[masraum]

Originally Posted by Jack Olsen

Yes. The list of particular situations where a modern 911 would beat my car is pretty long. It will accelerate faster. It will probably brake faster. These are two areas where the newer car's weight can be overcome with power or technology.

But the reason I'm quicker than some of the new Porsches at Willow Springs isn't because of how well I know that track. What's particular about Willow Springs is that it doesn't have any 5th-to-2nd (or even 4th-to-2nd) corners. In a fast lap, the lowest speed my car ever drops to is 60 mph. This means I never need to 'dig myself out of a hole' in terms of acceleration -- which would give a huge advantage to a 475-hp GT3 or the 870-hp 918. Willow has very-high-speed (often steady-state, sweeping) corners. So sustained cornering speeds are hugely rewarded, with hard braking and hard acceleration performance not so much.

Through a long 100-mph sweeper, the weight advantage my car enjoys means I can go through that corner faster than a GT3 or even the 918 -- even with all of their technological innovations (four-wheel steering, suspension sophistication, torque vectoring, whatever). Lateral acceleration is where 'plain old weight' is a huge factor. 'Power-to-weight' really only applies when you're talking about straight-line acceleration (or deceleration). Power and cornering speed are not directly related at all.

As it happens, the 918's power advantage is so great that it ultimately buries my lap time by being so awesome on the straights. But I'm quicker through it in just about all of the corners -- which, considering the march of tech progress, is something that still surprises me.

I believe that if it were possible to drop a 918 powerplant (or the equivalent horsepower) into my 911 without adding any weight, I'd be able to navigate Willow Springs faster than the modern car. But of course, it's not possible to do that.

So to be clear: the laws of physics are the laws of physics, and my car is not magically able to best the efforts of 50 years of work by Porsche AG in many ways. But going through a corner, there are some hurdles caused by total chassis weight that technology has still not made irrelevant.

Pshhht, what do you know? Who's this Jack Olsen fella, anyway?

It's nice to see you slumming it, Jack! Nice write up.