The last time I had driving lessons I was 15 years old in high school driver's ed. class-way back when the prevailing wisdom was that teaching kids to drive was a worthy course in the school curriculum.
I'm proud to say I still use many of the traffic-handling tips I learned those many years ago from Coach Hawkes.
I'm less proud to say that from the moment I began driving I've occasionally tested both limits and laws while behind the wheel. Never in a carefree, reck- less way, but I do like driving fast and I enjoy a good road.
Driving fast and cutting hard into curves were never part of my formal education in the boxy brown Chrysler K car I used in driver's ed.-which consisted mainly of turning, merging and parallel parking. So it was quite a step up when I visited the Porsche Sport Driving School at
Barber Motorsports Park near Birmingham, Alabama.
Sixteen turns and more than 80 feet of elevation changes over 2.38 miles makes for a good road. A very good road.
"Park" is a very fitting term for this Leeds, Alabama facility. Built with motorcycle racing
in mind, Barber blends a tight, winding track into 740 acres of beautiful Alabama countryside with landscaped gardens and steel sculptures competing with high-octane engines running
on both two and four wheels. The track hosts multiple racing series-IRL IndyCar, GrandAm and AMA Superbike-for both cars and motorcycles. When the pros aren't racing the track many can be found behind the wheel of a sleek, race-ready Porsche teaching Sunday drivers like me how to hug the correct line to make those cars move just as they're meant to.
Overlooking a racetrack lined with Porsches is a very cool way to start your day. On the flip side, knowing you're going to drive every one of them is both nerve-wracking and extremely exhilarating.
Black Boxster. Yellow Cayman S. White 911 Turbo. Silver 911 Carerra S. Platinum Panamera GTS-that's a lineup of German engineering that links extreme performance to luxurious exte- rior lines and interior comforts. Our instructors drove home the point that each of these cars is showroom stock, meaning the cars on the track are virtually identical to the car you would drive off the dealer lot-400 horses and all.
These cars roar. You can hear and feel the reined-in power ready to be unleashed. Driving a manual, 7-speed 911 Carrera S, I never got out of 3rd gear even as I neared 90 miles an hour down the Barber backstretch. What in the world would you be doing to shift that beast into 7th?
These days Porsche pushes PDK transmissions that provide ex- ceptional gear changes without the need for a clutch. You can drive them in full automatic or simply use the paddle shifters placed handily on the steering wheel. The pro trainers say even they can't shift the cars more efficiently than the PDK, shaving actual seconds off track lap times.
We partnered up in twos for track time. The class of about 100 total people was mixed between men and women, old and young, Americans and Europeans. Some had their own helmets, a few even had driving shoes.
Driving shoes? Who knew?
Most were Porsche owners. I was just a wanna-be.
In groups of five cars each, we were led around the track by a pro driver serving basically the same function as the pace car in a race. He set the best line for the course and he regulated the speed. He spoke to us through two-way radios as we amateurs each drove a lap, pitted, swapped seats and turned another lap.
After driving one car for a lap, we rotated to the next one, making our way from one rocket to the next-our con- fidence and speed increasing every 2.38 miles.
On my first lap I hit about 60 in the straightaways and in the curves I was too nervous to look at the speedometer. My next lap curves were cleaner at 50 and I hit a top speed of 70. By my final lap, the speedometer shot above 90 on the straightaway and I was pushing the car into the corners, breaking hard as I entered and forcing my way out with a lot of throttle.
As far as partnering up, I was lucky. Very lucky. By chance I paired off with Tim Parkes, a native Canadian whose been in Chattanooga for two decades. Tim made up for everything I lacked in both performance driving details and Porsche perfection. He's owned a fair share of fine, German-engineered autos and he's tested his and his car's abilities on Barber, Atlanta Motor Speedway and other tracks. Tim's smooth turns, easy track transitions and balance through the Barber banks made me real- ize how little I actually know about handling a high-perfor- mance sports car.
Tim generously praised my sometimes shaky steering, choppy braking and goosing of the gas pedal as he hung on in the passenger seat. I, on the other hand, never thought twice as I sat in the passenger seat while he carved into curves mere feet from the slower, inexperienced driver ahead, and perfectly tracked the taillights of the pro driver in the Porsche ahead of us, turn after turn.
Tim is serious. So serious he is waiting for his special order 911 Turbo S-one of the first to be delivered to the United States. He's so serious he's going to Germany later this month to see the car move along the assembly line.
That's serious.
And it's pretty cool.
Most of these Porsche owners have a similar connection to their car. They may not go to the plant in Germany to see it built, but they are avid owners, interested owners, sharing in
a social circle that at the very least can basically blow most other auto enthusiasts right off the road.
Motorcyclists have the drop- down wave; Jeep drivers gesture knowingly to one another. These Porsche people simply know that they have the tools and technology to take on any other car on the road, whether it's on I-75 or the intricate turns of Barber Motorsports Park.
These cars, and the Sports Driving School, aren't just set up for track laps. We did skid pad lessons, learning to avoid over-steer and slide and glide out of sticky situations. There were performance driving techniques, slalom courses, hard stops, launches, lane changes and even an off-road ride with the Cayenne where we tested the air suspension by literally floating the SUV on two wheels while the technology took over to guide us over seemingly impassable ledges.
Back on the track, the highlight of the experience was the hot lap session where we took turns riding shotgun with the pro drivers as they pushed the Porsches into the track in a way none of us would have dared. We hit 120 in the stretches and took turns at above 80, covering the 2.38-mile course in 97 seconds.
Thinking back on his first visit to Barber, Tim told me he was actually shocked on his first hot lap. "I was closing my eyes half the time," he recalls.
But as he's tested his own abilities, learned to trust the cars and ridden along on a lot of other hot laps, he longs for the precision and pace that the pros offer as they work the track from bank to bank, rolling through the S-curves, weaving into hairpins and accelerating out of corners to surge into straightaways.
"These guys are just making that car dance through the course and it really just blows your mind," Tim says.