Porsche Club of America
Golden Gate Region

July 2009. Volume 49, Issue 7

In This Issue

President's Message

Letter from the Editor

Competition Corner

Board of Directors

Membership Report

Aug. 1-2 DE/TT/CR

The Power Chef

GGR Family Picnic & Concours

Porsche Roads

GGR Visits Canepa Design

Monterey Historics Events

"The Porsche Way"

Porsche at LeMans

LPR Rallye

Yosemite 50th

Quick Links

Event Calendar

Classified Ads

Join PCA Now
Nugget Archive
More About Us
Zone 7 web site
PCA web site
Great Links

Dear Porsche Enthusiast,

Welcome to The Nugget, the email newsletter of the Golden Gate Region, Porsche Club of America.

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Pawlina Paraskova CG
Executive Editor of The Nugget

President's Message

--by Bill Dally, GGR President

Call for volunteers

The terms of the current PCA-GGR president, treasurer, and secretary are up at the end of the calendar year.   If you have any interest at all in club governance, I encourage you to contact me, Bob Murillo, or Bill Benz (the nominating committee) to discuss what these positions entail.    Being on the PCA-GGR board is very rewarding.  You get to hang out with other Porsche enthusiasts at monthly board meetings (which involve eating good food) and you get great satisfaction in being part of a club that gives us opportunities to enjoy our cars more through competition and social events.  The club really needs some new blood, so please get involved.  In addition to these board positions, there are also opportunities to get involved by organizing or helping with an event.

Suspension Tuning - Part 2

Last month I started a discussion of suspension setup by discussing the overall suspension setup problem, spring rates, and ride height.  As I indicated last month, the suspension tuning process I recommend is as follows:

• Decide what your objectives are.
• Adjust the spring rates of the springs and/or torsion bars to set the appropriate stiffness and to get an approximate front-rear balance.
• Adjust the shock absorbers to provide appropriate dampening for the spring rate chosen.
• Set the ride height to get the center of gravity (CG) as low as possible without causing damage and without causing excessive bump-steer.
• Set the anti-sway bar(s) to fine-tune the front-rear balance.
• Corner balance the car.
• Set the alignment to the optimal camber and toe.

Last month we covered items 1, 2, and 4.  The short summary is that you need to start by deciding what your objectives for the car are.  Based on this, you pick the stiffest springs you can live with - very stiff for a competition car that will run on only smooth surfaces, softer if the surfaces may be a bit bumpy (like Candlestick) and softer yet if you need to use the car as a daily driver.  You balance the front and rear spring rates to approach neutral steering - neither oversteer nor understeer.  Finally, you set the ride height as low as you can without causing ground contact during normal operation or compromising the suspension geometry.

The purpose of shock absorbers (item 3 above) is to dampen the response of the suspension.  The mass of your car and the springs form an oscillatory system.  If you hit a bump, you pump energy into this system and, without shock absorbers, the car would continue to bounce indefinitely - causing uneven contact between the tires and the surface and very sketchy steering behavior.  The purpose of the shock absorbers is to dissipate energy so that an excitation of this system dies out quickly - in a single bounce.  On Shadowfax, I run Koni adjustable shocks, and I adjust them to the softest setting that gives critical dampening.  Some people use adjustable shocks to try to fine-tune their steering balance - stiffening the shock in place of stiffening a spring or a sway bar.   This approach doesn't work as well as changing the stiffness of a spring because the shock provides force as a function of velocity, not as a function of position.

The right way to fine-tune steering neutrality is with anti-sway bars.  These are torsion bars that cross the car horizontally (in parallel with the axles) and are coupled to the wheels at either side via arms and drop links - so that if the right wheel goes up, the torsion bar tries to make the left wheel go up as well.  By adjusting anti-sway bar stiffness you can adjust the car's fore and aft roll stiffness - and hence its steering neutrality - without affecting its pitch stiffness.

The effective stiffness of an anti-sway bar is adjusted by selecting the position of the drop link on the arm (or changing the thickness of the anti-sway bar).  Closer to the sway bar gives a stiffer response as a smaller vertical displacement of the wheel results in a larger angular displacement of the bar.  The photo below shows the anti-sway bar adjustment on Shadowfax.  The drop link is the narrow rod in the middle of the photo with rod ends on either side.  The lower rod end is bolted to a bracket that is welded to the A-arm of the suspension near the wheel - so that it travels up and down with the wheel.  The upper rod end is bolted to a sliding collar on the arm attached to the anti-sway bar.  By sliding the collar forward (left in the photo) stiffness is reduced, by sliding it aft (right in the photo) stiffness is increased.   To keep things balanced, the position of the collars on the left and right sides should be the same.



Anti-sway bar adjustment is easy enough that I often make adjustments between autocross runs.  If I feel the car plowing (indicating understeer), I slide the collars forward a bit to reduce front roll stiffness (and hence increase front grip).  I make small adjustments (typically a quarter inch at a time) and take fairly detailed notes (including the exact collar positions, other suspension setup parameters, and driving conditions) so that over time I can arrive at an optimal setting.

Anti-sway bar adjustment is an iterative process that has to be repeated each time another part of the suspension setup changes.  If the ride height or the alignment changes, it can affect the steering neutrality requiring the anti-sway bars to be adjusted again to give neutral steering.

Corner balancing a car is critical to both handling and braking.  By adjusting the torsion bars and/or the spring perches (as for ride height) for each wheel independently, the amount of the car's weight borne by each wheel can be adjusted.  Unfortunately the adjustments are coupled.  If you move up one spring perch the weight on that wheel increases and the weight on each of the other three wheels - especially the opposite wheel - decreases.

For me, corner balancing was important to get even braking.  Before I corner balanced the car the right front wheel would lockup well before the left front wheel - and well before I had reached the G-force I associated with braking threshold.  This resulted in sub-optimal braking and several flat-spotted tires.

To corner balance the car you need a perfectly level surface (or a surface that is leveled with shims) and a set of scales.  You put the car up on the scales (one scale under each wheel) and adjust the spring perches and torsion bar ends until you reach an optimal setting.  Because the CG of the car is almost always off center - both fore and aft and side-to-side - the optimal setting is not equal weight on each wheel or even equal weight on the two front wheels, but rather equal cross weight.  That is, the car is balanced when the sum of the weight on the front-left wheel and the right-rear wheel equals the sum of the weight on the other two wheels. 

The balance needs to be adjusted with the driver's weight in the car.  A 160lb driver makes a significant difference.  I make the initial adjustments with weights in the driver seat and on the driver side floor and the double check the adjustments sitting in the driver's seat myself. Its also important to bounce the car a bit after each measurement and to repeat the measurements because friction in the shocks and bushings can result in the car "sticking" at slightly different positions, giving slightly different readings, each time.

The photo below shows the scale readings after corner balancing Shadowfax.  The readings show that the car is heavier on the left than the right (1018lbs vs 913lbs) because my carcass is on that side of the car, and heavier in the rear than the front (1106lbs vs 825lbs) because that six-cylinder engine is heavy and there is nothing but the gas tank up front.  However, what's important is that the cross weight is very close (962lbs vs 969lbs).



After this corner balance was done, my braking problems and tire flat spotting problems were cured.

The proper alignment is critical to optimal handling of the car because it determines the angle at which the tire meets the road.  The two critical alignment parameters are toe (the amount that the wheels angle in or out) and camber (the angle between the vertical axis of the wheel and a normal to the ground).   For autocross I run zero toe in the rear and 1/16 inch of toe out (across a 15 inch wheel) in front.  I don't recommend toe out for cars that you plan to drive on the street because it will cause the car to follow every divet in the road - making the steering a bit unstable.  However, for autocross it gives a more snappy turn-in.

The proper camber depends on the type of tires you are running and the roll stiffness of the car.  You set the static camber (the camber with the car at rest) so that the dynamic camber (the camber with the car cornering at the limit of adhesion - and hence rolled a few degrees from horizontal) to be the appropriate value for the tires.  If the car has soft roll stiffness (soft springs and torsion bars) it will roll more at the limit of adhesion and hence will want more negative [static] camber to get a given dynamic camber.

Finding the right values of static and dynamic camber for a given car and tire are a matter of trial and error.  When I started running bias-ply cantilever slicks, several people said that these tires worked best with near zero camber.  So, like an idiot, I set the car to zero camber all around.  (Note to self - take car setup advice from competitors with a grain of salt.)  In hindsight, this was clearly wrong, because with even the small amount of roll I get with my stiff springs, a zero static camber results in a positive dynamic camber - which is not good.

After much trial and error (more of the latter), I arrived at my current setup: 1.7 degrees of negative camber in front and 1.3 degrees in back.  The front setting probably gives very close to zero dynamic camber at the limit.  The rear setting is a compromise.  More negative camber would improve cornering but would give less acceleration before the wheels spin.   For typical radial ply tires, much more camber would be in order.  Its not unusual to see 3 degrees of negative camber in front with radials.

A pyrometer is a very useful tool in tuning camber (and air pressure) because it tells you what part of the tire is getting the hottest (because it is seeing the most friction).  With correct pressure and camber a run on a skid pad should give an even temperature profile across an outside tire.

What makes suspension setup challenging is that everything is coupled.  If you change the alignment, you change the relative front and rear grip and hence need to reset the anti-sway bars (and possibly the spring rates) to get back to neutral steering.  If you lower the ride height, you change the angle of roll at the limit of adhesion and hence the optimum camber setting.    By making small changes and being patient, however, you eventually wind up with a setup that works.  Still, you are never done tuning.  There are always small improvements to be had.


Bill

Letter from the Editor

--by John Celona, Nugget Editor

Updating Your Email Address

One of the most frequent requests I receive from subscribers is to update their email address. Probably most people didn't realize that the button right at the top of The Nugget to subscribe also works to submit a new email address. To make this clearer, I've changed the button so now it says "Subscribe or Enter New Email Address." The advantage of doing it this way is you can be assured that your new email address goes in right then, rather then when I go through update requests.

Don't worry about the old email address. I periodically go through and delete the email addresses for which The Nugget bounced because of a non-existent email address.

In addition to the emails entered this way, each month we use the GGR member email addresses furnished by the national headquarters of the Porsche Club of America. Consequently, the other way to update your email address is to go to the PCA web site and update it there. Then you'll be in the loop for communications from PCA National and from GGR.

Staying In Touch

I also receive frequent emails from members who send them by replying to The Nugget. This mostly works, except that occasionally those reply emails get caught in a spam filter (despite our efforts to keep The Nugget's spam rating low). My apologies to those members for whom I just found a number of emails from last month sitting in the spam filter.

The other way to stay in touch is just to click on the photo of the person you want to email (such as my photo above) which will create a new email to me in your email program (whatever that is). You can also always email the entire board of GGR by sending an email to ggr-board@pca-ggr.org. I'll also ask our webmaster, Paul Larson, about putting a link on front page of the GGR web site for emailing to the board.

Hopefully, this helps with staying in touch. We love to hear from the members!

www.highperformancehouse.com

Competition Corner

--by Wayne Van Norsdall, Competition Director


Wayne will be back next month. --Ed.

Board of Directors

--by John Celona, GGR Secretary

GGR Board of Directors
Meeting Minutes for June 10, 2009

Call to Order. The meeting was held at the residence of the president, Bill Dally. Present were: Bill Dally, Bill Benz, Larry Adams, Andrew Forrest, Matt Switzer, Wayne van Norsdall, Paul Larson, John Celona, Mike Cullinan, Mark Powell, and Rob Murillo. The meeting was called to order at 6:45 p.m.

Call for agenda changes: none

Call for calendar changes: none

Approval of May minutes: already approved via email

Postmortem of events

• 5/15-17 Grand Am tour: about 35 people took the tour.
• 5/16 Beginners Auto X school: the school was sold out and everyone seemed to have a great time.
• 5/23-24 DE TT CR # 2 Buttonwillow
• 5/30-31 Stockton Auto X
• 6/6 Porsche (Boxster) Brunch

Directors' Reports

President: nothing to report.

Vice-President

Upcoming event status report:

• 6/20 Auto X 4 Alameda
• 6/20 Wine and Wrenches Tech Session
• 6/27 Canepa Design Tour
• 6/28 Palo Alto Concours
• 7/11 Bear Valley Event
• 7/11 Ground School

Certificates are ordered for the following events:

• 6/27 Canepa Design Tour
• 7/11-12 Bear Valley Event

Certificates are in place for the following events:

• 6/20 Auto X 4 Alameda

Treasurer: club finances are stable. Some money was moved from a certificate of deposit to the checking account because of a temporary cash flow issue which is now gone.

Secretary: nothing to report

Social

Calendar of Past Events:

• Team Tours at Laguna Seca Grand Am Races, May 16, 2009. Brumos tour headed by Hurley Haywood and TRG tour and both completely filled with waiting lists. We were able to accommodate everyone who signed up . 25 to 30 people attended Brumos tour. 30 to 35 attended TRG tour.  

Upcoming Event Status Report:

• TRG "Wine and Wrenches" Tech Session: Saturday, 6/20/09. GGR will be having a Tech Session/Wine Tasting/Catered Lunch at TRG on June 20, 2009.  The cost will be $20 per adult, with children under 12 will free. Announcement was made on 5/27/09.  Sign-ups are trickling in (only 11 so far).  Event may need to be canceled if we don't get a lot of last minute sign-ups.
• Canepa Design Tour: Saturday, 6/27/09. GGR will be having a tour to Canepa Design in Scott's Valley on Saturday, June 27, 2009.  The caravan will meet at Starbuck's in Los Gatos. The event will be free. We will be able to have up to 30 guests. Announcement was made on 6/2/09. The event is full with a waiting list. (48 people have requested slots, so far).  We may be able to increase the size of the tour?? Insurance has been ordered.  
• Military Vehicle Foundation Tour: Saturday, 9/26/09. GGR member Kevin Laird has arranged for a private tour of the Military Vehicle Foundation in Portola Valley. The tour will take place at 10:00 AM on Saturday, September 26, 2009. The event is already on the GGR calendar.  An announcement to be made one month prior to event.  To sign-up, e-mail Kevin at kpl@kevinlaird.com.  A donation of $20 is requested..  
• Year-End Banquet at Blackhawk Museum in Danville: Sunday 1/10/10. Per the Boards recommendation the date for our Year-End Banquet was changed to Sunday 1/10/10. The deposit check for $3000 and signed contract was mailed to Scott's Catering. (Scott's is now handling both catering and Blackhawk rental.) Cost will be $45 per person.   

Future Events for Discussion:  

• GGR Family Picnic / People's Choice Concours: Saturday, 7/25/09.Gateway Pavilion and parking lot reserved for "Special Event".  Need Board approval for expenses.  Armadillo Willy's approx. $1,200, Frankie's  Awards approx. $150, plus misc. expenses approx. $200.  Cost will be $15/person and kids are free. The club will pick up the rest of the expenses. Announcements to be made later this month.  

Motion to approve expenses for family picnic was approved unanimously.

Membership

Motion to approve the new members was passed unanimously.

Competition

Autocross

May 31 was the zone autocross with SVR. The event went smoothly with all the help SVR provided for the GGR event on Sunday. Pre-registration for the next autocross on June 20th is running about typical, though below event capacity and below the first autocross. For this event, up to 20 friends of GGR members will be allowed to participate on a pre-notification and pre-approval basis. Interested members should submit their friend's name to the autocross chairs.

Bear Valley autocross: go/no go needed by Friday, June 19th in order to set up an event at Alameda in case Bear Valley is a no-go.

August 22-23 will be a 2-day zone event at Alameda.

Efforts are ongoing to find new autocross chairs. Also, a separate committee is needed to evaluate potential new autocross sites.

Henceforth, pre-registration on MotorSports Reg will include pre-payment for the autocross. Also, drop-in registration on the day of the autocross will be priced higher than pre-registration.

Time Trial / Drivers' Ed / Club Racing

Both club races have been very successful and PCA is highly pleased with the operation. However, the club took a loss on Buttonwillow, even after some money refunded from Buttonwillow. It looks like attendance for the DE portion has been declining. Mike and Warren have been surveying the drivers to find out why. GGR is also competing with SVR/Trackmaster and Diablo Valley region events. Mike and Warren are putting together a plan for changes and promotions for future events. Exemptions will need to be reduced, especially since there have been many more instructor exemptions than students.

This year, for the first time in years, the club will have weekend without rain worries at Infineon. It will be in October. Also, one-day (Saturday or Sunday) registration will be offered in addition to the full-weekend registration.

Mike requested an ad hoc committee to suggest future changes and directions for the driving series. Mike and Warren will handle this.

Webmaster: 930 hits/day last month.

Topics for discussion

Succession Subcommittee: a call for candidates will go in the Nugget. The open positions are: president, secretary, and treasurer.

Support for Zone dinner at Parade: Sharon Neidel requested $10 per GGR member attending parade to support a Zone 7 dinner at Parade. Motion to do so passed unanimously.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:35 p.m.

May Membership Report

--by Jeff Kost, Membership Director

The primary membership level increased ever so slightly in May, with a very slight erosion of affiliate members. New members more than doubled month over month to 29, up from 13 the month before. However, an unusually high number of non-renewals took the overall number down slightly. As always, I encourage each of you to do what you can to recruit new members and engage and retain our ever more important existing members!

Total Members:     2342
Primary:                1380
Affiliate:                   981
HQ Life:                       1
GGR Life:                    3

New Members:     29
Transfers In:           0
Transfers Out:        3

Congratulations and welcome to our NEW MEMBERS!!!

Anniversaries

 45 Years (Congratulations!!!)

40 Years

 30 Years

 20 Years

 15 Years

 10 Years

 5 Years

August 1-2 DE/TT/Club Race

 
Reminder: the event on September 5-6 at Thunderhill will be the last club race event on the west coast in 2009. Be there!

Mike and Warren

The Power Chef

Sunday in the Park with Porsche

--by John Celona, The Power Chef®

This past Sunday was the Palo Alto Concours d'Elegance--the first concours we have ever entered. Thankfully, the temperature that day on the Stanford campus was near 100ºF so risk of hypothermia was minimal. Also, the dizziness from the extreme heat puts one in a two-cocktails-like mood without the need to bring ice. Plus I had many opportunities to take my boots off and see how long it would take my drenched socks to dry out. All this and the chance to look at a lot of great cars and talk to their owners--what more could one ask?

As you might guess, preparation for this event was intense. For us, it kicked off with picking a theme: Sunday in the Park with Porsche after the Sondheim musical because, well, why not? That determined the choice of Victorian clothing and, as it turned out, wool pants, a duster jacket, knee-height boots, driving cap and goggles--all the marks of an "intrepid motorist"--were ideal for the ambient conditions. Now all we had to do was get the car ready.

That effort kicked off about a month before the concours, right after I had lent the car to my brother and nephew for GGR's beginners' autocross school so it was good and dirty and had lots of cone marks on it. The initial cleaning took place on a Sunday, commencing at 9 a.m. and finishing at 11 p.m. That was enough for a "cursory" cleaning of the wheels, engine, interior, and for claying the car and buffing the swirl marks out of the clear coat. Then I was ready to get serious.

This Is Not Our Car

It ended up only taking two days to clean the front and back trunks on our Boxster. I was surprised at how clean the hinges could get with a few hours of poking around with a terry cloth towel and paint stirring stick. And at how shiny the underside of the lids could be when you got serious about waxing and buffing them. Why had I waited so long to do this?

And did you know that, at least on our Porsche, the nuts the hood latch bolts to are welded in between the two steel layers of the front hood so you can remove the latch, polish it, and reinstall it without losing the nuts? Those Porsche engineers have thought of everything.

Then it was time to get serious about cleaning the wheels and wheel wells. I was actually able to get off almost all of whatever had been baked on the inside of the wheels and to remove the F/R, F/L, R/R, and R/L marks someone had thoughtfully written on them so no one gets confused. I was amazed at how durable the adhesive from now-removed wheel weights were (previous sets of tires), but a few of them succumbed to 30 minutes each of scraping with a plastic card until I decided to leave the rest for historical authenticity. I did debate about trying to get the body color painted metal (light yellow!) in the wheel wells clean and shiny, then decided that their dirt-tan color complemented the now-shiny silver wheels better. About ten hours at this and we were there.

In contrast, final cleaning of the interior was child's play. Vacuuming and scrubbing till your fingers hurt with damp towels was all it took. The only tricky part was figuring out how to get the pedals clean with those pesky grooves in them filled with dirt. Why hadn't Porsche made them smooth? I finally discovered that a moderate dousing with water and scrubbing with a vegetable brush did the trick. The final challenge was not dripping blood on the nice clean pedals because I'd managed to find something sharp behind the accelerator pedal.

This Isn't It, Either

I then debated about how clean the chassis was going to get. A complete disassembly and restoration of the car could probably have been had for only about $100k but--more to the point--it was now too late to launch into this. I should have thought of that sooner.

So, I decided to clean only what I could reach with damp towels. Note: stuff around the muffler welds is also sharp enough to cut you. Along the way, I discovered yet more cone marks on the bottoms of the body panels. Didn't my brother know each one of those is a second off? I'll have to talk to him about turning neater laps.

Finally, the car was about as ready as I was going to get it without losing my job. Now I just had to figure out how to get the car to the venue: a field on the Stanford University campus. Did you realize that the outdoors is just bursting with DIRT and DUST and LINT? They're everywhere! Certainly, the out-of-doors was not designed with concours in mind.

The neatest option would have been to helicopter the car there. With the site being so close to the Stanford Medical Center, I considered calling for an emergency medical helicopter and just tipping the pilot to modify the flight plan. The only problem was the car did not look sick. So it looked like driving it there was going to be the plan. I chose 280 as the route because it's a cleaner highway than 101.

Then, we arrived, and what is there in the field but DIRT! There were actually patches of DIRT in the grass we had to drive over! Why couldn't they patch them with astroturf? I cleaned the car as well as I could before the judging started without dripping too much sweat on the car (it was already in the 90's). I knew that the judge was going to find dirt and he did, but at least he had to work at it. He knelt on a towel at the front and rear of the car and each of wheel wells and spent a while sticking his finger in and withdrawing before finding enough dirt to satisfy himself. Next time I think I'll put the car in the top rack of the dishwasher and see how that does.

Knowing that the entire car was not going to be surgically clean, I completed our Sunday in the Park theme with having Cassandra there as my assistant (you may remember her from the GGR Awards Banquet). She was prettier than any of the cars there. We ended up with second place in our class, though the judges didn't seem to car a lick about the whole story I'd put together about our Boxster having a 911 engine installed at the factory, having a custom exhaust that put out no detectable emissions (it's a ULEV Porsche!), etc. Go figure. Here's a pic of us and the car.

Here We Are

In the end, we're very grateful to have won something our first time out and it was a lot of fun to take the victory lap and drive the car up the reviewing ramp to collect our award. And the car is cleaner than it ever has been. It's in the garage and I refuse to look if it collected more dirt on the way home.

Now, though, we're just about a month out from the Carlsen Concours and I see they have a "Wash'N'Shine" category where they don't look under the car. Plus I think you get bonus points if you race the car. I wonder just how many terry cloth towels I have left, anyway.

Bon Appetit,
The Power Chef

Best of Show, In My Opinion

On the day of the concours, one of these sure would have been good. Just couldn't drive home afterward!

Tennessee Lemonade

On hot summer days in the south before air conditioning was developed, a glass of lemonade could spoil within minutes of being poured. Luckily, the inventive people of Tennessee discovered that adding a tiny amount of Jack Daniels would make the lemonade safe to sip in a more leisurely fashion. Thank goodness for frontier resourcefulness!

The Gist
Fill a suitable glass with ice, add half full of Jack Daniels and the remainder with Italian lemon soda. Enjoy!

Ingredients
ice cubes
Jack Daniels
Italian lemon soda
a suitably tall glass

Method
'Bout the same.

Variations
Top with crushed mint leaves for a "Julep-y" lemonade.

GGR Family Picnic & Concours

GGR's Annual  Family Picnic / Peoples Choice Wash and Shine Concours

 Join your fellow Porsche enthusiasts Saturday July 25th at Vasona County Park for this year's premier social event!!   

The event will feature a delicious BBQ lunch catered by Armadillo Willy's, a People's Choice Wash and Shine Concours, Trophies, Games, and more!!  Best of all, the price is only $15 per adult
and children are free!!   

The event will be held in Vasona's Gateway Pavilion Picnic Area.  This is a large covered area with plenty of shade.  It is adjacent to large grassy area, perfect for games.  We'll also have the parking lot blocked off for Porsche only parking and our Concours Display.



Armadillo Willy's Lunch will include Real Texas BBQ Ribs, Smoked BBQ Chicken, Smoked Texas Beef Brisket, Chili Beans, Potato Salad, Willy's Famous Spicy Peanut Slaw, Green Salad, Cornbread Muffins, Soft Drinks and Desert!

Register now so you don't miss this important event!

When:
Saturday,  July 25th, 2008
10:00 AM to 4:00 PM

Where:   
Vasona County Park, Gateway Pavilion
333 Blossom Hill Road
Los Gatos, CA 95032

Price:
Adults: $15.00
Children: Free with an adult!!
Note: There is also a Vasona Park Fee of $6.00 per vehicle payable at the gate.

To Attend:
Mail your check payable to PCA-GGR to
Mark Powell, PCA-GGR Social Director
P.O. Box 23038
San Jose, CA 95153-3038

Please include:

• Your name:
• e-mail address:
• Year and Model Car:
• Number of Adults:  
• Number of Children:   

We need a final headcount one week in advance, so registration must be received no later than Saturday, July 18th.   

We also need volunteers to help set-up and run the event.  If you would like to help or if you would like more information on the event, please email Mark Powell.

Porsche Roads

--by Claude Leglise, GGR Past President

King City to Carmel
via Fort Hunter Liggett

Gov't Mule is playing King's Highway on the radio, which seems entirely appropriate as El Camino Real approaches King City, named after Mr. Charles King, not after the King of Spain as one might have guessed. You can gas up and maybe get a fine Mexican lunch right off 101, but otherwise, downtown is not known for its photo opportunities.

Our goal today is a delightful and out-of-the-way road that will take us from 101 all the way to Cabrillo Highway / Highway 1 on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, then north to Carmel and the Monterey Peninsula. Half a mile north of town, on the west bank of the Salinas River, turn off onto Jolon Road, or County Route G14. The San Bernabe Vineyard, nestled between the river and the foothills, covers thousands of acres with 21 varieties of grapes, and is testament to the size of the wine business.



After the winery, Jolon Road starts rising gently into the Santa Lucia Mountains, passing through numerous cattle ranches and near the occasional Victorian farm house.  Green stands of cottonwoods and willows line the streams coming down the hillsides. At mile 9.5, a welcome passing lane allows you to overtake, if there is any traffic. At mile 12, you enter Fort Hunter Ligget, a US Army training facility. Past the first range, the road ought to be renamed "Avenue of the Oaks", as majestic old growth trees line both sides of the valley. The town of Jolon burned down in 1929, and there is nothing noteworthy left to see. It has its own zipcode, though.

At mile 18, turn right onto Mission Road, and, a quarter mile later, stop at the barricade and be prepared to show your driver's license, registration and proof of insurance. The maximum speed limit on the base is 55 mph (less where posted), and they have machine guns and hand-held missiles . . . so no fooling! Mission Road soon goes by row upon row of parked Humvees, flat bed trucks and assorted earth moving equipment, until you see The Hacienda, up the hill on the right. Fort Hunter Liggett's lands were once part of the William Randolph Hearst properties. Hearst built the Hacienda to house his employees and guests. The Army operates it as a public hotel. Half a mile further down the road, you reach Mission San Antonio.

The setting for the mission is straight out of a spaghetti western movie: sun-drenched flat grounds, deep blue sky, hills in the background, earth tone bricks, red tiles, rattlesnakes, olive trees, a single visitor hiding furtively behind the columns. If you listen attentively, you might hear the music of Ennio Morricone playing in your head.

Because the location is so remote, the mission has not been updated and "yuppiefied" like so many others, and it may well be the best example of what all the missions looked like two centuries ago. San Antonio was built in 1771, and the first catholic wedding in Alta California was celebrated there in May 1773. The gardens and the small museum are worth a quiet stroll.



After visiting the mission, you have to backtrack about 2 miles and turn right onto Nacimiento-Fergusson Road towards the ocean. Signage is fairly minimal, but it should indicate Highway 1 and Lucia. You will soon see a green all-metal bridge over the San Antonio River. Turn left and cross the bridge.

The first set of curves will take you over a short range into Stony Valley. The old tank parked on the right side is a clear indicator you are still on the base. The road crosses Stony Creek, and on the left side, you get a short glimpse of a pond and its wetlands.



At mile 34, a road sign promises 2 miles of twisties. The pavement quality is good, but the road engineering leaves much to be desired. Watch for off-camber turns, blind corners and blind dips. At mile 36, go through the next barricade to leave the Fort and enter Los Padres National Forest. (Did you know that the rangers manage land for 20 horses under the Wild Horse and Burro Act of 1971? Neither did I. And when did Congress find time in their busy schedule to pass the Burro Act?) The sign says 14 miles to Highway 1.

After the barricade, the 2-lane road follows the Nacimiento River valley, and traffic is sparse at best. At mile 41, you reach the Nacimiento campground, where you can pitch your tent and have a picnic. After crossing the river, at mile 42, the road starts climbing along the edge of the Santa Lucia Mountains. The pavement is quite a bit bumpier than inside the fort, but there are no potholes or sudden dips. Watch for loose rocks, though. The driving is pleasant but not fast; 25-30 mph is about top speed. Enjoy the scenery. The oak trees soon make room for madrones as the ocean air reaches into the canyons.



At mile 43.5, there is a nice overlook where you can see deep into the canyon and understand why fighting fires in this area is impossible. Oh, and there is no phone service, of course.

You reach the pass 3400 feet above sea level at mile 45, at the intersection with the Central Coast Ridge Road. If you are driving a Cayenne, you may consider turning right to go up to Cone Peak or turning left onto Plaskett Ridge Road towards Highway 1. I did not test the off-road capabilities of the GT3, so I cannot give you more information on these side excursions. After reaching the top, the downhill drive is quite steep and twisty. There is no Armco anywhere in sight, so take it easy.

 

Around mile 46.5, you get your first good view of the ocean, and at mile 47 there is nice overlook with room to pull over. The sight of the marine layer promises cool air down below, and there are many more curves coming. As you progress downhill, the trees disappear and are replaced by grasses and a few century plants. At mile 51 or thereabouts, expect to be in the clouds or to see kelp beds in the water, depending on the weather on the day of your trip. Then at mile 52, you reach Cabrillo Highway. Make a left towards San Simeon if you are headed south, or turn right towards Big Sur and Carmel.

Highway 1 hardly needs any introduction and description. The pavement all the way to Carmel is generally in good shape, but there are several spots that have experienced landslides or some sort of upheaval, and it gets extremely bumpy for a few hundred feet at a time. Given the current state of California's finances, I would not expect improvements in the near future. The Lucia Lodge at mile 56 might be worth a stop for a cup of coffee or a bite. If your credit card needs a workout, you may want to consider the Ventana Inn for a spa and fine dining. The Big Sur Roadhouse offers a more casual alternative. Of course, once you are in Carmel, the dining opportunities expand considerably. On the way, I recommend the Point Lobos State Reserve for a good look at the coast, its flora and fauna. The entrance is on the left at mile 105.

 

One quick word about the climate. I made this trip during a June heat wave; it was 90 in San Jose around noon, 110 at Mission San Antonio, and 59 in Big Sur. You will need to carry some water with you for the first part of the trip, and then bring a jacket along for the second half.

Scale: 1∗ to 5∗                       Twistiness         Pavement quality        Scenery
Jolon Road (G14)                          ∗                          ∗∗∗∗                       ∗∗   
Nacimiento-Fergusson Road      ∗∗∗∗                        ∗∗∗                       ∗∗∗∗
Cabrillo Highway (Hwy 1)           ∗∗∗∗                        ∗∗∗∗                     ∗∗∗∗∗

 

This and earlier editions of Porsche Roads are archived on the web. Click Here.

Claude

GGR Visits Canepa Design

--by A. Dias, GGR Member

The GGR's Tour to Canepa Design was a great success. Canepa Design, located in Scotts Valley, off of Hwy 17, is a first class operation featuring a showroom with a great assembly of classic cars, a museum and a restoration/race preparation facility.

The Tour received a great welcome with a guided tour of the facilities and a detailed description of every car on display in the museum. Many of these cars were raced by Bruce Canepa at one time or another. The collection is quite varied including hill-climbing cars (one with a Porsche flat-six engine), open wheel racers, stock cars, all the way to prototype road race cars, including Ford, Lancia, Nissan, and of course Porsche.

To me the stars of the museum are the 917-10, Jacky Ickx's Le Mans winner 962 C and a late 90s 911 Le Mans racer. It was quite a thrill to be able to inspect these cars in detail, admire the 917's space frame chassis, paper thin composite body and the stupendous 1000+HP Ferdinand Piech-designed flat-12 monster engine.

Some friends tell me they are frequent Canepa Design visitors as they find it an excellent place for day-dreaming.











Photo collection can be seen here.

Monterey Historic Races Events

The Porsche Club of America - Monterey Bay Region (MBR) is organizing the Porsche Corral parking and other club activities surrounding the Monterey Historic Automobile Races at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, August 14-16, 2009.  Porsche is the featured marque at the Historic races.  MBR is organizing the following events to occur during the week leading up to the Historic Races:

• Monday, 8/10 - MBR "Heritage Avenue Exhibit," at the Carmel-by-the-Sea Concours on the Avenue, where Porsche & Ferrari will be featured
• Thursday, 8/13 - Driving tour showcasing Monterey County and post-tour reception at the Poppy Hills Golf Course in Pebble Beach
• Friday, 8/14 - Welcome Party at the historic Carmel Mission
• Saturday & Sunday, 8/15 & 8/16  -  Corral parking, hospitality area, catered lunches and a Parade Lap at the Monterey Historic Automobile Races - Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca
• Monday, 8/17 - Driver's Education Day at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca

MBR's event registration will be through www.motorsportsreg.com and will open in the near future.   Registrants will need a free user name/password on that site and elect to "join" the PCA - Monterey Bay club.  Future email announcements of MBR event details will be sent through motorsportsreg.com and made available on the MBR website.  Some events have space limitations.  Participation in the Heritage Avenue Exhibit and acceptance in the Driver's Education Day will be by MBR organizing committees.  New this year, MBR's registration fees will be discounted through May 31, 2009.

Registration for the Heritage Avenue Exhibit will occur separately.  Concours on the Avenue information is available from Motor Club Events, LLC, through their website.

Monterey Historic Automobile Races tickets must be purchased separately from Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca through their ticket ordering website or by calling 1-800-327-SECA.
Lodging information and assistance services can be found on the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca website.
# # #
Links:
http://mby.pca.org  (MBR official website)
http://www.motorsportreg.com  (MBR event registration)
http://www.motorclubevents.com  (Concours on the Avenue website)
http://www.mazdaraceway.com/pages/tix-historic09   (Historic races ticket order page)
http://www.mazdaraceway.com/pages/hotels_restaurants (Lodging information & services)
 
Porsche Club of America - Monterey Bay Region Contacts:
Ginger Mutoza, Historic Races Event Coordinator                         George Von Gehr, President
831-596-4041                                                                                 650-888-1848

Porsche Presents "The Porsche Way"

Stuttgart. Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, Stuttgart, is proudly presenting its history "in motion": In a 2 ½-film "The Porsche Way", the Company presents its entire history from the early years up to the present day on one full-coverage DVD. Starting with the lifetime achievements of Ferdinand and Ferry Porsche, the film focuses in eight chapters on the development of the famous sports car manufacturer, proceeding from one decade to the next. "This is the first time that a car maker is presented so exhaustively on a DVD", says Dieter Landenberger, the Director of the Porsche Archives.

The DVD is based on the Archives Collection with more than 5,000 hours of footage. Taking most impressive scenes from the history of the Company, the products and motorsport, the DVD presents numerous film extracts never seen before. Several outstanding celebrities of former times also make an appearance in the film, among them former racing drivers such as Hans Herrmann, Eberhard Mahle, and Paul Ernst Strähle as well as former employees of Porsche such as the "Engine King" Hans Mezger or Dr. Heinz Rabe, formerly the Director of the Porsche Social Affairs Department. As a further highlight, the film comes with music composed specifically for this DVD.

"The Porsche Way" from the Porsche Museum Edition is now available in German and English at the Porsche Museum Shop at a price of Euro 24.90.

Porsche Success & Disappointment at LeMans

PORSCHE FACTORY DRIVERS, CUSTOMER TEAMS HAVE SUCCESS, DISAPPOINTMENT AT  LE MANS; RS SPYDER WINS LMP2, MICHELIN ENERGY AWARDS - GT2 PORSCHES DNF

ATLANTA - June 13 -- While the Porsche RS Spyder is just a memory in North America, it was certainly alive earlier today at the checkered flag for the 24 Hours of Le Mans as the iconic LMP2 sports prototype captured its second Le Mans class win in two tries thanks to the Danish customer team of Casper Elgaard, Kristian Poulsen, and Porsche factory driver Emmanuel Collard.  

The Team Essex, which came in second in LMP2 a year ago, beat its Lola Judd rival by more than 14 laps, as well as capturing the energy efficiency classification "Michelin Green XChallenge" as the car with the best overall efficiency, calculated by the ratio between lap times and fuel consumption. Porsche lost its chance for a one-two LMP2 RS Spyder finish only an hour before the end of the race, as the RS Spyder entry of NAVI Team GOH spun off the track while running comfortably in second place.  Under braking for the first chicane on the Hunaudières straight on an oil spill of a competitor, Japanese driver Seiji Ara hit the barriers and the car was forced to retire. 

911 GT3 RSR, IMSA Performance Matmut: Raymond Narac, Patrick Long, Patrick Pilet

"We're proud that in customer hands the RS Spyder not only confirmed its high speed and reliability again but also won the environmental classification. It's such a great pity that the second RS Spyder retired. NAVI Team GOH put in an immaculate performance and really would have deserved to secure second," said Porsche Head of Motorsport, Hartmut Kristen.  

In 2008, the RS Spyder won the energy efficiency challenge at all races and championships - in the Le Mans 24 Hours, the American Le Mans Series and the European Le Mans Series. With this, the RS Spyder impressively underlined its status as the world's most efficient sports prototype.  

"After claiming second last year we are absolutely over the moon with our victory today," said Essex driver Casper Elgaard (Denmark). "This is a huge success for our Danish team, which only began competing in long distance racing last year." 

RS Spyder, Team Essex: Casper Elgaard, Emmanuel Collard, Kristian Poulsen

Porsche works driver Emmanuel Collard (France) added: "The key to success was the RS Spyder. We didn't have the slightest technical problem and turned fast and steady laps."  

Only once in the night was there an unscheduled stop. Before the first Hunaudières chicane, the two close-running RS Spyder hit a patch of oil and began to slide. Keisuki Kunimoto (NAVITeam GOH) nudged the Essex car, resulting in both vehicles having body parts replaced.  

"Our crew did a super job," said the third Essex driver, Kristian Poulsen (Denmark), who celebrated his Le Mans debut with victory. "I would like to thank the team and mostly Casper and Emmanuel. They did most of the work."

After a break of four years, NAVI Team GOH, Le Mans winner of 2004 with Seiji Ara, looked like they would bring home a second place right up until an hour before the flag - with a ten lap advantage over third position. Oil from a competitor became Ara's eventual fate.

"I had no chance. Two wheels hit the oil that I couldn't see while braking," said Seiji Ara. "It's a bitter end of a great race. I'm pleased that the RS Spyder is not only fast, but also safe." His compatriot Keisuke Kunimoto contested the long distance classic for the first time. 

Driver change for the RS Spyder team

Porsche works driver Sascha Maassen was full of praise: "I salute our team's performance. Perfect preparation, perfect team work in every respect. I'm so sorry that we couldn't bring home the success they deserved." For the perfect work in the pit stops, the team received a special prize from the organizers.  

Porsche works drivers Timo Bernhard (Germany) and Romain Dumas (France), lent to Audi for the Le Mans 24 hour race, lost all chances to win with a technical defect in their #3 Audi R15 TDI which resulted in repairs over several hours on Saturday night. With their chase through the field from the back to finish 18th, the two shone with their excellent lap times. "It hurts to be out of contention for overall victory so early on," said Bernhard.  

"Still, it was great fun. The Audi crew made us feel very welcome from the first moment on," added Dumas.  

In the production-based GT2 class, a one-two qualifying effort for the Porsche 911 GT3 RSR from qualifying could not be turned into a race success. After just two hours, the race came to an end for the three Porsche works drivers Marc Lieb (Germany), Richard Lietz (Austria) and Wolf Henzler (Germany). A problem with the fuel system caused the engine of the 911 to die and not start again - 100 meters from the entrance to the pit lane. As the regulations do not allow a car to be towed in such a case, the leading trio of the German Felbermayr-Protonteam had no chance to repair the otherwise technically perfect 911 and retired.  

"Of course I'm very disappointed," said Marc Lieb. "But we are looking ahead and already looking forward to the next race in the Le Mans Series, where we want to extend our championship lead with another victory." 

LMP2 champions - (l-r) Peter Halvorsen, Emmanuel Collard, Kristian Poulsen, Casper Elgaard

For the American Flying Lizard team, the 2009 Le Mans race ended in the early morning hours when Darren Law (USA) collided heavily with the barriers. Prior to this, pole-setter Jörg Bergmeister (Germany) and team owner Seth Neiman (USA) were steadily moving in the direction of a podium result with their GT3 RSR. The French IMSA Performance Matmut team with Porsche works drivers Patrick Pilet (France) and Patrick Long (USA) as well as Raymond Narac (France) maintained third place for more than two-thirds of the race distance. OnSunday morning a problem with the power transmission put an end to their promising charge.

Unlike the American Le Mans Series, where cars can be ranked in the finals standing as long as they complete 70 percent of the laps of the overall winner, the 24 Hours of Le Mans requires a team to take the checkered flag at the end of the race to be classified in the results. Under ALMS rules, the RS Spyder entry of NAVI Team GOH would have finished third in LMP2.

Complete results can be found at the following link.

LPR Rallye

Yosemite Region 50th

Enough for July! Does anyone actually read all the way through to the end?

As always, thanks for reading.

John Celona
Porsche Club of America-Golden Gate Region