ChrisGTS
Enthusiast
I went to a Porsche Club Drivers' Education event at the new Barber track in Alabama this past weekend. It was a 2-day event with six 30-minute sessions for everyone. I had a great time and wanted to post my impressions about the track:
(1) The facility is beautiful and well-thought-out. The pavement is new and smooth. The "rumble" strips are unpainted, smooth concrete (nice touch, I thought).
(2) There are no significant straightaways. The longest is about 1200 feet. I was driving on street tires, stock alignment, and with a weighty but extremely helpful instructor in the car. I maxed out at 100-105mph at the end of the four straights.
(3) The track is very busy. No place to rest and check instruments like the back straight at Road Atlanta. You are constantly turning one way or the other. This makes concentration important and means that a mistake in one place will screw you up for many turns ahead.
(4) The track has constant elevation changes and camber changes. One of the real keys to driving the track is taking advantage of the banked turns and gravity well spots to apply the power. To me, some of the big power-on spots were counter-intuitive. My main area for improvement if I go back will be to apply more power and sooner in these spots.
(5) The track has some great, fun turns. But horsepower is not a big advantage with all those turns.
(6) The track appears safe. Part of that is the comparatively slow speed vs. something like Road Atlanta. Also, there is good run-off room in most places. And in some places where you can get it wrong, the track is going uphill so that going in too deep will scrub speed and keep you on the track. We had only one wreck among about 180 drivers, and it wasn't severe.
(7) Participants seemed to think that the pavement was very easy on tires. I did not notice any significant wear on my street tires.
I was very glad I made this track my first on-track experience with the Viper. Now I'm ready to go to Road Atlanta this fall. I would go back to Barber, but not without doing a more track-friendly alignment.
I also want to comment that the Porsche Club did a great job running the event. It ran on time and very professionally. Only solo-qualified drivers with previous track experience were permitted, so the level of skill and courtesy were high. I did not see any unfriendly driving on the track.
There were a couple of things that bothered me. A number of full race-prepped Porsche Cup Cars were at the event. But instead of putting them all in one group to run with each other, they put them in every group. This created a huge disparity in speed. Fortunately, the 911GT3R drivers were cool and safe drivers.
Also, the passing rules were not as safe as they could have been. The PCA allows people to pass on either side based on the overtaken car's point-by. This creates a lot of uncertainty for the overtaking car, which is trying to build up speed to make a pass. I had a couple of scares overtaking when the point-by came in a direction different from what I expected. I like the Panoz Track Days rule that requires all passing on the right -- I think it is safer for everyone.
If anyone has any questions about the track or event, fire away. Overall I had a great time and would highly recommend doing an event there.
(1) The facility is beautiful and well-thought-out. The pavement is new and smooth. The "rumble" strips are unpainted, smooth concrete (nice touch, I thought).
(2) There are no significant straightaways. The longest is about 1200 feet. I was driving on street tires, stock alignment, and with a weighty but extremely helpful instructor in the car. I maxed out at 100-105mph at the end of the four straights.
(3) The track is very busy. No place to rest and check instruments like the back straight at Road Atlanta. You are constantly turning one way or the other. This makes concentration important and means that a mistake in one place will screw you up for many turns ahead.
(4) The track has constant elevation changes and camber changes. One of the real keys to driving the track is taking advantage of the banked turns and gravity well spots to apply the power. To me, some of the big power-on spots were counter-intuitive. My main area for improvement if I go back will be to apply more power and sooner in these spots.
(5) The track has some great, fun turns. But horsepower is not a big advantage with all those turns.
(6) The track appears safe. Part of that is the comparatively slow speed vs. something like Road Atlanta. Also, there is good run-off room in most places. And in some places where you can get it wrong, the track is going uphill so that going in too deep will scrub speed and keep you on the track. We had only one wreck among about 180 drivers, and it wasn't severe.
(7) Participants seemed to think that the pavement was very easy on tires. I did not notice any significant wear on my street tires.
I was very glad I made this track my first on-track experience with the Viper. Now I'm ready to go to Road Atlanta this fall. I would go back to Barber, but not without doing a more track-friendly alignment.
I also want to comment that the Porsche Club did a great job running the event. It ran on time and very professionally. Only solo-qualified drivers with previous track experience were permitted, so the level of skill and courtesy were high. I did not see any unfriendly driving on the track.
There were a couple of things that bothered me. A number of full race-prepped Porsche Cup Cars were at the event. But instead of putting them all in one group to run with each other, they put them in every group. This created a huge disparity in speed. Fortunately, the 911GT3R drivers were cool and safe drivers.
Also, the passing rules were not as safe as they could have been. The PCA allows people to pass on either side based on the overtaken car's point-by. This creates a lot of uncertainty for the overtaking car, which is trying to build up speed to make a pass. I had a couple of scares overtaking when the point-by came in a direction different from what I expected. I like the Panoz Track Days rule that requires all passing on the right -- I think it is safer for everyone.
If anyone has any questions about the track or event, fire away. Overall I had a great time and would highly recommend doing an event there.
