Over the course of 2019, Northeast Region will hold two Driver Education events named: Northeast Region Vintage Days (plus one being hosted by North Country Region). While these events fall under the auspices of the existing NER DE Program – they are purposely different. In fact, by design, they have been developed for those drivers who have left standard DE formats as frankly, our older cars just simply have an increasingly difficult time keeping up in the Solo typical Driver Education Run Groups and many of us have been jokingly referred to as the “Rolling Chicanes” by drivers of GT3s, GT4s, Cup cars, Caymen Rs – well, you know – “those kind’a cars”…
But, we in the Northeast Region think it’s time we take back the day and introduce a Driver Education Format which caters to continuing education, safety – and yes – fun as we pedal our older cars around the track, and frankly, some might argue, we are damn good drivers for that experience. So, that being the case, the NER Driver Education Team is proud to announce an adjunct to our current schedule and format – Vintage Days. In short, Northeast Region Vintage Days follows and adheres to all our existing PCA Driver Education procedures (passing rules, pre-tech, trackside tech, drivers meetings, etc.), but pushes a couple of aspects even further. For example, classroom sessions are mandatory – and there is at least one for each Run Group per day.
As discussed in Rennlist forums and on Facebook – we are trying to have each driver have AT LEAST 2.5 hours of Track Time each day + Classroom. As well, early sign-ups for a full day are… Ready? Are you sure? $200 per driver/car. Yep – $200…
OK, here is the schedule:
June 30th – Palmer Motorsports Park, Palmer, MA. – Northeast Region’s first Vintage Day event of our second annual NER Vintage Day series of events will be held June 30th at Palmer Motorsports Park.
October 5-6th – Palmer Motorsports Park, Palmer, MA. – We will be wrapping up the second annual NER Vintage Day series of events on October 5-6th at Palmer Motorsports Park. This will be our first 2-day Vintage event and we hope to see more folks from outside our immediate area. We hope you join us on what will be the final days of the Vintage Season – and just the beginning of many more seasons to come!
A couple of things to keep in mind before you sign up… These events will strive to vigorously maintain the “spirit” of Vintage Days. Aggressive driving will not be tolerated – period. If you appear to be driving in the “Red Mist” and conduct yourself in that way, you will be ejected from Vintage Days. This series is meant to be fun – safe and serious fun – and re-emphasize all the aspects we fell in love with when many of us started doing Driver Education and can recall numbers of fellow 356s, SWB 911s, 914s and 912s on the track with us.
So, following are the NER Vintage Run Groups as classified to date:
NAF – Not As Fast
356 (all) 1948-1965
912 (all) 1965-1969, 1976
924 1976-1982
924 Turbo 1979-1982
924S 1987-1988
944 (not S/S2/Turbo) 1982-1989
914-4 1969-1976
914-6 1970-1972
911 1965-1977
911SC 1978-1983
986 Boxster 1997-2004
ALF – A Little Faster
911 Carrera 1984-1989
930 1975-1989
964 Turbo 1990-1994
993 1995-1998
964 1989-1994
928 1978-1995
968 1992-1995
944 S/S2/Turbo 1986-1991
Boxster S 2000-2004
Vintage Race
All cars/years classified above, but not Street Configuration
And finally, for those who know me – NER isn’t a region that really does something only “halfway”, so rather you can expect that Vintage Days to have it’s own permanent presence in the Northeast Region Driver Education Program. That means education classes and course materials specific to our cars. That means we will have a Student feedback and progress tracking mechanisms. And of course, that means that everything you learn at Vintage Days is transferable into our standard Driver Education Program – should you decide to get back into our standard DE program as well.
