Driving a 911 in the wet

[steve rance]

Hi guys. can I have some feed back about my article in this month's total 911 about driving a 911 in the wet. It is the first in a series of articles about driving and tuning 911's and I am keen to get the balance right. I want to make the performance of the 911 accessible to every owner and hopefully get a few more out there on the race track where they belong. Too much detail? not enought detail? shite?

Your thoughts plesse.

Thanks

Steve R

[anonymous-user]

on line anywhere ?

[steve rance]

francisb said:

on line anywhere ?

Sorry, no only in the mag I think.

[robmug]

Steve - we had very good feedback at the PCGB show at the weekend. It certainly made sense to me (read my piece about the RLR day and the Gt3 I drove...)

I've also had 2 other GT3 owning friends say what an excellend feature it was.

We at Total 911 are also interested in the PH feedback

[kiko]

Steve hi,

I read your article and unlike similar attempts by other magazines to do an performance driving article you seemed to go in some detail and I read words like "trail braking", etc. Everyone who reads the article is genuinely interested and are enthusiasts, I reckon go into even more detail and advanced driving techniques as the more intermediate driver will always have the chance to read the articles later after getting tuition and a more advanced driving.

I've been in racing for sometime but I'm a recent Porsche driver and if you want to drive a 911 fast there are some tricks to make you faster (I realized this by trying, reading and talking to fellow racers with Porsche experience) I was recently invited to instruct at a Porsche Event and I think that when you talk about advanced driving techniques in detail theres always someone ready to hear about it.

[glenn mcmenamin]

steve rance said:

Hi guys. can I have some feed back about my article in this month's total 911 about driving a 911 in the wet. It is the first in a series of articles about driving and tuning 911's and I am keen to get the balance right. I want to make the performance of the 911 accessible to every owner and hopefully get a few more out there on the race track where they belong. Too much detail? not enought detail? shite?

Your thoughts plesse.

Thanks

Steve R

Steve,

Didn't get chance to chat about this at Silverstone last week, but have heard from quite a few sources
that it was a well written, and insightful article.


Keep it up !!

G.

[steve rance]

kiko said:

Steve hi,

I read your article and unlike similar attempts by other magazines to do an performance driving article you seemed to go in some detail and I read words like "trail braking", etc. Everyone who reads the article is genuinely interested and are enthusiasts, I reckon go into even more detail and advanced driving techniques as the more intermediate driver will always have the chance to read the articles later after getting tuition and a more advanced driving.

I've been in racing for sometime but I'm a recent Porsche driver and if you want to drive a 911 fast there are some tricks to make you faster (I realized this by trying, reading and talking to fellow racers with Porsche experience) I was recently invited to instruct at a Porsche Event and I think that when you talk about advanced driving techniques in detail theres always someone ready to hear about it.

Thanks for the reply.

I thought about going into more detail but decided that it might scare off some drivers. What I may do is finish the series and then write a really in depth series as a follow up and concentrate on very precise topics like braking and steering etc...

Thanks again, glad you enjoyed it

Steve

[steve rance]

robmug said:

Steve - we had very good feedback at the PCGB show at the weekend. It certainly made sense to me (read my piece about the RLR day and the Gt3 I drove...)

I've also had 2 other GT3 owning friends say what an excellend feature it was.

We at Total 911 are also interested in the PH feedback

Yep, i enjoyed reading your piece. A lot of people feel the same way about the GT3. its not an easy car to get the most out of. Did John Bussell instruct you? He is a good 911 specialist.

Steve

[steve rance]

glenn mcmenamin said:

steve rance said:

Hi guys. can I have some feed back about my article in this month's total 911 about driving a 911 in the wet. It is the first in a series of articles about driving and tuning 911's and I am keen to get the balance right. I want to make the performance of the 911 accessible to every owner and hopefully get a few more out there on the race track where they belong. Too much detail? not enought detail? shite?

Your thoughts plesse.

Thanks

Steve R

Steve,

Didn't get chance to chat about this at Silverstone last week, but have heard from quite a few sources
that it was a well written, and insightful article.


Keep it up !!

G.

Thanks Glenn

Sorry, I didn't get time to chat Last week. I was traumatised after a day on shot slicks. not a great experience but a good laxative.

Steve

[ballcock]

I really enjoyed the article Steve , and I'm no track boy .. It was well written , and I'm sure we'd have taken a little more detail , even if it meant explaining the more 'in house' terms , if you had to use them.

[ianmcg]

I thought it was excellent and notably different messages from some of the generic instruction I've had in the past on trackdays. I thought the target level was about right although I'm sure it would be worth getting into more advanced detail as the series progresses. One can either learn by following instructions or one can learn by really understanding why things are the way they are and the latter is better - that's why I found a Day with Don Palmer useful. As a relative newcomer to driving the GT3 (from a turbo) it seems the very pleasure of it is the drving challenge so keep up the good work.

Out of interest any reason the series didn't start with "driving a 911 in the dry" - I could do with that first!

It was timely too - picked up the car from JZM with new Alcons and a proper track day setup on Friday and went straight to Bedford. In the dry the new setup felt totally transformed - sadly when it rained soon after I was all over the shop which I didn't used to be on the stock setup - so I read the article with a timely interest.

[steve rance]

ballcock said:

I really enjoyed the article Steve , and I'm no track boy .. It was well written , and I'm sure we'd have taken a little more detail , even if it meant explaining the more 'in house' terms , if you had to use them.

Ok, Thanks

I may put a little more in on the next one

Steve

[steve rance]

ianmcg said:

I thought it was excellent and notably different messages from some of the generic instruction I've had in the past on trackdays. I thought the target level was about right although I'm sure it would be worth getting into more advanced detail as the series progresses. One can either learn by following instructions or one can learn by really understanding why things are the way they are and the latter is better - that's why I found a Day with Don Palmer useful. As a relative newcomer to driving the GT3 (from a turbo) it seems the very pleasure of it is the drving challenge so keep up the good work.

Out of interest any reason the series didn't start with "driving a 911 in the dry" - I could do with that first!

It was timely too - picked up the car from JZM with new Alcons and a proper track day setup on Friday and went straight to Bedford. In the dry the new setup felt totally transformed - sadly when it rained soon after I was all over the shop which I didn't used to be on the stock setup - so I read the article with a timely interest.

Thanks Ian

Yep, the article was originally going to be a track guide to Spa but it was so wet that we couldn't see out of the screen so I kind of adapted the story and took the oportunity of writing about wet driving. The first article was to be about driving the 911 in the dry as you suggested. In the end, we filmed that one a few weeks ago at Brands GP circuit and the article will follow soon. The footage is great and shows just how fast - in relative terms - a well set up GT3 is.

As an aside. Did you download the footage and if so what did you think of combining writitten and visual?

Steve

Edited by steve rance on Wednesday 30th August 14:25

Edited by steve rance on Wednesday 30th August 14:26

[johnny senna]

Steve,

I thought the article was very well judged. Well written as well. From a selfish point of view, I would like more detail, but I suppose this may make some people switch off. Please don't worry too much about that though!

Have you read Mark Hales' track driving series in Circuit Driver? It's not bad. He obviously hasn't planned it beforehand, he never seems to get a topic finished in one article, it always needs finishing "next time". I think if I was you, I would plan the series I wanted to write carefully and write in a more disciplined way to Hales. I bet you'd beat him in a 911 race anyway!!

You could end up writing a 10 chapter series tackling braking, gear changing, managing over and understeer, safety and etiquette, etc etc. Once all 10 have been published, persuade someone like Parr/JZM or whoever to put up advertising money to help produce a free mag/booklet to include all 10 chapters to be given away with a Christmas edition of the mag.

[maximu5]

Steve,

as I said on the Titanic site, I thought it was very good, but having been passengered by you on that weekend at Spa, I can say there is a lot more to your driving than what you describe in the article, Perhaps a series of articles on a few of the great tracks (Spa please!) ? I have noticed that all the traditional track guides only give the most conservative advice and certainly none of the driving you practice. I'm thinking for instance of the double braking you did to go through Eau Rouge.

Tom

[ianmcg]

steve rance said:

Yep, the article was originally going to be a track guide to Spa but it was so wet that we couldn't see out of the screen so I kind of adapted the story and took the oportunity of writing about wet driving. The first article was to be about driving the 911 in the dry as you suggested. In the end, we filmed that one a few weeks ago at Brands GP circuit and the article will follow soon. The footage is great and shows just how fast - in relative terms - a well set up GT3 is.

As an aside. Did you download the footage and if so what did you think of combining writitten and visual?

I did see the video and it's interesting in it's own right mainly as a lesson in smoothness but harder to relate to the details of the article e.g. when you can see the pedals in the frame you can't really see the corners or judge when and how the brake is being applied. I think the words do better in getting technique across for the moment.

However, don't stop with the videos - it's always good to see a good fast track video especially if it has a bit of commentary. If you could find a way to relate to driving technique that would be genius but would need a bit of production work I imagine.

As an aside Mark Hales was mentioned and I quite like his DVD on how to drive Brands Hatch which works well for showing lines but is silent on technique. However, personally I found his articles on 911 driving almost unreadable because of his style and always seeming to end before really getting to the point - although in each case it was never quite clear what it was supposed to be anyway. His series in Circuit Driver was even worse IMHO.

[Porsche GT3]

Haven't bought the magazine yet but def. will, sounds like an interesting read! A question though, last issue of Total911 Jon Oakley was the instructor right?

Edited by Porsche GT3 on Thursday 31st August 00:41

[robmug]

steve rance said:

Yep, i enjoyed reading your piece. A lot of people feel the same way about the GT3. its not an easy car to get the most out of. Did John Bussell instruct you? He is a good 911 specialist.

Steve

Yes - John Bussell was one of the guys there that day and certainly knows how to drive and how to instruct. The focus though was keeping us all (wide range of abilities) on the tarmac all day, with encouragement to drive fast. We each had a fast lap with John friving the RLR GT3 which was highly entertaining!

[robmug]

Porsche GT3 said:

Haven't bought the magazine yet but def. will, sounds like an interesting read! A question though, last issue of Total911 Jon Oakley was the instructor right?

Edited by Porsche GT3 on Thursday 31st August 00:41

Jon Oakley was Kevin Hackett's instructor for his 'novice' series.

[drhildr]

John Bussell is the man who taught me how to keep a 638bhp GT2 on the black stuff and his instruction is echoed in Steve's article - it is useful to see it in writing as ones memory seems to adopt sieve like qualities as you whizz round the track!