I was excited, this was finally a chance for me to try the F488 at thunderhill to see how it and I did on my home track.
Flight was nice and uneventful, thankfully no overcast in the morning:
trying a new $69 10 tablet
Once at Thunderhill, as usual, it took me a while to re-learn the track, because I was rusty, and somehow got down to a 1:%3 after a few laps although the car had several seconds left in it. Laptimes were: 1:58, 1:59, 1:57, 1:54, 1:54, and 1:53:
Unfortunately, despite the day staying cool, the first set of tires went down while I was relearning to go faster, so my best time got down to 1:57. I then got the tires set to another used set, but they weren't that great either, and got stuck at 1:57 and couldn't get faster both due to grippier tires and lack of guts to go deeper in some turns where I could definitely have gone a bit deeper. I didn't feel my best and I guess it was overall a good idea that I didn't push it. Here's the last session:
The flight back was more interesting than planned, half the bay area was socked almost to the ground, so I had to fly around via livermore, and was unable to descend to cross the bay towards PAO without getting into Bravo airspace for which I was denied clearance, so I had to fly a fair amount further south, cross south of San Jose, and then fly back in towards PAO which worked out ok. There was a good crosswind on landing but I thankfully kept the motor skills and landed straight on centerline.
This was supposed to be my first day with the F488 at Thunderhill, but unfortunately the car suffered a double failure within 2 laps and I had to pull over. I had some fluid leak which in turn fell on the alternator and fried it. That was the end of the day before it started :(
trying to find the fault
sadly that's the most action I got with the car that day ;)
Early flight back, happened to notice a cropduster at low altitude:
I had been there briefly 10 years prior, and had a chance to see it again. It felt bigger and with more displays, either way, it's a cool museum if you are in the area:
In 20 years of track driving, I lost control a few times. Most often it was because I got tired and/or over ambitious. It doens't take much:
Sometimes, it's not me. That day, Fast Toys rented me their expensive car with totally trashed tires. I kept telling them, they didn't really listen until the tires were visibly corded, and then put another set that was also mostly trash :(
This one was my fault, went a tiny bit wide, the underneath of the very low car, caught, spun me, and caused 10K of damage :(
And then, there is snow, I have many more, but just one:
I'm not much of a wine person, but they had great wines
Next morning, we had a quick intro very early (06:15) to go drive before the ice got too hot:
the professional photographer got there before I did and got this nice shot
glad to be back
great to see the cars waiting for us again
We didn't spend much time in the chalet this year, we only had 3 half days with the 4th day cancelled altogether due to bad weather each time (too warm, or even rain):
Just like last years, I had to re-learn how to stup the cars: sport plus (or sport for turbo cars to avoid the spoiler), and disable PSM:
Mike was my codriver this year (the first day at least, after that we got one car each due to having much reduced driving time):
Mike knew what he was doing, I had to re-learn things, but he hit the ground running :)
The first 2 days, we only had half days (2nd day, we actually left at 06:15 to start driving at runrise until 11:00 when it got warm enough to rain, so the day was over).
Lots of exercises and smaller tracks, this one was Day2.3_Drift_Circle5:
Some of the tracks were a bit tricky and I had to re-learn to go much slower to avoid spinning into a snow bank, like Day2.4_Track1_int:
3rd day was cancelled altogether due to rain and warm weather, so we went karting instead:
I'm not that great at karting, but I'm an aggressive passer :)
I had great hopes that day #4 would make up for all the lost track time, but we weren't able to start driving until noon due to the amount of track damage from rain, and then a snow storm. DAy #4 was icy as hell, the bus wasn't even able to drive in, we had to take cayennes for the last leg:
Emilie, working hard as always :)
Day #4 was a bit tough, some of the tracks were too tight due to water damage (too many cones). I did more or less ok on the wider track, and got some nice controlled drifts, but I also lost the car a few times, including hitting ice too quickly and some terminal oversteer that threw me backwards in a snowbank. I unfortunately needed a cayenne to be towed out...
I did a bit better later in the day, but it was still tough:
On this track, I was doing better I thought, but I got over confident, went a bit too fast, ended up backwards in a snowbank, and had to have a cayenne tow me out :( (track1.6_crash_cayenne_int) at the 03:10 mark:
This was my last session on the last day, given that I Was struggling earlier in the day, it was not too bad (Day4.Track4.3_int). The fun parts are the mega powerslides at 3:35 all the way to 4:00, 06:55 to 07:24, 10:25 to 10:55 in Day4.Track4.3_int:
We got plenty of driving for one day (4H, one car each), but that wasn't enough to make up for all lost time on previous days. Oh well, it is what it is. It still was a lot fo fun, because seriously, how can it not be?
Beautiful pictures from our professional photographer, and he got a few of me in action:
Like each time, thanks to all the instructors and to Porsche for letting us drive their cars and make mistakes, so that we could learn in ways hat would not be possible otherwise. This was fun, we should do this again :)
Very interesting private collection gathered in a small museum in the middle of Mountain View, and that no one knows about since it's not really open to the public. The owner however does open his collection for occasional visits to a few select car clubs, and I was lucky enough to be part of one of those visits. Definitely has some unique vehicles, some one of a kind and that took 20 to 30 years of perseverance before he was able to acquire them:
My plans for getting the F488 challenge for the day, didn't work out, car failed pre-track inspection and wasn't safe to drive. Getting the logistics down to include my 2 guests, was a bit tricky given that my backup car, the 650S, only has one seat, but we made it work with 2 cars and it worked out.
Got there bright and early:
Arrived just in time for the drivers meeting:
thankfully my car was track ready and worked well
Lots of nice cars, the lambo group had 2 rungroups with few cars, so that was plenty of track time (almost 4H) instead of the more limited 2H it would have been otherwise:
Hi Justice, long time no see
There were 2 other rungroups with various cars:
One nice thing we did was a couple of parade laps with the lambos:
About my driving, mmmh, it had been a long time since I last went and I had to re-learn the track a bit. I started around 2:01 and got down to 1:57, which isn't terrible, but my best time some previous day, was 1:55, probably with slightly better tires and more skill. I could have gone faster in 10 and 11, but my survival instinct told me not to go faster into those turns with walls at the end :)
Videos of the last and fastest session: