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The occasion: a PCZ (Porsche Centre South) Midsummernight Special. It being scheduled for the end of april made the "midsummer" bit sound rather optimistic. The program looked pretty good, though:

• 17.00 Arrival & welcome
• 17.30 Buffet-style dinner
• 18.30 Theory
• 19.00 Practice on the track: first a reconnaissance of the track in groups, followed by almost half an hour of free driving
• 21.00 Drinks

Participants

Preparations

Track reconnaissance

After everybody had had the pleasure of being a passenger of a seriously quick driver, the roles were reversed. Now the instructor would sit in the passenger seat, commenting on your driving. To reinforce the verbal pointers on steering, Deen would sometimes grab the wheel himself to start the turn in at the right moment. Other people grabbing my steering wheel while I'm driving is not something I would normally accept, but the guy seemed to know what he was doing, and it did give a better feel for how much steering input to give.

The only snag to this approach is that there's no way to coordinate pedal inputs with steering inputs. As a result I got a bit sideways (30 degrees) when turning in for Gerlach turn. Deen turned in at the correct point, but I hadn't done as much braking as was required. Oops :) No problem though, as there's enough track to correct for something like that. It sure teaches you quickly not to become overly optimistic about where to brake.

Driving behind an instructor taught me a lot about how to drive the track, especially because the instructors picked up the pace quite rapidly. The first few laps you could hit the apex almost regardless of how or where you turned in, causing some people to stray a bit from the appropriate line. However, after a few minutes, driving off-line meant not being able to hit the apex, naturally resulting in running out of track on the exit, and carrying less speed through the corner. Cause number two for losing ground was overdriving the car, which is what I tended to do: brake a bit less, or apply a bit too much throttle too early. Which prompted van Lennep's saying to resurface in my mind: "to go quickly, especially in a Porsche, you have to back off the throttle". There are two common causes for not getting to the apex properly: not enough braking, or too much throttle too early. While sitting next to me, Van Lennep confirmed I had a case of too much throttle. Being just a bit more patient and braking a tiny bit longer caused the car to turn in much sharper, and I began to hit apexes much more precisely. Not to mention being able to accelerate much harder out of the turn.

Beginners (i.e., me) Zandvoort turn by turn

The first turn after the start/finish straight is called Tarzan. When approaching this turn at speed, it is quite intimidating. Usually the cone that marks the turn-in point is positioned on the side of the track. At the Tarzan turn, the cone marking the turn-in is positioned in the gravel trap just beyond the straight. The idea is to drive straight towards that cone and steer in when you're about to go off the track... Thanks to a bit of banking, this turn can be driven quite a bit quicker than I expected.

Tarzan is followed by a slight left that leads upwards into Gerlach. The objective here is to stay on the left side of the track, even though the slight left turn combined with braking invites going off line. As Sabine would say: "very important, turn in late here". The exit of Gerlach is slightly downhill.

Hugenholz is next: it's a 180 degree hairpin. There's not enough of a straight between Gerlach and Hugenholz to drive a perfect line, so it's time for a compromise. The line that was taught by the instructors had us exiting Gerlach normally, which left just enough time to get to the center of the track at the turn-in for Hugenholz. It took me quite a bit of practice to be able to hit the apex here. By nature, my C2 doesn't take to this kind of very tight turn, being slightly understeering with narrow front tires and a light front end. The kerbs are pretty low, so they can be used to the full.

After Hugenholz, the track climbs to Rob Slotemaker, a fast righthander (about 130 km/h for me). The rear end wants to slide a bit when going over the crest at speed :) A typical place to increase speed in small increments. This is the only turn we were warned of explicitly by the instructors.

Slotemaker leads down onto the Scheivlak. Turn-in is not all that late, as there's a slight left after the initial right-hander. I found it a really nice turn. It does require a bit of faith in your car, but it can then be taken very fast indeed.

Scheivlak is followed by Marlboro. The picture of the track layout above doesn't show it, but the track widens to a decent-sized parking lot here. The proper line is an early turn-in to carry as much speed as possible, with lots of trail-braking.

The "parking-lot" narrows to Renault: a decreasing radius sharp right-hander, followed by an increasing radius left-hander. Driving a clean line through Marlboro and Renault allows you to gain massive amounts of time. The challenge of Renault is that you come out of Marlboro on the brakes in third gear. To drive Renault quickly, you have to get back into second. However, there's no straight piece of track available. A smooth downshift, matching revs before letting the clutch out is required. Something which is physically impossible for me in the 964. Side-flipping is impossible due to the large gap between throttle and brake pedals. The "classic" heel-and-toe technique, pushing the lower part of the throttle with the heel of the foot is impossible as it requires moving your right knee to the left (under the steering wheel), and I just don't fit. Something tells me that a modification to the car is coming up...
Of course I had to try to take Renault in second when van Lennep was in the car with me. It was quite entertaining, as I got quite sideways when the rear wheels broke traction when letting out the clutch. I knew I was close to the limit, but this taught me exactly how close :) It was actually quite useful to get sideways with van Lennep in the car, because he could explain afterwards what to do differently in the correction. My reaction was the textbook conditioned reflex: steer into the skid as fast as possible, and steer back when you feel the car is at maximum rotation. Catching a sliding 911 requires an approach that is a bit different: don't steer into the skid too quickly. Don't worry if it gets a bit sideways, catch it gently, and as soon as the car rotates back to a normal attitude, point the steering wheel straight ahead as fast as possible. Don't worry about the clutch: just don't do anything extreme with the throttle. I didn't get a chance to try this, though. Maybe some other time.

OK, next is a fast (140 km/h) almost-straight approach to the Nissan corner: a sharp 90 degree right. Nothing really special about it, except that it is slightly off camber and just past a little crest. Finding a consistent braking point is a bit difficult here, but there are signs telling you the distance to the corner.

Hunserug is a slow left hander, leading onto a short straight. For some reason, I can't remember anything worth mentioning about this corner.

Next up is Mitsubishi corner, a sweeping 90 degree right. Track-out can be a bit tricky: there can be quite a bit of dirt due to people putting the outside wheels in the dirt.

The final corner is Bosuit. Another fast righthander. Exit speed was about 140 km/h. Given this starting speed, a 964 takes you up to about 200 km/h on the straight if you want to. A bit more is possible as well, but then you'd have to hit the brakes really hard to go round the Tarzan turn. I elected to relax a bit and cruise the straight at about 185 km/h in fifth and start braking a bit early. Easier on the car, easier on the nerves.

Free laps

The result of the relatively small number of cars on the track meant that I didn't get overtaken, except by the race-prepped 911. I did get to overtake a 928 and the 964 C4, though. On one lap the "normal" 996 came out of the pit a short distance behind me, but I lost him somewhere between Hugenholtz and Scheivlak :)

Aftermath

Over drinks I had a chat with some of the other drivers. One of them use to have a 964C2 as well. He then moved on to a 964RS. He was there because he had ordered a 996 recently. It hadn't been delivered yet, so he was driving a BMW 530d. Much to his regrets, he had to slow down after four laps because the brakes were on the way out. He had to brake twice at the end of the straight: once to see if anybody was home, and then again to slow down for the turn-in. In contrast to that, my 11-and-a-bit year old 964 was braking just as hard on the last lap as on the first. This is even more impressive because I had been lapping continuously. The BMW-story reminded me of a line by Sean Connery in the movie The Untouchables. It goes something like "typical for an Italian, bringing a knife to a gunfight" ;-))

We had a few more drinks and snacks and I exchanged phone numbers with the owner of the Targa to organize a scenic drive one day. We then drove home: very boring, after an evening at Zandvoort...