Forgive me for cross-posting this, but only some of us visit both Porsche forums regularly, and honestly I'm still not up to creating a unique version of this report for each forum.

As I struggled after Cindy's death in April to accept being alone, friends began inviting me to activities designed to get me away from the house so I'd quit mourning and resume life. They have partially succeeded. (Mostly they succeed because Cindy wanted it this way. We had a very happy fifty-year marriage and neither of us wanted the other to blight that memory by hiding in a closet after the first of us died. It happens that she was the one to leave, while I was the one left to grieve. But the oath implied that from the beginning for one of us.)

I have taken a trip to San Diego and I plan another to San Francisco. The 997.2 Carrera is every bit as good a touring car as the compliments we read here. But I have managed to find a limitation in track work. At Streets of Willow I was able to run with GT3's from the previous generation and the car's performance impressed me a lot. I briefly considered trading up to a current generation GT3, but couldn't see enough marginal benefit for my uses. I have managed to find the limits in track work though.

This last weekend, I went down to Pomona to get my PCA instructor certificate and teach my first student. It sounds like a good way to get myself out of the house. I've always enjoyed teaching but I have no patience for returning to a campus at my age. Teaching in fast cars sounds about right. I ran my own car during sessions for my group of course. Saturday was fine, but Sunday I noticed something was wrong with my car. I kept overrunning the braking zones at the end of straights. The plan was to get a good launch off a slow corner, get up to 105 to 115 depending on the straight, and then late-brake fifty yards beyond where the earlier models manage, just as I had at the Streets and in those laps on Saturday.

That was fine, but Sunday I ended up struggling and repeatedly had to pick a path between cones to run off course and get turned around for re-entry. Fairplex is a perfect track for instruction by the way. The old Pomona track from Dan Gurney's youth is still there, but now it's a separately paved path across four giant parking lots used for the LA County Fair. No chance of a student getting hurt, and a perfect place to push the brake points to the utmost, student or expert. Only the famous bridge offers a chance to get hurt and you'd have to be pretty zoned out to hit the abutment there.

At first, I attributed the overruns to the hotter day and the green asphalt bleeding slippery compounds. That was a factor, but not the real problem. I adjusted my braking points and was ready for the time-trial runs at mid-day. The real problem was waiting to pounce. The laps on Saturday were pretty mild since we were taking turns role-playing as novices and had been asked to keep it down to six tenths. Sunday, we were back to our own selves, no role playing, and driving more like eight tenths even on casual laps. In mid-afternoon, we came up on that time trial segment. I don't really compete, not being motivated enough after all these years, but I did want to get a lap time so I rented a transponder. And of course, a timed run calls for ten-tenths, right? Nine point five at least.

Warm-up lap, two flying laps timed by transponder, and cool-down lap. Started out in my warm-up, came to the second straight and when I began to brake, my dash lit up like a Christmas tree. I didn't have my reading glasses, so all I could read was the one word 'BRAKE' but I saw exclamation points and lots of text in red letters. Oh great. Timed run with questionable brakes. I made a quick decision that I might as well continue. The track offers those enormous run-offs, so if the brakes failed completely I had plenty of room to stop the car by spinning and I might as well consider it a challenge to see how fast I could go pretending I had the brakes from a Kia Soul. I just doubled all the braking zones in my head and pressed on regardless.

Now, I have to admit I'm going to edit here. I don't teach race techniques over the internet. I'm perfectly willing to discuss what should have happened next if you meet me at a track, but I won't publish a note that can be seen by complete novices around the world. Let's just say... No, I won't tempt anyone. Let's just say that on Sunday, I found that I could not drive my normal racing-derived style.

No chance. If I had [edited] I would have spun or plowed off course. I almost did that twice on the first timed lap. Finally, I settled for [a milder style]. We could say I drove it like a race car from the fifties or sixties with drum brakes.

I believe what happened is this. The message had been something to the effect "Service BRAKE requires attention. Schedule service." (I had someone read it before I shut down after those timed laps.) These really are road brakes, not designed for intense track work like those on the GT3, but they hadn't failed. The warning just meant the pads were approaching the end of their service life. They were down to four millimeters and that old fifties course has an unusual number of high-speed straights. When I began pushing them from very high-speed on five corners, I believe the relatively skinny pucks overheated badly. I once set fire to a set of road pucks, so it is possible, though I saw no sign this went that far.

With the material thickness down so thin, they were acceptable for road use, but bringing 3200 lbs down from 100+ five times in each lap gave the pucks no time to cool. At that point, with the pucks fully involved and my using very high pressures, the rotors began to heat unusually. Then, for lack of the heat shields that we put on race-prepared cars, the fluid in the hydraulic lines nearest the wheels began to overheat as well. The feel of the pedal suggested I may even have boiled the fluid, though I don't assert that. I do know the pedal felt 'soft', but human senses aren't entirely reliable at such times. Presented with the need to force the brakes to work even partially, I may well have been pushing a lot harder than it seemed. Adrenalin will do that. Maybe the pedal didn't get 'soft', my leg just got hard.

On a course that puts heavy demand on the brakes, the full press of a few racing laps will find the limits of Carrera street brakes. It's the classic sequence of events and I'm surely not the first to report this, but I figured I might as well describe the effects as a lead-up to the real conclusion:

I had a hell of a good time driving this car as if the brakes were gone. Effectively they were perhaps half-useful, but I couldn't be sure of that since I couldn't read the red-letter message that included the word "BRAKE". They might have failed completely at the end of any straight for all I knew. Instead I drove very conservatively: different lines into the corners, backing down early off those five straights and changing the turn-in appropriately and using cornering loads to slow the car for the apex speed. And it was still very enjoyable. Even without the intoxicating high-g braking we normally enjoy, these Carreras are delightful cars to drive fast. The laps were not as fast of course, but I wasn't competing with anyone but myself, so that doesn't matter.

In a later session, I gave my student a ride to let her see how we drive fast with limited braking power. It's an old skill that is rarely needed with modern brakes, but she seemed to enjoy observing it. I wouldn't risk frightening a true novice with a fast run, but she was a fast intuitive driver herself and I had promoted her to solo runs by the lunch break.

Good car. Good time. And I met a couple of our fellows there as well. Wish we'd had more time to sit and talk.

Gary

 

That sounds great. If you're not having fun with a Porsche, you're not driving your Porsche enough.

 

Nice write up and glad to heat that you're enjoying the car again. One note I'd make is based on the inference that you found a limit of the Carrera vs a GT3:

"These really are road brakes, not designed for intense track work like those on the GT3"

I would bet that folks who know both cars well would tell you that the GT3 brakes are only a bit better than those on a Carrera S, and that their stock brakes would fade going around a track at 8.5 to 10 tenths. Even in a GT3, one needs hi temp fluid and race pads - ones that aren't legal/ rated for street use to avoid fade. (that's speaking of steel brakes, and not necessarily ceramic, and many don't use ceramic on the track anyway)

The point of that is that you could use hi temp fluid, and race pads while on the track. This should solve most of your trouble, and I wouldn't classify that as a big difference between the Carrera and the GT3, or maybe I would say that is a weak point of a stock car, vs a track prepped car, rather than saying its a weakness of the Carrera vs the GT3

 

Wow. Good thing u were safe.

I am surprised u kept driving the car on the track with brake problems.

The track had 4 high-speed brake zones with one of the fast straightway that can reach speed of 4th gear redline.. Plus the one with no room for brake error ( the turn next to the wall -two turns before the bridge).. It could have been disastrous, especially with a student riding with u.

Just glad u made it home safe Gary.

 

Great read Gary

 

Thank you, Jack. That probably explains why I was able to out-brake the GT3's at Willow. (And for the first couple of Sunday morning laps at Fairplex...) I just assumed that GT3's had more effective ducting of the brakes along with better heat shields.

After I deal with some more medical appointments here, I planned to go back and ask the list for suggestions about improving the brakes on a C2S. I need to assess the cost vs value of the range of mods I could make. I don't compete for points these days (and don't want to tempt myself to do so honestly), so it comes down to fun per dollar spent. I could afford to put Cup brakes on if I had a motive, but I don't. Below that level, can we get better heat shields and ducting from people like Suncoast? Or do I need to design my own or evaluate third-party suppliers? Swapping pads for event days is too physically demanding for me personally because I have neck and lumbar spine problems. Going that route, I'd need to recruit a pit partner. All that stuff is a form of non-monetary cost. But I'm enjoying the return to "messing around with cars" thoroughly so I'm willing to consider it.

Compared to all that is the entertainment value of treating the car like a very old race car where we had to be prepared to throw them sideways to get enough grip to stay on the mountain. And at my age, picking courses where the "mountain's edge" is really just a row of pylons. No more hillclimbs for me.

Gary

 

This is where being an old fart makes a difference. That was a pretty extreme example of brake fade, which is why I had to assume it might be something worse wrong with the hydraulics. But it wasn't really dangerous if you can dust off old reflexes for driving with feeble brakes.

Carl was there and I'm sure many of you have run Fairplex, so I'll go into more detail. From pit out, we have a straight that parallels the bleachers for the Speedway. Pylons try to keep it from looking like a straight. We have a slight right angle followed by a slight left and then a pair of chicanes. Sharp left, two sharp rights and an acute angle left that opens out to the second straight. That one is where Carl mentions running alongside a wall that would require some expensive bodywork if you used it to slow the car. Not recommended. The left at the end of that straight is defined by a tire stack (which devices can eat bodywork, but without real risk to persons). That is followed by a pyloned right that leaves you heading toward the famous Bridge underpass. Left under the bridge, and then a bunch of artificial twisty bits created with tire stacks and a medium-speed pyloned right-left sequence that opens onto the fastest straight. The end of that straight has a kink left followed by a decreasing radius right turn that dumps you onto a carousel-like sweeper to the left. Coming out of the sweeper you're on "front straight" and that ends with a sharp left onto bleacher straight and the lap is complete.

Let's discuss the safe way to drive that with no brakes.

• Bleacher straight. Winding back and forth on this straight is a triumph of vision over physics. No point at all. Ignore the obvious line the pylons invite you to follow. Move left from pit-out or let your final corner from the front straight open out to a line that leaves you on the left side of the track. Now you have a straight shot at the turn-in point for the first chicane corner. With full acceleration, a 997.2 C2S will just about need a shift into fourth before the braking point with real brakes available. I was using a heartbeat past the artificial apex of the left hand pylon. After I toasted the brakes, I backed down a full breath before that pylon and used the combination of weak brakes and cornering force to slow the car to apex speed for that initial chicane. This requires an early apex effectively, but you have nothing but 300 acres of paved parking lot in front of you, so no risk ensues.
  
  
• Wall straight. Let the final chicane corner open out to this straight over against the wall. No risk because we're not using the brakes anyway, but let the car move back to center track by mid-straight. My C2S was in fourth gear by the end of this straight. Near the end, use the hay bales marked as a brake point for novices. With proper brakes on Saturday, we were using half that distance and a late turn-in, so we could accelerate as soon as the righthand pylon opened up for us. With crispy critters I stayed well left of the wall in case a failure should cause the car to pull right unexpectedly. Then an early apex again to the lefthand tire stack, with the car plowing like John Deere, which absorbed the kinetic energy to get the car down to the apex speed for the second pylon, the righthand one that becomes the limiting factor with weak brakes.
  
  Risk? None once you remember to stay well clear of that wall to give room to react if the brakes actually fail instead of just lacking power. All the rest is just pylons. Artificial edge-of-road indications. Annoying and sometimes embarrassing to overrun them, but not a risk.
  
  Incidentally, about those hay bales. They are there to visually push the edge of track closer to the centerline so novices don't spin by bouncing off that wall and old timers don't spend a thousand dollars a lap scraping paint off the wall. DE days are not racing and sometimes we have to set up the course specifically to discourage certain lines that invite racing responses.
  
  
• Bridge approach. This is the shortest straight. Even with good brakes on Saturday, we couldn't get the C2S up to redline in third. I don't see speedometers on track, but I'd say 6000 rpm in third, which is what? 80 to 85 mph? Maybe 90? A yellow lane line runs under the bridge where traffic actually uses it as three lanes normally. Two lanes opposing our direction (on normal days that is) and one lane for our direction.
  
  Normally, you want to be against the abutment wall on the right portion of that rightmost lane. With weak brakes that might fail, I stayed against the lane line. That gave me at least six feet of margin to handle a sudden change to pulling right if something broke. At the far edge of the bridge, turn-in leads to an apex underneath a pepper tree or perhaps a weeping willow. The lowest branch would slap my windshield each lap. Normally, I'd carry that curve out to track right and begin braking for the twisty bits.
  
  With weak brakes, I turned in early as before and used the understeer to slow the car the rest of the way to a slightly higher apex speed. The car needs to move further right as a result, but the track 'edge' isn't even marked with pylons beyond that pepper tree. It just changes color where they didn't lay new pavement. On one lap I got even less slowing from the brakes than even a skeptical forecast suggested. It was like any early apex: I was running out of track. No big deal. I just used whatever space I needed to understeer the car to a lower speed for the next turn-in. Time lost, but no grief.
  
  Now suppose a further failure had occurred and the brakes didn't pull badly, but they just didn't give me any braking to speak of going under the bridge. Well, the mundane road rises sharply uphill there. A simple spin would leave us sliding up that hill at no more than sixty or so and we'd come to a gentle -- albeit ignominious -- halt.
  
  
• Long straight. This is the one that wakes up novices. They get to feel their car well into three-digit speeds, often for the first time. After using second through the artificial twisties, I was into third by the time I passed the lefthand pylon that starts the straight. Fourth came up about halfway and I was into fifth on one particularly good lap in the morning session. The test of faith with good brakes comes at the left jink that ends this straight. The pavement changes color where they seem to have laid down a cement based surface to handle the braking loads. The start of that lighter section is a good braking point with healthy brakes.
  
  My student used that brake point successfully until she got the twisty bits down pat. Then her better launch had her going over 105 mph at the braking point. (I do have time to look at other people's speedometers.) She automatically shifted the braking point earlier as she got faster, which is one of the signs of a driver we feel safe letting loose for solo work. With feeble brakes, I had to start slowing even earlier, starting with a back-down using engine-drag about a hundred yards before that point. Then I used the brakes to set up understeer at the turn-in and the usual effect of understeer ensued. That is the car turned tighter and tighter as the speed slowed, until finally I could see past the righthand pylon and let the car open up to accelerate to sweeper speed, which is either high second or low third gear.
  
  No risk here either because all that decreasing radius stuff is artificial. We're not pointing at a mountain wall, still less a drop-off. It's just pylons. Get it wrong and you just spin through the pylons and sit there blushing.
  
  
• Front straight. Coming out of the sweeper, this begins in low third range. With good brakes I had been into fourth for a couple of deep breathes before the final braking zone. Without brakes, I had to back down while still in third and turn in early. I was using understeer to slow the car, just as in the other straights. Again, the early apex means the mistake is running out of track, and I might have. Many did that day, though I beg to doubt they all had fried brakes for breakfast. Just misjudgment of the turn-in point I suspect.
  
  In any case, I never overran the track edge, but it's quite safe if you must. I gather POC teaches that line as a routine matter. It gives up speed on the bleacher straight, so I don't recommend it, but it is a safe place to take the car if my brakes had completely failed.

I was hoping they could arrange for Carl and me to work together, but the student they assigned me was a pleasure as well. She had a new Boxster and had done several track days and car control clinics with POC. My real job was to polish her skills, make sure they taught her all the right ones, and assess her ability to judge track situations and her general position awareness. We had no transponder on her car of course, but I'd say she was close to my feeble-brake time. Very likely under two minutes. The Boxster S is a very nice car by the way.

Carl is right that normally I wouldn't take a student out on the course when driving a strange unnatural line to compensate for failing brakes. In her case, since she was graduating to solo work, we discussed it and she felt she'd learn a lot watching how I adjust the line when needs must. With a more timid, or less accomplished, driver I'd never have invited her along. Not even with good brakes. Too early exposure to the patterns of a racing driver can hurt more than it profits a student.

As it was, she got to see exactly why the early apex is a poor choice for most track situations. Ironically, she'd apparently been criticized by a POC instructor for "not hitting the same line on every lap." So I had begun the day by explaining how a racing driver might be running a different line on every lap intentionally. There is no sacred perfect line. Different lines serve different purposes. Then I provided examples and invited her to use the line that felt comfortable, so long as she was doing what I call intentional driving. "Just do it on purpose, not by inattention."

By her last session, she was hitting the same apex every lap unless some reason to do otherwise arose. And she had good reasons for deviating. Once she could see the reason for a particular line, she hit it intuitively. And if she does get into actual racing, some men will have to practice their humility.

All in all, it was a good day, and the toaster brakes rather added to the experience for both of us, rather than the converse. Watching an experienced driver cope with adversity can do more than a day of watching routine laps.

Gary