π
2019-02-08 01:01
in Cars, Ncars
Circuit Mecaglisse is 1.5h north of Montréal, and I was lucky enough to be accepted in their level 2 course thanks to the training I got at Dirtfish learning the basics of rally driving. As expected, my almost 20 years of track driving was mostly worthless :)
They had a professional photographer who obviously took better shots than I did :)
The busy photographer (40 drivers) got a few shots of me, along with my talented co-driver Alain. Alain was a great guy as well as one of the best snow/ice drivers in the group, which definitely made me feel self-conscious. He showed me what I should have been doing :)
This is when I need to really recognize Porsche for offering this class at all and allowing students to make mistakes. Basically unless they deem that you were driving like an idiot, you aren't liable for damage. They apparently have a full supply of body panels and bumpers, are quite used to fixing/changing them.
Now, this is nothing compared to the better students who could not only drift but even fit between cones, which I can't quite do yet:
By day 3, we were driving around most of the track. It was still hard as hell as there was very little recovery possible if you went too fast, but if you went too slow, it was hard to not possible to induce necessary oversteers for most turns, so the balance was quite hard to keep.
The last day, we finished with 2WD cars on a super icy track with killer downhill off camber turns. I managed to get one right a couple of times, like at the 1:45 offset and then smacked into the snow wall by getting my timing wrong the 2nd time (offset 3:10). What's terrible is that we knew what was going to happen before it did, but by then there is no recovery possible with a 2WD car (a 4WD has a small chance of pulling out with power):
The day ended with us getting a hotlap from one of our coaches to show us what we could have done if we didn't suck :) I lucked out and got a lap with our chief instructor (forgive the non optimal camera placement):
And just like that, it was over. We had a farewall dinner with prices for the best drivers in each group (i.e. not me :) ):
Thanks to all the instructors, also to Porsche for letting us drive their cars and make mistakes, and the great codrivers in our group (blue group is #1 !) :)
for a short while I was also driving with Mark, the other star in our group
the nice hotel where we were hosted, but it was 45mn away from the track
when I say ice, it really is ice
Kees Nerop, the head instructor we were lucky to end up with
we drove both 4WD and 2WD 911s
they had studded tires, but the studs were pretty short
Alain, showing me how it's done :)
sigh. this was not a proud moment
seeing the cars eating snow as people hit snow banks, was also pretty common. At least the intercooler was cool :)
that one wasn't me, but another cracked bumper
The last day, we finished with 2WD cars on a super icy track with killer downhill off camber turns. I managed to get one right a couple of times, like at the 1:45 offset and then smacked into the snow wall by getting my timing wrong the 2nd time (offset 3:10). What's terrible is that we knew what was going to happen before it did, but by then there is no recovery possible with a 2WD car (a 4WD has a small chance of pulling out with power):
See more images for Porsche Ice Experience Driving Course at Circuit Mecaglisse