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.
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On Sunday, October 8, it all came together. Over 500 people converged on the track at Palmer Motorsports Park to enjoy a really fun day with great cars, awesome parade laps on the track, and great people – “Porsche On The Mountain” sponsored by Porsche of Norwell. All this despite a sudden downpour and major winds at 8:30 am that morning threatening everything that many people had worked hard to arrange.
By all measures, especially considering this was the first time this event has been held, it was a huge success. It isn’t just about the numbers – which easily beat our conservative estimates. It was the smiles of the people at the event. It was the general happiness that was clearly on display. Those are the real measures of success.
Spectacular race car – top notch restoration
It’s funny to reflect on the fact that we didn’t have long to pull all this together. The first materials started coming together in late July. That’s barely more than two months to get the word out, figure out the logistics of the event, what we would be doing, and how it would all work. Al Sandy from Palmer worked tirelessly to promote the event, gather sponsors, create custom trophies, herd us NER cats so that we lived up to our end of the bargain, and generally create something far bigger than most of us could have imagined at first.
It is a true testament to the intestinal fortitude of Al and folks like John Dunkle and Glenn Champagne that this event not only came together, but defied the weather to become something people will remember. It sure helps to have an amazing track to drive on all day. Even at parade lap speeds, it is a very exciting ride. I was in my 1973 Porsche 914 on stock-sized skinny tires and I’ll tell you that coming down through Turn 7 at full throttle – and this car is often full-throttle due to lack of grunt – was a very exciting place to be! And yet another very special moment where I had my son by my side – this time for his first ride on a major race track.
Another amazing father-son-bonding-moment: first time for him on the track! (thanks, John Dunkle!)
Palmer, and Al, specifically, were incredibly generous to invite Homes For Our Troops, our club charity, to be the beneficiaries of a big portion of the entry fees [update: this event raised $3,000 for Homes For Our Troops!! – an absolutely outstanding performance!]. Melanie, their representative, had her son, Dillon, with her at the event. It was a very happy moment for me to offer the 914 to Dick Anderson, our president, to give Dillon a ride on the track, likely his first time on a race track as well. This was perhaps the best way I can think of to use a Porsche.
I also greatly enjoyed seeing the number of kids who climbed into the shiny, new Porsche GT3 Powerwheels car that we brought to the track with generous help from Ron Savenor. Many kids had a blast spinning the tires and getting hands on with a vehicle at a type of event where they typically can look but can’t touch – a very hard thing for kids. Ron didn’t miss a beat agreeing to help facilitate this as soon as he heard the idea.
I met Tom who introduced me to Abby, his daughter. Abby only has her learner’s permit. But she has already purchased her first Porsche 944 and is doing all the work on it herself! I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see young people get into this brand, 944’s specifically (great cars), and join our family. It’s an absolute pleasure to be in a family like this. Abby, you are phenomenal!
Abby bought this car before she has her full driving license. And she’s doing the work herself to fix it up and keep it going. Abby is awesome.
Al even thought of our furry visitors and had biscuits available for them. My daughter loved being able to facilitate the process of helping dogs make those biscuits disappear.
The staff at Palmer worked really hard in ways that most of us will never see. Porsche of Norwell embraced this event from the outset and very generously provided a huge amount of advertising support – not to mention bringing new Porsches to the event – for participants to try out!! Imagine your first Porsche test drive happens on a race track (at reasonable speeds and safely, of course)!! Our NER volunteers also put in great effort to bring this event to fruition. All of our regions in Zone 1 helped to promote the event as well as many of our regional sponsors and friends in the business. The fun that everyone had made every bit of it worthwhile.
Yet another fast Anderson!
We’re already looking forward to next year and will soon be learning from our missteps and building upon our successes. We thank all of you who braved the weather and came out to enjoy the day. Your smiles and your happiness are what all of this is about. We’ll see you there next year. If not before. [visit the 2018 event page to learn more and sign up for the 2nd annual event!]
[visit the 2018 event page to learn more and sign up for the 2nd annual event!]
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!
