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Porsche Club of America
The Northeast Region

By Tom Tate
NOR'EASTER Online - March 2002

Everything is relative. Each year cars get faster, smoother and more capable of hurling down the road at speeds that only a few years ago would have been considered unsafe. Engineering advances like ABS and traction control make even inexperienced drivers seen like experts. I'm not sure that's really a good thing.

There's nothing like putting the Speedster through its paces on the back roads in Dover. Winding out second gear on an uphill right hander with the tach in the red going for third as you crest the hill. Hard on the gas with the wind blowing and the exhaust howling you look down to see that you're doing 53 mph. That is the beauty of a 356. You can be Sterling Moss at the Monte Carlo Rally in '62 driving for the finish line and nobody knows. In fact you're probably just keeping up with the minivan ahead being driven by a soccer mom hauling six screaming kids to practice. But the difference in driving experience is like night and day. The cops don't wave you over, they just wave. Most of them weren't even born when the car was built.

Compare that with my son's 911 which I've been forced to drive to keep the battery charged while he's been deployed to Korea. By the way, he's been reassigned to Kuwait for the next 12 months, so I have to run in Class 8 again this year. He and Kevin rebuilt the engine (I think it was a case of "we killed a bear - Pa shot 'em") at Christmas so it's faster too.

By the time you're heavily into third gear in his car you're doing over 100 mph. Now what do you do? Other than get arrested. Don't get me wrong, I like fast cars, but on today’s roads, they're just not as much fun as an old car. Like I heard at Lime Rock last summer, " it's more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow." The extractor exhaust on the '58 can absolutely talk through four gears and it speaks German. I can punch the gas between gears and hear the rpm's drop just like Steve McQueen in the chase scene in "Bullet". Incidentally, did you notice that after pulling out of the dirt he upshifted seven times? Even the Charger that he was chasing never hit 100 mph and now the Corolla low riders in the "Fast and the Furious" are looking to break 200 mph. Where do they do that? At Logan Airport? No wonder they need another runway.

There's nothing like running at redline within the speed limit. You're the only one that knows. I remember taking a ride with John Ames around the University of Maryland campus in his Speedster. I thought we were being followed but it was only the engine behind us singing its song. He kept it in first gear and never went over the 15 mph limit but it seemed like 80 mph. At the end of the ride he said that the way to drive a Porsche was to " keep it in the red".

I've been trying to do that ever since. It's been a great ride and only gets better as time goes by and cars get faster. But not my cars!

Spring is coming and the birds and the Porsches will be singing!

Keep the Faith!!

Porsche Club of America The Northeast Region

Porsche Club of America
The Northeast Region