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Porsche
Club of America
By Bruce
Hauben, Bruce993@PorscheNet.com
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afternoon of August 25th found us unloading a truckload of a dozen wheels
and tires and assorted 964 manifolds, mufflers, cat. converters etc., after
returning from a wonderful, warm, sunny day at the Colling’s estate. The
planes and automobiles were great to view as always, but unfortunately
there were not enough “buyers” at the swap meet to sell or swap much of
our parts. It was necessary to unload and cram everything into the garage
and basement as we then immediately re-loaded the truck with all our gear
and spares going to Road America for an early AM departure the next day.
Yes, finally a trip to that holy grail of North American Road Tracks. Our previously planned 2 trips were cancelled due to various car problems and the anticipation of this trip was palpable. Of course you have to be looking forward to 18 hours of towing…or if not “looking forward” at least not dreading the experience. Many drivers choose the time sensitive approach and have their track cars transported in 2- tiered 18-wheelers, flying out themselves. That approach does save one 3-4 days of vacation time and a lot of wear and tear on the tow vehicle and trailer. So, you weigh your options and pick your own poison. Actually our trip was only 17 hours – you take any advantage you can – as we were visiting #2 son and family and grandchildren just north of Milwaukee. Imagine living only 45 minutes from Road America – or Road Atlanta, Mid-Ohio, VIR, LCMT hmmmmm! So, with a stop the first night in Indiana, and then 2 nights in Mequon, Wisconsin we arrived in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin at noon, the day before the first DE and Test & Tune day at Road America. Leaving our trailers in line, we un-hooked and went to Siebkins to check in, relax, and then returned to the track to watch, from various corners, some Kelly-Moss cars running the track. I’d taped the CART race from Road America and watched the full lap they showed from the driver’s perspective over and over…and over….and over. But watching live is much better, and of course eventually driving it is the ultimate. While Siebkins has a certain old world charm about it, I’m not particularly enamored with sleeping with my driving ear plugs in place so we’ll go elsewhere next year. The Osthoff is next door (several hundred yards) and also directly on the lake so that is a distinct possibility. I understand that in addition to single bedrooms, they also have 2 and 3 bedroom suites all with private baths, which presents other possibilities. Further, the EPE crew has discovered the “52 Stafford” in nearby Plymouth, which reportedly has an excellent restaurant. Choices, we gripe when we don’t have any and we suffer indecision when we have too many. Road America is indeed a world class, fast, 4.048 mile track with 14 corners and bends and some steep elevation changes. Some pro drivers have compared various European tracks with Road America, high praise indeed. I was a bit surprised when Denise McCluggage said at our recently held Porschefest at The Museum of Transportation that she didn’t particularly care for the first half of the track because the corners were constant radius and she prefers changing radius turns. I’m not sure that they are constant radius but I’ll agree that the first half of the track is a bit like Watkins Glen and less interesting than the back half. But that’s like sex; some’s better than others but it’s never bad! I guess my favorite corners were 11 – The Kink and 13 – under the Billy Mitchell Bridge. You come out of turn 10 which is the exit from the Carousel and your right foot is on the floor and stays on the floor except when upshifting and you have a ¼ mile leading into this right hand “kink” which if there were plenty of run off space on the left would be a nothing bend in the track. However, tracking out from the kink you find Armco and a fence no more than 4’ from the edge of the track…NO room for any drifting or miscues. So you work your speed up little by little, entering the Kink a little earlier each time and with a little more speed each time. Then Turn 13 is completely blind, coming up hill under the bridge and making a sweeping left. It’s a bit like turn 12 at LCMT but much faster, more sweeping and there is no view of the track out even after passing the bridge due to land undulations. Once you know where things are and which landmarks to shoot for, it’s great fun building your speed with each lap through Turn 13. Unfortunately our clutch broke at the end of day 2 so while Joyce and I had 2 great days on the track at Road America, I did not get to race the final 2 days. In fact, we headed for home early the following morning. But before leaving Road America let me share a few numbers with you. I don’t know if they mean anything, maybe nothing or maybe showing that our NER drivers are indeed Track Junkies. There were approximately 180 drivers signed up for the Club Race, a few from AZ and CA but most from the mid-west. The Chicago Region had 51, Nord Stern from Minnesota had 22, and in third was NER with 10. (Many of the VIR contingent of NER Club Racers said that they’d be at Road America next year so our presence will be even greater.) If they’ll allow a little license we can make that 12, as the Brensingers are as much a part of NER as they are NCR. Then, there were roughly 110 drivers signed up for the DE alone and of those, 90 were from the Chicago Region and 5 were NER drivers. I noted with some interest towns between Milwaukee and Elkhart Lake named Plymouth, Hingham, Grafton, Princeton, Stockbridge and Weston and wondered whether they were founded by Massachusetts’s pioneers heading west or named after the original English towns. A quick web search did not answer the question. Joyce and I often lament the homogenization of America, the fact that it’s next to impossible to get a “native” hamburger when traveling around the country, only a Burger King or McDonald’s. The fact is that if you go to a mall in Denver or Milwaukee you’ll see the same stores as a mall in Massachusetts. When we overnighted in Indiana we spent a few minutes at an outlet mall and I felt as though I were at the Franklin Outlet Mall. Well, that led me to thinking on the drive home, remember that one has a lot of thinking time on an 18 hour drive, that there is one area of this homogenization of America that I enjoy - and therein lies the hook…most things are determined by the eye of the beholder. The thing that I enjoy wherever I am in America including Alaska and Hawaii is NPR. You must understand that I never listen to commercial radio. If there is nothing on NPR that I want to listen to, in goes a CD or tape. With that said maybe you can understand the comfort and enjoyment of switching from one NPR station to another as one fades out and another becomes stronger and finding Tom, Ray and “Car Talk”; or Bill Littlefield’s “Only a Game” and of course “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered”. WBUR in Boston is to the production of shows for NPR as WGBH in Boston is to the production of shows for PBS, so I was really surprised when we hit up-state NY and happened upon Bob Parlocha’s jazz show during the afternoon, a program that WGBH-FM produces every night between mid-night and 5:00AM. Maybe some homogenization is all right. The most interesting thing we came across on our trip, one we’ve never seen elsewhere was through Indiana on the turnpike. Where they’d clearly had trouble with animals crossing the turnpike were solar powered lights and signs at the edge of the road that indicated that an animal was present when the lights were flashing. To accomplish this solar powered beams were located about 18” off the ground as far apart as the road was straight, sometimes ¼-1/2 mile apart. I saw several problems with this system. I guess they’re not concerned with groundhogs as they’d scoot under the beam but wouldn’t deer simply jump over this beam? After all if the deer are intelligent enough to know where to cross a highway when they read a “ Deer Crossing” sign aren’t they also going to be sly enough to jump over the beam? And, if the beam does encounter a less intelligent deer it’s already too late when those lights start flashing as the deer is already on the highway. Both Indiana and Ohio had very interesting warning signs on their turnpikes. Indiana signs caution “Move over or slow down for stopped emergency vehicle – it’s the law.” And Ohio signs pronounced “Move over or slow down for stopped public safety vehicles.” This is something I have always done as a matter of caution, that is if I happen to be in the right lane and see a vehicle stopped ahead in the break down lane I move a lane or two to the left. You never know when some jerk is going to fling open a door right in your path, or someone is walking around their vehicle and either they’re a bit tipsy or they sneeze and wander too far into your path…and splat…no thank you, I move over a lane. Indiana’s toll tickets, they do not have their own or our EZ Pass, give the mileage points of all rest areas and what services and food chains are at the different plazas, a very useful piece of information. How do you know when you’re in the mid-west??
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