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Two Days at the Glen


SMGT

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Finally got the car to a race track - Watkins Glen International in the beautiful finger lakes region of Western New York this past Monday and Tuesday. My neighbor is the DE chariman for the Porsche club so he invited to come along. Most of you are probably familiar with WGI but it is an amazing 3+ mile road course with a lot of turns. I had an instructor in the car with me for all eight runs over the two days. It's amazing how you can progress over such a short period of time. By my last run I had the line down pretty well but there is a lot to think about on a course like this. Passing signals, flag people, not crashing, etc! The car did very well and I was amazed at how well the brakes did but these were only short runs of about 15 - 20 minutes. The weakest link seemed to be the stock tires. On one of my next trips I hope to have larger lower profile tires as I think that would make a big difference. I would recommend taking your car to a track as you will be amazed at what you and your car can do. I will post a pic in the gallery of me coming up the esses before heading to backstraight. Once you work on it you can come up the esses wide open at about 100MPH and be doing 120MPH by the end of the backstraight. What a blast!!

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Taking this car out on the track is by far the best part of driving it... I've had it on two different road courses (Hallet in Tulsa & Heartland Park in Topeka) and most recently at the Kansas Speedway (Tri-Oval)...

 

And YES, the stock brakes & tires do tend to fade after 10-15 minutes... But it is still the coolest feeling in the world to drive your car at 120 MPH and not get a speeding ticket...

 

I'll try to post some pics later, as I'm at "work" right now... Enjoy your ride!!!

 

07SGT0547

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+1

 

Sounds like a blast.

 

BTW, anyone care to join me at the New England Dragway next Wednesday?

Thanks all. I am hooked after one event and will be back. I feel fortunate to live so close to a pretty famous and well known track. There are events held at this track all year long - except for the winter months - by many clubs. The NASCAR cars and the Indy cars also run there once a year. There is a guy who used to run a Shelby club who does two summer events, I think in June and August and I will be hitting at least one of those. I would love have fellow Shelby-ites join me for an event. You will see his name on the list of driving schools on the web site - Joe Quaranto I believe. He has me on his email list for future events. The track is 1.5 hours south of Rochester, NY so about a 6 hour drive from the New England area. Check out the web site for track info and a list of events. This track also has a lot of interesting history and I believe road racing in American was started there and they used to run through the town before they built the track. You can read about it on the site as well. www.theglen.com. Enjoy!

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Ah yes, Watkins Glen...I remember it well! I wrecked (actually I was wrecked by another driver) my 325is there about 10 years ago, racing in SCCA. But I sure would love to get my SGT on that track. I'm sure I would be much more careful with it! Sounds like you had a great time; looking forward to the pics.

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Ah yes, Watkins Glen...I remember it well! I wrecked (actually I was wrecked by another driver) my 325is there about 10 years ago, racing in SCCA. But I sure would love to get my SGT on that track. I'm sure I would be much more careful with it! Sounds like you had a great time; looking forward to the pics.

 

There is one pic in the gallery but if anyone wants to see more go to www.tracktimephotos.com. Select recent events. Then enter October 15 th or 16th for the dates, the club is Porsche, and the run group is green. There are pics of my car from both days.

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