Its Not About the Horsepower

Had my first DE yesterday at the Mission Raceway in Mission, BC and it was a blast. Highly recommended. I learned something really important too. Being the fastest car is not about the horsepower. The advanced group contained a new GT3 RS, GT3's, GT2's, several 911 Turbos, 997's, an F430, a 1999 bone stock NA 996 and two 944's. The NA 996 performed very well, upper third of the pack and I was impressed. The fastest car? A 944! Two things made the difference: obviously driver skill was #1 and #2 was tires. The 944 and the 996 both were shod with Hoosier racing tires. I talked at length with the 996 owner. He has 85,000 miles on the car, with about 30-40 track days on it. It's also his DD. No major engine problems, just a starter, MAF and O2 sensor in 13 years of ownership. I know its been said here many times, but I learned that if you want to go faster, invest in your driving skills (and maybe some tires).

JA-MON... makes you look at cars in a whole new light...what I used to think was a nice car is not the same as now....I see some ratty 1/2 painted dirtbag cars and think "holy crap, that thing is awesome" because I am looking at the suspension, lightweighing, and all around track fastness of the thing...then some shiny new car rolls up and I think.... MEH.... whatever

I'm afraid of the inevitable.

yeah... it aint da fiddle.

I learned that real quick when I did my 1st track day. Its all good to have all that HP but its all about the skill

Was the 944 black? I suspect that was Ian M in his 951. It's *heavily* modified. A little bit of talent, a lot of practice, and total familiarity with your machine will make a guy *very* fast indeed. How was the weather by the way?

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No, the 944 was maroon, but there was also a black one there. The weather was perfect (Friday).

How deep was the snow? Nice to hear of your accurate observation.

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Ha! No snow. This is the Wet Coast of Canada. The itty, bitty part of Canada that remains essentially snow-free. Remember the Vancouver 2010 Olympics? It has been raining with few breaks since last fall. A very wet year and slow start to spring/summer. Friday was exceptional, clear skies, around 20 C. Perfect track day weather.

Karlooz has a superspec 996(110k miles- no rms and still kicking butt) ie 2500 lb full raceprep- it can beat 98% of stock street gt3's if equal drivers up in norcal. Other 2% just a few tenths faster. Like one mentioned it's driver skill. Jrgordonsenior is even faster in his spec 996. Had a 99 996- never had an issue with car other then one rms in the 1st 3 months of ownership- great car. Sold car to get 6 gt3 with 47k miles. Mike

I used to find it quite amusing when I used to autox an MR2-Spyder and the Viper guys would come down. They'd all get beat really bad by my 125hp roadster and then come over and ask me what I did to it. I'd say...."Shhhh...don't tell anyone, but I changed the shift ****....". I swear you could actually hear the "shrinkage"....

Agree on driver #1 and setup #2 (tires in this case) being the big advantages. My 944 track car is faster than any of my street cars in spite of double the engine horsepower. Also, a better driver in my 944 can easily wring out a couple more seconds on a two-mile track at this point. I wouldn't mind checking out Mission Raceway at some point. So far, I've only spent track time at PR and PIR in our area.