Drivers Ed News

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Tracking Out, How hard can this be?

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I carefully move the shifter through the gates before I start the engine, a dress rehearsal for the opportunity I am about to have. Reverse up and to the left? Check. The 1-2 shift seems easy enough, and 3rd gear is spaced perfectly. Piece of cake.

            Turning the key, the engine comes to life with a loud bark, and immediately settles into a turbine-smooth rumble. Foot on clutch, shifter eased gently into first, left pedal out slightly, right pedal in slightly, the revs build and….stall. Hmmm. Let me try that again. Vroom…snick…stall.

            “Don’t feel so bad,” chides the Paul Miller rep with a smile. “You cannot start this car normally. You have to gently let out the clutch until it starts to catch, and then let it out a little further until the car starts to roll.” I start to try his approach before my brain kicks in again, pushes the right pedal, and stalls the car. One more time, and I am going to follow the directions to the letter, for better or for worse. I lift the clutch, the car starts to roll, I lift it a little more, and I am off! I squeeze the gas a bit, and finally, I am actually driving a Porsche Carrera GT. (copy editor's note: I heard from a reliable source that some small petite lady (my daughter) after hearing that all of the male drivers stalled the Carrera GT had no problem and did not stall it. She is still giggling about it.)

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Tracking Out - July 2012

I used to have this shirt that I would wear sometimes when doing SCCA Solo II events in my Miata. I think the wording was, “Autocross: If it were any easier, they would call it Driver Education.” I know, real funny. I thought it was, at least. It was all part of the good-natured ribbing that takes place between parking lot racers and track guys. The lines of demarcation have always been blurry for some, though. If you look at many of our chiefs (Bill Gilbert and Scott Studer immediately come to mind), instructors like Keith Peare, Rick Newman, and Robert Ida, and advanced drivers like Tom Iervolino, Joe Aiovoli, Lou Hudyman, and Iskender Catto, the multi-discipline guys are represented in good numbers.

I count myself among the “ambidriverous” (I just made that up). And so, when the SCCA Northeast Autocross Championship was up on the calendar for May 12-13, I was really excited. Finally! A national-level event locally at the Meadowlands! What would I drive? Who would I co-drive with? The excitement lasted a couple of hours, when Tom Iervolino reminded me that the 13th was Mothers Day. There are some things in life that that you just do not mess with, and Moms are one of them. Rats. I had to cancel. Intrepid Lou Hudyman, with his teammate and wife, Kelly, were driving their Lotus in the big event, though. I decided to live vicariously through them, and follow the live results online as they drove in the competition over the two days.

I was surprised on Sunday, when no results were being posted. I figured something was wrong with the online results system. A text message from Lou late in the day, informed me that the event had actually been cancelled due to a fatality that took place at the Meadowlands early in the day involving a motorcyclist and a traffic investigation. Being a part-time motorcyclist myself, it always touches a special chord in me when I hear about a fallen biker. Naturally, your thoughts turn to their lives, their families, and the general sadness of it all.

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NNJR PORSCHE CAR CONTROL CLINIC, APRIL 22, 2012

So what did you decide to do on a rainy, cold Sunday, April 22? About 60 plus of us went and played with our Porsches in the rain at Met Life Stadium Meadowlands Parking Lot J. We were assigned instructors and led around four different driving stations, including a slalom course, a braking exercise, and two skid pads, clockwise and counterclockwise. The wet pavement helped make the event more enjoyable and educational.

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.”

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Tracking Out - June 2012

“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.

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NNJR Car Control Clinic: The First Time Around

“What did you do this weekend?” Friends and co-workers asked Monday morning. “I was learning to drive my Porsche at the MetLife Stadium parking lot!” That was enough to solicit more interest and a barrage of questions: “What were you doing in the parking lot? Were you racing your car? How was it? Are you crazy?” Don’t you already know how to drive? As a start….

Yes, we spent our Sunday at a Parking Lot of the MetLife Stadium at the Car Control Clinic organized by the NNJR- PCA.

Both of us are new at this although Swroop attended the Ladies Day DE at Pocono Raceway last year. As soon as we heard about the Car Control Clinic, we registered for it as we were told by Tom Iervolino that the event is very popular and fills up very quickly. No more dipping our toes into PCA events, it was time to jump in with both feet.

A few weeks ahead of the event, via email, we received the Student Guide created by Tom Iervolino. It reminded us of the goals of the event “to learn the fundamentals of good car control through a series of instructional exercises designed to push the limits of participant and their machines”. “BE SAFE and HAVE FUN”. We just could not wait for the day.

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Remembering John Watkins

Earth Day, April 23, marks one year since John’s death…