Just took the class and would highly recommend it. As background I have done DE's for 20 years and have raced in Chump Cars and LeMons for 5 years. The point is I have lots and lots of experience and I'm the fastest guy on my team by a wide margin. In addition we have improved a lot in our racing and are now a podium contender (in our opinion). Last few races were 18th, 11th, 8th, and a DNF (in 4th when driver #2 smoked the motor). We are getting better and I'm very comfortable driving in all conditions (night, rain, day, cold, fog, you name it). Completed 3 or 4 2 hour stints at Barber in Feb at a race (came in 8th overall). I thought I was pretty good; I'm not.

Turns out I learned wrong. The Masters Class was outstanding in helping me to improve vision and trail braking. I am very smooth but I was not taught to use the brakes the way the pros do it (very, very, very hard early and then feather out as you turn and approach the apex). I spent two days learning that and I now know what it feels like to do it right. I've always been hard on brakes, it was me and not the brakes!

The exercises were also very helpful and fun. Never done an autocross so the team autocross competition was a ton of fun. They break up the class into groups of 5 and at the end you have a timed 3 lap, for each driver including driver change competition. Ton's of fun and a great learning experience.

I cannot say enough about the instructors who are all serious racers with lots of experience in virtually every form of road racing and very knowledgeable in the 991. One of my highlights was going out with one to them and seeing and feeling what a pro can do in the car. Frankly it was shocking how much faster he was than me and how much farther he will take the car to the edge than I do. I've got a lot of work to do.

BTW, you also get to try some pretty cool stuff. I drove, on track or in exercise, a Caymen S PDK, a 991S PDK, a 991 MT, a Panamera Turbo (what a beast), a Macan, a 991 Turbo S, and a 997.2 GT3. Really cool to drive all those, many back to back on the track. I've always been a MT guy but after driving the PDK's in anger, I'm a convert. They are brilliant!

Anyway, I'll post some pics when I get to the house but if you have not taken the course, don't upgrade your car until you do. I'd highly recommend it.

 

Do you mean 997.2 GT3?

 

I will be in Leeds on July 17-18 for Masters course, the basic course last year was a blast and made some great PCAR friends from around the country. Am really looking forward to doing the "MASTERS" in July.

 

Good review. I'd like to go through their series of courses at some point. How did the instructors use the PDK--Sport Plus and full auto, letting the car make all the decisions, or manual control with the paddles?

I've had my PDK on the track twice so far, and each time I've been caught off guard by the transmission downshifting on its own under full throttle ("kickdown" mode) accelerating out of certain corners. I think the only solution to avoid this, if you want to maintain manual control, is to learn to apply the throttle without getting into the kickdown switch, or come into the corner in a gear lower than you would normally, keeping the revs high, and then get ready to immediately shift up as you accelerate out. I would prefer to be at 4000-5000rpm in the corner, accelerating out and upshifting around 7500rpm, which would put me past the track-out point for the upshift. But PDK wants to downshift on throttle application, even at 4500rpm, so instead it becomes necessary to be at 6000rpm in the corner, accelerating out and upshifting at 7500rpm, which now may arrive prior to track-out. It just doesn't seem right. Maybe I need to give up all semblance of control and just let the computer do it.

It doesn't sound like this was your experience at the driving school--how were you and the instructors doing it differently?

 

In base course which is also quite aggressive, they encourage you to let the computer handle it. They stress it is all about proper braking, in fact on the MT 991 track cars they have, they will tell you to leave it in third and use your brakes and gas, not the transmission the vast majority of the time. These courses are not about winning any race while you are there, but leaving knowing how to get the most performance out of your own car on the street or track. There is always discussions on why do these courses vs just doing the PCA DE. While you can learn a lot at PCA DE, the instructors are not paid professional drivers. At the Porsche school all of the instructors are ACTIVE professional sponsored young drivers. It isn't often that you can get the personal training of a Pro. It should be mentioned that in the courses you are in the cars by yourself and being coached by the pro via Bluetooth communication, who is driving just in front of you encouraging you to push yourself to your personal limits.

 

Great review. Looking forward to the pics.

 

On the shifting I think they were using the Sport + but I did not look. My instructor did shift in some corners using the steering wheel paddles but other times he just let it run. Where he put it in a gear it was at a point where the system would shift mid-corner up or down. When I ran the PDK in sport + I let it run except in one corner where it wanted to get down one gear; I'd hold it in 3rd and then let it handle it from there.

I do know that one of the other instructors shifted himself, every time, using the console shifter.

 

Cool thread Tpup !