Blog 12/13/2021

Membership

Elections

Unopposed candidates Kuder (President), Bill Hume (VP), Heinzelman (Secretary) and Smith (Treasurer) are the winners with each candidate receiving 41 votes .  There were no write-in votes. Votes came from 26 primary members and 15 affiliate members, and 9 board members voted.  Our voting guidelines indicated the election would be open through Nov 31, however all ballots were received between 11-02-21 and 11-24-21.  Seven of our ballots did not comply with all of our guidelines but were counted since they were understood and did not alter the outcome. 

Kudos for our volunteers who step up to run our club!

Membership

No new members this month.

Activities

No planned activities at this time. Stay tuned.

Hogan’s Corner

Weldon & Phyllis Scrogham register in the Porsche tent at Virginia International Raceway, August 2014.

Dick Hatch is handling Weldon’s registration.

Are you out there?

I had many emails last week in response to my “Oak Tree” picture and other comments. Thank you. Sometimes you are out there in the dark and you do not know if you are finding interesting materials for the blog. Feedback is awesome!

I’m so excited to learn that VIR recently transplanted a humongous oak tree back to the famous Oak Tree turn!!!😂

Look forward to meeting you at a VIR event in the future.  I’m hoping your articles on track driving will encourage some of our local members to give HPDE a try. 

Skip Silvers

Com’on, we were paying attention.  We just thought you set the camera date wrong.  It’s an easy mistake to make, the tens digit should have been a 2 instead of a 1.

Thanks for your efforts on this newsletter.

Jim Strudwick

Good morning,

Much enjoyed the High Performance Driving material.

Best.

Jim Wallace

High Performance Driving

As I mentioned, I recently was back at Virginia International Raceway where I was instructing a student. We got into a discussion on driving techniques and I found this interesting site on the internet by Paradigm Shift Racing. http://www.paradigmshiftracing.com They have tons of material on the art of performance driving. I thought I might feature several of their teaching blocks for your reading pleasure.

Included are:

  • The Racing Line
  • The Corner Exit Drag Race
  • Car Setup Science
  • Five Biggest Driving Technique Myths
  • Trail Braking
  • Racing Cockpit Optimization
  • and more.

This week, let’s discuss “Car Setup Science:”.

Racers have been doing it for decades, but even AAA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recommend holding the steering wheel at 9 and 3 these days.  In this article I am going to go beyond this basic advice however, and look in-depth at how a driver can further their steering technique to hopefully bring their performance to the next level. Just as hitting a home run requires more than holding the bat correctly, how the arms and shoulders move (or don’t move) when driving a car can be even more important than where exactly you grip the steering wheel.

More

Formula One Racing

Well, if you have not been watching F1 Racing this year, you missed an interesting and controversial season. Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen have been fighting it out fist and cuff. The final race was last Sunday. I was out of town, but found it on my TV in my hotel room. What a race it was.

Lewis and Max were tied in the points coming into the race.

In summary, Max won the pole Saturday by slip streaming his teammate in the final run. Max had the softer tires and should have had an early advantage. But Lewis beat him at the start and surged into a solid lead. Lewis made his tire change and was regaining the lead while Max struggled with his tires. A safety car allowed Max to close up by getting a shorter pitstop for his tire change. But Lewis was just too fast and led the race to the end.

Then ……..

On the closing laps of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Williams driver Nicholas Latifi slid off the track and hit a wall, leading to a safety car. That safety car turned out to be the fateful event as it closed the gap between race leader Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. Max changed his tires to the soft tire again while Lewis stayed out as the leader. Normally drivers are allowed to regain their positions prior to the restart but there were only two laps left. As drivers regained their position and with a bit of confusion, they restarted the race. Lewis started out with Max right behind him. The tires made the difference with Verstappen eventually taking the lead on the final lap of the final race of the season. You need to read the story below about Michael Masi, the race director, making the decision to let the drivers race that last lap to finish the season.

The safety car regulations that Michael Masi ignored to ‘go racing’ at the end of Abu Dhabi GP

356 Rally Car

Extreme endurance racer Renee Brinkerhoff, her Valkyrie Racing team and her globe-trotting 1956 Porsche 356 coupe have arrived at Union Glacier in Antarctica, ready to set off on a 356-mile ice trek that will mark the 7th continent conquered by the driver and her vintage sports car, both 65 years old.

The Antarctica challenge comes after two years of effort and preparation, during which time the Porsche was re-engineered for the treacherous polar drive, and caps off Brinkerhoff’s remarkable story of dedication and stamina; since 2017, she and her 356 have competed on every continent in grueling cross-country racing and rally events.

More

Porsche Gone Bad

The Lineup

The Other Lineup

The following are models sorted by year of introduction. Street-legal racing models of the 1950s and 1960s are included.

1940s[edit]

1950s[edit]

1960s[edit]

1970s[edit]

1980s[edit]

1990s[edit]

2000s[edit]

2010s[edit]