I finally had a chance to wring out my wife's new (1,900 mi) 997S Cab this Saturday with a few of my Ferrari buddies near Asheville, NC. We were previewing a rally route for an upcoming Ferrari event and spent 5 hours cruising some of the areas most compelling and challenging roads in the area. Spectacular 80 deg sunny day and very little traffic. We began at the Grove Park Inn and headed out to Mitchell mountain. Hundreds of corners, switchbacks, and steep climbs on some of the best twisties I've ever driven. The other cars were a 308 (lead car with the Rally Master), me in the middle, and followed by a 348.

Link to Map:

After a couple of hours of driving, and a few hundred corners under our belts the characteristics of the cars became more apparent. My 911 was more than a match for these two F-cars. but again it's much newer and has more HP. Although the lead driver is a more experienced, (and a better driver), I had no trouble keeping up, and the 911 had a number of significant advantages. More torque when exiting a corner, more power on the short straights, better turn-in on the super tight hairpins, and wider tires. Most of these were 30 - 50 mph corners, and were driven brisk enough to give a long steady groan from the tires on the sweepers and 180 corners. No tail wagging Tokyo Drifts here, but plenty fast enough to test the car and driver without risk to self or sheetmetal.
On the very slow hairpins, first gear was a bit too low. I wanted a gear between one and two, as I bumped up against the rev limiter a number of times (remember, it's my wife's car with a tippy) The quicker corners in 2nd - 3rd were perfect. The tippy could be much better with a few basic improvements. First, put back the bump-shift position on the gear selector like my Cayenne TT. When in tight corners the wheel mounted buttons are too hard to use and are often in the wrong location relative to your hands. Furthermore you must remember that the tip levers essentially become inverted as the wheel is turned so you are switching between UP and DOWN on the buttons depending on the wheel position t achieve the same function. Some times you press the top half to shift UP ( most conditions) but in tight corner with the wheel inverted, you need to press DOWN to shift UP, and then press UP again after you have straightened up. It's not intuitive, although I suppose with great pratice it could be mastered. {I am fully spoiled by the F1 paddle on my 360 Spider} Wth relatively slow speeds, the brakes got a bit of a work-out but not like a day at the track with huge speed changes.

However, in one area the 911 was a clear winner over the F-cars. On bumpy pavement the suspension (especially the rear) was much better in the 911 than either of my two driving buddies. With PASM in sport mode, the car soaked up the bumps and put down the power much smoother than the F-cars. They were both constantly chirping their tires on the rougher pavement. Suspension technology has certainly improved from the 1980's. and it showed. On certain downhill braking areas with bumpy pavement with a bit of washboard in the braking zone, the 911 was vastly superior. Steady, and balanced while the other guys chirped, wiggled, and their sphincters tightened up. I could approach these corners much quicker, and with significantly greater control that the red cars.

In a few weeks I'll be taking my 360 to the official event, tour and ralley, and will have a better comparison with a more modern Ferrari. In any case the 911 performed very well and was a joy to drive. I spent the night at the Biltmore house and took a slow cruise back on Sunday. I wahsed off the bugs, grime, and molten rubber before presenting my wife with her baby again. I let her know we had a nice "tour" in the mountains. No U-Tube videos to give me away. Tail of the Dragon in a few weeks.

The Winner?? .... Easy answer... the two kids on Yamaha 600's with Yoshomira pipes...they blew by us like we were driving dump-trucks!

 

Great write up and I agree with your comments. We did a drive up into the north GA mountains Saturday morning - just me in my C2S and my friend in his AA Stage ? 335i (chip & cat-back). His dyno shows his HP up around 330 and tq. at 392 after the tuning, so we wanted to see how well it put down the power and handled the curves.

After not too long, it became obvious that I could enter and exit the turns more quickly, as he ended up with a decent amount of front end push with too much speed. If I held back and we exited at roughly the same speed, he was able to hang with me up to about 110-120 or so when I started to pull away. All in all, it was a great run.

The only thing I might disagree with is the comment about the bikes - I haven't yet seen a bike that will run with the better sports cars in the very tight areas.

 

[quote=The only thing I might disagree with is the comment about the bikes - I haven't yet seen a bike that will run with the better sports cars in the very tight areas.[/quote]

True in the hairpins and S's, but in the short straights they were rockets. They could exit a tight corner at 30....roar up to tripple digits and easily brake for the next corner. All in an amazinly short distance. After a few cat & mouse moves they passed us for good. They had no fear of tripple digit sppeds on the narrow back roads, we kept it a bit more reasonable(under 70) given the relative mass of our vehicles. Might also be we were wimps I had a 750 Katana a few years back, and I always felt more comfortable carring more speed than in a car in many tight areas. Coud also be I'm not 22 anymore