Porsche Experience Center at Silverstone

Porsche released this series of videos detailing the different tracks that make up their Porsche Experience Center at the Silverstone track in the UK. They each simulate extreme driving conditions so that Porsche owners can learn how to respond. It’s useful training for any driver, but I can see it being particularly helpful for first time Porsche drivers. The rear engine rear wheel drive format drives like nothing else on the road.

The Kick Plate simulates unexpected oversteer with an actuated plate that pushes the rear axle of the car sideways.

 

The Ice Hill uses wet plastic resin to simulate sheets of ice. There’s also water fountain barriers for the drivers to try and avoid.

 

The Low Friction track has a special kind of asphalt that simulates snow covered roads.

 

The offroad track allows drivers to take the Cayenne to its limits of climbing and tipping.

 

The Handling Circuit is a good old fashioned twisty bit of road designed to simulate British B Roads.


The whole setup looks like a lot of fun. It really makes sense for a brand that promotes the everyday usability of its sports cars. I wonder if they tried doing some space saver training.

Source: Porsche on YouTube

The Laguna Seca Corkscrew

The American Le Mans Series released this video to promote the second round of the 2012 championship at Laguna Seca that took place this past weekend. They interview several of the drivers about Laguna Seca’s signature corner, the corkscrew. The left-right chicane drops 60 feet and is arguably the most difficult corner in all of road racing. It’s said to have been formed when the track was being built completely by accident. The story goes that the bulldozers were carving out the track when it came time for lunch. The bulldozer operator simply drove straight down the hill in the most direct path back to his lunch and the corkscrew was born.


Source: ALMS on YouTube

HKS “Racing Performer” D1 FT-86

This is a video released by HKS Japan and captioned in English by HKS Europe. What they’re doing is finding the baseline performance of a basic Toyota FT-86 / Scion FR-S / Subaru BRZ. The car has a stock engine but has been outfitted with HKS coilovers and an Endless big brake kit. Nobuteru “None Better” Tanaguchi takes the car around Tsukuba circuit after they pull the fuses for the stability, traction control and ABS. His initial impressions are that the car is light and handles well, but doesn’t have much power. Take this with a grain of salt, though. HKS is developing a GT Supercharger kit for the car so Tanaguchi can use it to compete in the D1 Drift Championship. There’s been footage of the car with the supercharger on, but it hasn’t been used in competition yet.

****Be sure to turn on the English captions with the “CC” button to the left of the video quality gear


Source: HKS Europe on Youtube

Ferrari FXX and 599XX Engine Notes

This is footage from a recent Ferrari client car track day at Monza. The client car program is where select Ferrari owners purchase race cars based on production cars that Ferrari keeps and maintains. Track days such as this one are the only time these cars are driven. There were a handful of  the Enzo based FXX’s present. The FXX has a 6.0 liter V12 that makes 800 horsepower at an astronomical 8500 rpm. Very few engines have the kind of response like the one in the FXX and most of those are rotaries. It almost sounds like engine note can’t keep up how fast it revs. All of the downshifts fire off like lightning and the throttle blips sound like they would continue to rev forever if the gear engagement didn’t stop it.


The 599XX has a different 6.0 liter V12. It’s far less high strung making “only” 740 hp. These cars are based off of the 599 GTO and have an active rear wing as part of the Evolution aero package.


Source: Youtube user NM2255