996 Race Car Shakedown at VIR

Hey guys, Here's some short and mildly entertaining video from VIR. The car is a 2001 Carrera race car that was built with a cage, Moton double-adjustable suspension, Hoosiers, etc, while the engine and transmission are still totally stock. I purchased the car just over two weeks ago from a dealership up in Ohio (Beachwood), hoping that it would be a good foundation for whatever type of racing I wanted to do in the future. According to the dealership, the previous owners were two brothers who were a bit overweight. For the sake of convenience, they had the driver's side roll cage bars cut out of the car. On top of that, the cage had no diagonal brace for the main roll hoop. Needless to say, I immediately sent the car to Piper Motorsport in Leesburg, VA to have the cage reinforced. Piper redid both doors with NASCAR bars, added the much-needed diagonal bar to main roll hoop, added a diagonal brace to roof, added cross bar for harnesses behind the seats, gutted the doors (necessary for the NASCAR bars) and made custom window brackets which allow the windows to be removed for racing and easily fastened/sealed back into place for transport. Here are some pics of the car and the cage work. Gotta love the professional tape job... Cabin shot... Passenger side NASCAR bars... Driver's side NASCAR bars... Piper did great work; I would highly recommend them. I will post a review of how the car handled at a later date.

IIRC someone posted a link to the listing for this car here on RL. Was that You?...

Wow that looks great! Looks like a lot of fun on the track.

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Nope, but that's how I found the car. *whistles*

Yes I remember the ad very well. Glad you were able to salvage the cage and bring it back to compliance.

I'd love to hear from anyone who went to check the car out in person. I'd be interested to know the reasons for not purchasing it. Thanks guys!

You certainly set that car right! I would love to see the window brackets with windows installed, if you have a close-up picture.

You're asking for big trouble by walking your hands around the steering wheel like that in the turns, but otherwise, car sounds great!

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This is what I use. Lol

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Hah, well I'm glad you think the car *sounds* great. As for my questionable driving skills... could you please be a bit more specific as to how my hand placement/movement could cause issues? I am honestly interested in hearing your feedback. Specific turns/times, what exactly I'm doing wrong, and what I should be doing would be helpful. Thanks. When driving a car with a closer ratio steering rack and a smaller steering wheel, I can understand never moving my hands from their homes at 10&2, 9&3, whatever. In this car, though, it seems to be more effective for me to shuffle my hands, at least for the turns that require much more than 90 degrees of steering lock. Again, I am not resistant to change, especially if I learn that something I'm doing is wrong or unsafe. The vast majority of my hand placement/movement choices come directly from the teaching I received from the BSR folks at my first few Friday at the Track sessions at Summit Point. There was a point, years ago, when I realized that my hand placement was pretty damn bad, so I made sure to listen carefully to the instructors and pay close attention to my hand placement in each turn. The feedback I received from the instructors after making the changes they suggested was quite positive, and I've also received positive comments from folks on forums regarding my hand placement in earlier youtube videos. That's one of the reasons why your comments caught me a bit off guard and piqued my interest... so I'm hoping you elaborate a bit.

Any idea where to get more of those BSA wheels? I used to have a set on another car. They were cheap, lightweight, durable, and good looking. Perfect track wheels. I've been searching for another set, but their distributors changed and I can't find them...

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I don't, coffeehead... sorry. I didn't even know what brand they were until you told me. I'm looking to get a wider set of wheels/tires for the car... not sure which brand I'm going to go with yet.

Is this your car? http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsc...nasa-gts4.html

That looks like such a fun car...

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Hah, no, but I did drive up to PA to look at that car only a couple days before I drove to Ohio to get mine.

Never tracked a car before. Looks like those curbs beat the liver out of you. Great fun, though! I don't think I could track my one and only Porsche. Looks like I may have to "invest" in another for the track. Come on lottery! TC

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When you shuffle your hands around the wheel, you limit the amount of opposite input you can use. This is important when the back end starts to slide because you have to turn the wheel opposite, way past center really fast and really hard to catch the slide. If you are fiddling with hand position or if you have limited the ampount of opposite input you can get because your hands are not at 9-3, you can't get the snap you need to keep the car under control and the back end comes around.

^Bingo.

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^^ this.. And also, if for some reason you find yourself drifting off the track and onto the grass, you want to make sure you keep the wheel centered until you get slowed down. With your hands all around the wheel, you have no idea which way is up/centered/straight. If an instructor has told you to do this, do not ever ride with him again. We do not allow students progress to higher run groups until they correct this.

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Thanks for the explanation, guys; I really do appreciate it. This made me think about my hand placement a lot more. As I mentioned in my initial response, this is only really a "problem" with me in street cars with lots of degrees of rotation till I hit full lock. I (mostly) do the right thing in my Skip Barber videos. It's rare that I have an "oh ****" moment in a street car (on or off the track), but when I do, I have always saved it. Well, except for one... when I was young and had no clue how to drive, but let's not talk about that. That incident is what prompted me to learn how to drive. Anyways, it's not like I don't know what it's like to lose control and have to "save it," as shown in the following vids. 2012 911 Turbo, completely stock, street tires. All stability and traction control was completely OFF. Wipers were set to PANIC. I know why this happened (very hot/greasy tires + off-throttle-oversteer + late reaction), but any advice/criticism is welcome... 997TT High Speed Off at VIR - YouTube Skip Barber race at VIR. Dropped the right rear tire in the dirt before turn 10 (south bend), and it was all survival from there on out... Skip Barber - My High Speed Off at VIR - YouTube Skip Barber race at VIR. SKIP TO 4:45... Skip Barber - My Battle at VIR - YouTube

Great videos! Skip Barber looks fun. You obviously have skill... I’m typically not too much of a stickler for exact procedure (do whatever is sensible and works for you), but if you have your hands close together (as you often do going into a tight righthand turn after a shift), it’ll be harder to correct, a lot more so if you need a lot of opposite lock. Look @6:40 in the last video you posted. You managed it fine when you hit the gators but it wasn’t optimal. Here’s a video from NJMP in a 996 street car -turn down the volume- Steering (oversteer) correction highlights from a racetrack in the rain. Porsche 911. - YouTube Imagine some of those corrections with your hands a few inches apart... Some level of shuffle steer is unavoidable and having your hands always in the right position is tough in street based cars. Try to avoid putting your hand “into” the wheel to pull it down with. Have fun out there and be safe, we look forward to more videos with the 996!

After doing a track day on mine - I think motorsports AoS and oil pan baffle would be needed at a minimum - esp on Hoosiers

"Great videos! Skip Barber looks fun. You obviously have skill" Thanks Ahmet... and, yes, Skip Barber was a blast. "I’m typically not too much of a stickler for exact procedure (do whatever is sensible and works for you), but if you have your hands close together (as you often do going into a tight righthand turn after a shift), it’ll be harder to correct, a lot more so if you need a lot of opposite lock. Look @6:40 in the last video you posted. You managed it fine when you hit the gators but it wasn’t optimal." Yeah, I guess it's a double-edged sword and I should consider using the technique a bit more sparingly. "Here’s a video from NJMP in a 996 street car. Imagine some of those corrections with your hands a few inches apart" Coincidentally enough, I just had a near-epic experience at Summit Point this past friday. I am so disappointed that I did not get any video, as it would have actually been quite a bit more impressive than the vid you linked me, but I'll try to describe things as best I can. It was drizzling all day, lightly in the morning and a bit heavier as the day progressed. The first session was the only session that had anything resembling a "dry line," and even that was sketchy. I brought some treaded street tires (Michelin Pilot Super Sports), but I was determined to stay on my Hoosier R6 tires until standing water appeared on the track. I did have some previous experience running on slicks in wet/mixed conditions; about a year ago, I ran my E36 M3 track car at VIR in some really sketchy weather. I had no rain tires, at the time, so I just decided to stay out there on my Kumho V710s until I could no longer safely manage the conditions. That turned out to be a great decision, as it was both massively fun and massively educational at the same time. On top of that, the slicks were more grippy than I thought they would be in those conditions. I found that I could get them hot enough to where they seemed to be completely unaware of the light coating of water on the track. That also proved to be the case for the first session of the morning at FATT this past Friday, but just barely. Shortly after we returned to the paddock, the rain started to get a bit heavier. While there was still no standing water on the track surface, the pavement became extremely greasy, especially in certain spots that had been patched and/or sealed. On top of that, the temps were rather nippy, with highs only in the mid-50s. It was getting so sketchy that a couple people even recommended against me running on the Hoosiers. I thanked them for their advice and proceeded to test the conditions before I made a decision to switch to my rain tires. I was ready for a challenge and was only going to make the swap if conditions forced me to do so. That being said, once I got out on the track for my second session, I had to counter-steer just about as much as I had to .... steer. The entire track was essentially one big skidpad and the experience quickly proved to be an extreme exercise in throttle control and patience. I had to work almost as hard, mentally and physically, as I did in my Skip Barber race at Mid Ohio, which was run during a MUCH harder downpour. That was the most stressful and exhausting track experience I have ever endured, but this FATT session was a close second. I'm relieved to say that I feel like I dealt with the stress much better than I would have in years past. I can tell that I'm becoming more comfortable with anticipating traction events, feeding in the appropriate corrections without over-correcting and, at the same time, still being smooth and maintaing as much speed as I can. I chose to take the normal racing line (no rim-shotting), managed to miss only two apexes the entire day (4x 20 min sessions), and was one of, if not the fastest car out there (and the only one on slicks, to my knowledge). As for my hand placement, I only had one incident where I could have caught a slide a bit more quickly, and it was more the fault of my right foot than my hand placement. For the most part, I seem to know if the car is going to break traction, or not, so it tends not to catch me off guard. In those instances where something does catch me off guard, I can't say that my hand placement/shuffling has ever been the cause of it, nor has it been the reason I did or did not eventually straighten things out. I'm not trying to discount people's advice; on the contrary, I will probably think about hand placement more now than I ever have in the past, but I'm pretty confident that I'm not doing anything seriously wrong. "Some level of shuffle steer is unavoidable and having your hands always in the right position is tough in street based cars. Try to avoid putting your hand “into” the wheel to pull it down with. " Yeah, I've always heard that pushing the steering wheel is better than pulling it, for multiple reasons. I will have to make sure to put that into practice more often in the future. "Have fun out there and be safe, we look forward to more videos with the 996!" Thanks! Your wish is my command... Here's a pretty good one (front and rear views overlaid, rear-view-mirror style) from a session at VIR a couple weekends ago, just before my rear GoPro fell off the car... LOL! 2001 Porsche Carrera 3.4L at VIR (NASA - Oct 5th, 2014) - YouTube It's worth noting that I found out that the car was still setup quite poorly when that video was taken. RRT (a local shop in the Northern VA area) found that the car was almost two hundred pounds over/under on two corners, the ride height was uneven all around, and there was excessive toe-in on the rear tires. The co-owner of RRT actually said that it was the worst corner-balancing job he had ever seen, and was convinced that the previous work was performed on uneven ground. Additionally, as AA717driver noted when he mentioned the curbs giving me a beating, the car is sprung too stiffly. It needs to be softened up a bit so it's more compliant for my style of rather abusive driving. After RRT worked their magic, it was night and day for the first session in mixed conditions at FATT. Obviously, as things got a bit more wet, it was hard to make a good comparison, but the car felt phenomenal. I can't wait to head back out to Summit and VIR in dry conditions before the season ends. I will definitely be taking more video before the season ends, hopefully from interesting and informative angles, as I figure out the best spots to mount the cameras. In the mean time, here's the link to the last few minutes of video and the point at which the rear GoPro actually falls off the car in the braking zone for turn 1, tumbling onto the asphalt. The collision with the pavement caused the plastic case to pop open and the virgin camera (Hero 2) flew out into the atmosphere, unprotected. It bounced one time on the pavement, only slightly scuffing the corner of the camera, and spiraled into the soft grass, relatively unharmed. GoPro Down!! - YouTube EDIT: Can't figure out what I'm doing wrong with these quote blocks. ARGH!!! Fine... I'll just do it the old-school way.

Great footage...you gave me wonderful ride. In the documentary "1" there is in-car camera on Senna and he shuffles his hands right and left around Monaco, but this is a much twistier course then in your pictures. I think you are driving really well, but it also seems like you hand movement got you caught out a couple times. My thought is that if you watch the footage again several times just for your hand movement and compare when you do and when you don't shuffle them, you will sort it out for yourself. The big thing is to be balanced and prepared for making a correction. Another great source of driving tips is watching world rally cup footage...it is much more extreme compared to your track...but it is great for studying car control. Again, my admiration for your driving.

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Thanks for the compliments, John. I watch a LOT of racing vids of all types, and I agree that rally racing is surely one of the most impressive and educational forms of motorsport to watch, especially when you see get to see what the driver is doing. Oh... and, please, never again mention Ayrton Senna and my name in the same paragraph; Senna is turning over in his grave right now! The more that I think about it and watch the video, I realize that, at this point, my hand movement is completely subconscious. I'm no longer consciously choosing when (which turns) I do it. Furthermore, and this is the important thing, I don't think I need to be doing it. For that reason alone (having one less thing to do), I am going to make a concerted effort to stop shuffling my hands. We will see how long it takes me to break the habit.

Do you have video from the FATT session?

"Do you have video from the FATT session?" Nope, sorry. As I mentioned, I'm super bummed that I didn't get any video from that event. I will be going back to Summit on Nov 7th, so I will definitely get some more video then. In the mean time, since this has turned into a video thread, you can watch me drive a stock Audi R8 (V8) around Summit in the rain! R8 FATT Fun in the Rain! - YouTube Edit: What the hell is with the quotes on this forum? Why does it turn most of them into that annoying <<<@!x!@>>> ????

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I will be there 11/7. Will be there in a blue Miata but probably in 1b, definitely not 2.

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Cool, I'll look for you in the paddock.

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Nice driving in this one... Kind of made it scary getting side by side with the guy the 2nd time after he shut the door on you, when you clearly had the inside line... Good stuff...you were pushin...

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Thanks man. And yeah... that guy was a bit scary. That being said, I really don't think he saw me when he ran me off the road. Afterwards, I wasn't really angry, but it became my mission in life to pass him. From 5:05 to 5:45, I was in such a zone that I am not sure I was even in control of my body. I have never driven with such determination before. That's why I want to start racing regularly; going wheel to wheel with someone really brings out my best driving skills.

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Work on your race craft because you needed to shut the door on him and you didn't - more than once.

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Oh, I know... that was a special circumstance, however, because if you break any of the Skip Barber cars, then you have to pay big bucks for the repairs. Plus, I had no more money after paying for that race, hahaha. I essentially saw every single car on track as a big, rolling dollar sign. Needless to say, the saying "discretion is the better part of valor" came to mind quite often.

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True that!

"Do you have video from the FATT session?" I managed to get my hands on a very short clip of video that shows my car at that rainy FATT session; this is the only evidence that I actually went to Summit Point that day. The video was taken by a friend who was running a modded RWD 996TT w/ street tires, so he was definitely having traction issues. As I described in previous posts, it was a very greasy track as the rain started to fall. The driver of the camera car definitely had good car control skills to keep that beast on the road. I was very excited to watch/listen to this video, since it's the first time I've ever heard the car from a 3rd person perspective. I was extremely surprised to hear that it sounds like a V8 muscle car!!! 'Murica!!! Skip to 4:00 if you just want to hear my car. Otherwise, watch the whole video; I think it's definitely worth watching! SUMMIT POINT FATT GROUP 2 SOLO 10-10-2014 996 TURBO - YouTube

Great footage in the VIR race. You were determined to get that pass huh?! Wish I still lived closer to that track.

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Pretty neat video. Your car is a beast.

You still have the engine a transmission fully stock? Hats off to you what an impresive driver!!!!!!!

Thanks guys, I appreciate the compliments! And yes, trans and motor are still stock, as far as I know. I'm guessing this thing has some sort of tune in it, but I don't even know that for sure.

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Let's hope for dry weather 11/7