NER held the first ever Vintage Days DE event on Memorial Day, May 28, 2018. We saw a great turnout of cars from as far back as 1955 up through the early 2000’s – an almost 50-year spread! Participants got a chance to experience a track day that reminded track chair, John Dunkle, of what DE’s used to be like 20 years ago. Our three run groups – “not very fast”, “a little faster”, and “vintage race” – all saw boatloads of track time. In the afternoon instructed and non-instructed run groups were combined for maximum flexibility.
Sights like this have become more rare in the DE paddock. Now they are back.
We saw a really great turnout from our friends in the autocross side of NER. Many Boxsters and early 911’s that usually navigate a cone course were banking through the turns of Thompson Speedway and zooming through the historic oval.
Jim brought his beautiful 911 all the way up from North Carolina for this event. So glad you could make it, Jim!
One participant, Jim, drove all the way up from North Carolina with his 911 just to participate in this event! Jim raced in the late 60’s and early 70’s before settling down to a married life. And now he’s got the chance to pick back up right where he left off. And he seemed to like having that option quite a bit.
Morning tech line looked a bit different that we’re used to!
The Turtle Racing Team could be our “not as fast” mascot!
Our Vintage Days Chief Instructor, Penn Young, led some interesting educational sessions comparing Porsche cars old to new to explain the differences that have been added over time – and what it means to the driving experience on the road and on the track. When you see the empirical differences between the ratio of tire size front-to-rear between an SC and a 991 – you start to better understand how each car wants to behave at speed – and how there are strong similarities, but also some huge differences. With so much rich history behind Porsche (the 70th birthday is nearly here!), this was a great chance to reflect on that history in a very tangible way.
The smiles on everyone’s face seemed to sum up the day. Many thanks to all who attended – hope to see you at our second Vintage Days DE at Palmer Motorsports Park on June 16! Interested in attending a Vintage Days DE event for free this year? Just get two friends to sign up and pay for a Vintage Days DE event, email John Dunkle, and you’ll get an event of your choice on the house!
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.
We have three great events for you to register for right now! Join us for the Winter Warmer at Herb Chambers Porsche in Boston on Feb 25th at 10am. Then come to Ground School and learn all about Driver’s Education (track driving) events, safety equipment, and how to get the most from your Porsche on March 3 at 9:30am at HMS in Danvers. And, of course, the 2018 Ramble heading up to Maine on April 27th.
[ by John Dunkle ]
Well, here we go – and the entire NER DE Team is excited to disclose not only our 2018 Schedule, but add several co-marketed and joint events with Northern New Jersey Region! As you may recall, last year we shared our Le Circuit Mont-Tremblant event, and it was a stunning success, as the synergy between the two regions is simply amazing. So, this year – here is a thumbnail of what we are planning with the confirmed dates. We will fill out each event in detail in separate Event Posts and on our websites and other Social/Community websites – so, here we go, please save the following dates:
- March 3 – Northeast Region Ground School at HMS Motorsports
- April 4 & 5 – Lime Rock Park (NNJR/NER) Registration opens 2/7/18
- May 25, 26 & 27 – Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park – Novice Day (25th)
- June 8, 9 & 10 – Palmer Motorsports – Clockwise. Advanced Day on the 8th
- July 5, 6 & 7 – Le Circuit Mont-Tremblant (NER/NNJR) (The Music Festival opens on the 6th!)
- August 10, 11 & 12 – Watkins Glen (NER/NNJR)
- August 14, 15 & 16 – Calabogie Motorsports Park (NER/NNJR – hang on for event details, they are awesome!)
- September 21, 22 & 23 – Palmer Motorsports
That schedule alone is 20 days of track time, and if things work out on a “new project”, NER may add up to four more days, in addition to co-marketing other NNJR Events.
Check out the full NER schedule
Some reactions to this announcement from our friends on Rennlist:
- Got the email from our NNJR track chair this afternoon for our schedule as well. Love that we are sharing more events with NER this season. The 2 regions have a lot in common, mainly the love of the game. LCMT was a blast last season with both regions. Looking forward to more of the same this season. Great job by both regions to pull off such an amazing schedule. Can’t wait!!
- I am beyond ready to be back on track….
- I’ll be at Tremblant (yet again)! One of the best of the year.
- Fantastic schedule and the NER/NNJR partnership is really great. Thanks to our respective Track Chairs!!
- Looks great ! Can’t wait!
- Awesome – will be at the WGI & LCMT shared events
- it’s awesome that you folks stepped up to the plate… I did both the NER and NNJR DE’s at The Glen last year and both were equally amazing.
- Can’t wait looks like a great schedule! Any chance there will be a Club Motorsports day added?
In exciting news, Palmer Motorsports Park is now available to run in both directions, with clockwise being the newest. Find out what this will mean for your line, acceleration- and braking-zones, and see what it looks like from a new perspective. Our own NER member, Ron Savenor, shares his thoughts on how to get around the track as quickly as possible in the video above.
The Northeast Region enjoyed spectacular weather for our end-of-season three-day event at Palmer Motorsports Park. We saw record attendance at this event with 170 cars (!!!) and over 180 drivers! That is absolutely incredible by any standard of measurement. And lest you think all those cars might cause congestion out on track – the organizers were right on top of it, making us all practice our “exercises” (point by to the left…point by over the roof to the right…repeat…) before hitting the track on Saturday morning.
Speaking of teaching and practicing, we were lucky to once again have Lee Carpentier, pro driver and coach, to instruct many of the run groups during the course of the weekend. Lee’s sessions, with content tailored for each run group he addresses, helps us all improve in his very cheerful and humorous style. Lee also spent a lot of right-seat time with our instructors, helping to make sure we are all at our best.
As yet another special educational experience, Dr. Andy Kaufman, a PCA member from Syracuse (but a Boston guy to us since he went to MIT), a forensic psychiatrist, and coach to many performance athletes and business leaders, gave memorable and fascinating sessions about how to prime one’s brain for high performance driving by focusing on the mental side of performance using cognitive science. He focused on the two main stumbling blocks many of us face while high-performance-driving: focus and confidence. His qualifications and teaching experience (SUNY Syracuse) allow for a much deeper dive into the workings of the mind than might be typically covered by most coaches. Dr. Kaufman is mentored by Dr. Jacques Dallaire, author of some fascinating books about mental performance and coach to folks like Helio Castroneves and Patrick Dempsey from his office at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Dr. Kaufman led a session for the White run group on Friday and one for our advanced drivers and instructors on Saturday. He taught them “the three R’s” for maintaining focus and reducing possible anxiety. What are those three R’s? Luckily we’ll all be able to learn more about them next season as our head of DE, John Dunkle, has asked Dr. Kaufman to team up with Lee Carpentier next year to begin to develop some NER-specific programming. We’re blazing a trail in this area and yext year is going to be even better. Our DE team is really putting the “E” (education) back in “DE”. And the kicker – Andy lost third gear in his GT4 during the first session on Friday but stayed with us and did a great job. We hope his car is back out there soon.
If all that weren’t enough already, we had a live auction on Saturday after the track went cold and raised over $1,000 for Homes for our Troops by auctioning Porsche swag donated by Norbert Martel. The one item John Dunkle, auctioneer, wanted for himself – a 1/18 scale 2.7 RS – went for some serious money. We had a lot of laughs that evening.
Many thanks to all the people who came out for the event and huge thanks to the team that pulled it together and to South Shore Autoworks, the event sponsor. It really was a grand finale!
For anyone who wants to check out the track and see some great cars, don’t miss the big Porsche-only show, swap-meet, exhibition at Palmer on October 8th. You’ll even have a chance to drive the track (at parade speeds) to get a feel for how amazing it is. Come join us for what looks to be another great event!
John D. runs the auction in first-class style. But is a bit upset when the item he wanted was bid up a bit high. Great for our charity, Homes for our Troops – not so good for John!
Bill S. has formed his own run group.
Huge thanks to our event sponsor, Justin Becker and his South Shore Autoworks!
Surely they are discussing the finer points of the line around Palmer’s track.
914-6! And it’s fast!
We are lucky to have excellent instructor training for the Porsche Club. And our instructors are well regarded as being of very high quality. But, until recently, no third party has wanted to play the role of certifying DE instructors. The Motorsports Safety Foundaton (MSF) has stepped up and created a certification program with six levels to it. Ross Bentley, who recently came to Massachusetts for an instructor training course for NER, is also involved with this initiative. Read more about it >