The 911 - One remarkable bit of kit

Hi All,

Well, the following may be old news to some of you old hats, but I experienced somewhat of a revelation last Sunday during my first official club sprint event.

Two and a bit weeks ago, I participated in a novice training day designed to teach us the intricacies of racing, i.e., hitting the apex, keeping the car settled, and picking the best braking points, etc. The day also helped us novices get to know the true nature of our cars; 90% of us were in 911's.

On Sunday, the club event was held at the same track as the one used for our novice training day, which meant I could spend most of the day trying for time instead of getting to know the course. In the interest of brevity, I will simply say that by the end of the day, I was lapping the course some 12 seconds quicker than I was during the end of the novice training day when I thought I had the track all figured out. Now, if the 911 was truly a difficult, overrated car as so many adamantly believe, I doubt very much that this greenhorn pilot would have been able to slash so many seconds off my (previous) best time at the venue, or come within 3 seconds of the best times set by veterans in 911’s with identical power to weight ratios.

And let me conclude that I didn't even break a sweat throughout the entire event, nor did the car ever break traction while I went about finding the quickest route around the track in my quarter-century old car, some 12 seconds slower than a 996 GT3-R piloted by a guy who has been racing successfully for as many years as my car is old.

The 911 is not of this Earth.


Matt Holcomb
www.holscope.com/74Carrera