I only instruct at CMP, it's the only place I have enough experience. I started last year and enjoy it if my student has a good attitude. If he has a bad attitude sometimes I get one too. He had a 240sx, but had problems with it so he brought his daily driver, a mazda protege. It was his first DE event, but he progressed remarkably, by lunchtime Sunday we were passing several other cars each session, some of them 911's! I wish I could learn that fast.

 

The two NASA events I went to were wrecks. Both were in 02, with NASA-VA, at CMP. They were expensive, near $300, when most groups were around $225-250, and we only got three 20 min sessions each day. Organization was terrible, you only got to run about 40 min actual time. By lunch the schedule was about 30 min behind both days and nobody new when to line up, just a big mess. They may have there stuff together better now. A friend goes to Road Atlanta with the NASA SE bunch and he says they put on a nicely done event.

 

Tri-Z/THSCC always does a good job, and you can run the time trial if you want.

 

John

[JMortensen]

Must be an East coast thing, because all the NASA events I've run (open track and autox -- probably 30 total) have gone off without a hitch. There was one autox which was a NASA event but was "hosted" by another club that was pretty bad, but every other time has been great.

 

POC is the Porsche group to run in CA, and I have to agree that they know what they're doing and have seemingly endless $$$ to throw at an event. Every time I've been out with them it has run like clockwork, and they have put on without a doubt the best track events I've been to. Not to mention the ear to ear smile that comes with passing 911's! One thing I really like about POC is that they rent transponders, so you can really see what happened lap by lap and session by session. Never seen that anywhere else.