What’s New
Do any of us really know how fast we can stop our cars in an emergency situation? We learned more about that in the braking exercise. After starting up, shifting to second, we maneuvered a sharp right hand turn, and then floored it until we thought we needed to brake hard and try to stop just in front of the designated stop cones. Each successive run through this braking exercise (we must have had 6 or 7 passes), we increased our speed and control on the right turn, and got closer to the stop cones. Most of us stopped way short the first time, got closer in runs 2 and 3, and plowed through the cones on another run, before really figuring out when to brake and successfully stop before the cones. Porsche brakes are indeed amazing.
The slalom course taught us about control and cornering, driving smooth, and looking ahead. Bill Knox, first time CCC driver, described the slalom as a different kind of challenge, with much more emphasis on precise steering than speed. Bill’s instructor, Mike Raff urged Bill to move smoothly, without jerkiness. “It took almost all my turns to come even close to acceptable.” Bill was grateful that for him, the slalom came last after the braking and skid pad drills, “because all of the skills encouraged by the earlier drills were needed for the slalom.”
This time of year as the weather warms and our thoughts turn more to outdoor activities, NNJR-PCA provides one event that is tailor made to get the entire family out for a truly fun day of automotive pleasures. Our “Welcome To The Club” event is just the right type of activity to get the entire family thinking “Porsche”.
As many of you know this event, in its many incarnations in recent years, was held at Schooley’s Mountain State Park. For this year’s event, we decided to move to a new venue that would be more geographically convenient for most of our members. Somerset Hills Learning Institute in Bedminster, NJ and just off RT 287 fit the bill. The school, being the benefactor of our current charity fund raising efforts, generously agreed to host our event. The school is a beautiful and modern facility set in the rolling hills of Somerset County. With this change of venue we had the comforts of indoor dinning and clean restrooms. We are sure those of you familiar with Schooley’s Mountain would agree the amenities at the school were a significant improvement.
For those unfamiliar with the “Welcome To The Club” event, it is open to all, but its focus is to give new members experience with our concours and rally programs. In concours, Hank Menkes and Craig Ploetner’s goal is to teach the new member how to prepare their cars for a judged event and at the same time to help them preserve their condition and value. Rally master John Vogt started the rally portion of the event with a school so members will be familiar will rally terms and how to follow route instructions. After which participants were sent off on a “Gimmick Rally” that required following instructions, and correctly answering questions on sights along the way.
“Just wait until you try a New York pretzel,” my dad said, as our pale yellow Coupe de Ville glided down Route 3. I admit I was skeptical. I mean, I was almost six years old already, and I knew what pretzels from a store tasted like. They were good, but hardly the stuff of dreams. My Dad was undeterred his enthusiasm. “The street vendors have these big carts where they cook the pretzels over a charcoal fire,” my dad continued. “They’re hot and a little crunchy on the outside, but soft in the middle. You put a little mustard on them and they are out of this world.”
Food was always inextricably woven into the weekend adventures with my dad. Sometimes he would introduce a new pizza place that he had come across in his travels (like Pizza Kings). Sometimes it was a bakery with great cheese buns (Hahns). Or an amazing burger joint (The Brook Tavern). Or the best sloppy joes in New Jersey (Bangiolas). Or hot dogs with long slices of pickle and birch beer on tap (Johnnys). Whatever the place or cuisine, he made it all part of the adventure, and the adventure on this day was my first trip to New York City to see the Auto Show.
I sat in the passenger seat of the big coupe, in this time before modern annoyances like child seats, rear-seat laws, airbags, and seat belts. I guess as it is with most recollections from childhood, that Caddy seemed bigger than life. Only it was bigger than life, with an enormous split bench in front and a long expanse of dashboard that dwarfed me in a wall of plastic wood. I loved the small details that the car had, like those little sentinel lights on the leading edge of each front fender that showed that the headlights were functioning, and the Cadillac emblems, ducks and all, seemingly everywhere. The car’s eight-track player clicked back to Program 1, and Barry Manilow appropriately began to wax poetic about the New York City Rhythm.
“Here comes the Lincoln Tunnel,” my dad announced. He had already primed me for this part of the trip, and I was eager to see what driving under the water felt like. “Like a big bathroom,” I thought, as we drove through the tiled tube, my eyes scanning vigilantly for even the slightest of water leaks.
As a prelude to the scheduled June 13, 2012 NNJR Feature Program, President Craig suggested the preparation of this P4US article, which offers a glimpse of the upcoming PowerPoint presentation with photos taken at Daytona and later Sebring, and will include:
a bit of Daytona Rolex 24 Hour & Sebring 12 Hour history
plus Daytona & Sebring track facts
race coverage itself including special Speed Insider Ticket credentials, along with PCA hospitality areas
photos highlighting the special Daytona Champions Display of 29 past winning 24-Hour cars, as well as coverage of the Sebring Museum which also featured past winning 12-Hour cars along with historic drivers on site for autographs
pictures of garage and pit areas
Having never been to either event, the trip was conceptualized by reading one of cult writer BS Levy’s novels - Montezuma’s Ferrari, which included colorful coverage of the 1953 12 Hours at Sebring. If you are not familiar with BS Levy - or his first novel - The Last Open Road, but have an interest in the birth of “sportycar” racing in the USA, do yourself a favor and pickup a copy. Fact is fellow NNJR member Mike Scott provided the referral, which has grown to a 5 novel series by this Jersey-centric writer.
Inspired by the read, Sebring and its 60th Anniversary of the 12 Hours was penciled into my March calendar. Well, NNJR - as you may have observed, has a lot of resources amongst its membership, and while attending the local C&C display in Chatham, I ran my Sebring plan by DE-enthusiasts Ken Ernsting and George Calfo who tactfully suggested that considering I had not been to either Sebring nor Daytona - and this January marked the 50th Anniversary of the 24 Hour Daytona, it may be an advantage to instead begin at Daytona, which had all the promise to be another big-time event.
