(Credit:
Carrera International)
Long before RC toys began terrorizing household pets, there was the slot car. They still exist today, of course, but have become more of a hobby akin to model trains than something that would occupy kids for hours on end, pre-Nintendo.
But now that Speed Racer has been resurrected--"the movie event of the century," as Craver Caroline McCarthy puts it--the venerable slot car may make something of a mild comeback. Carrera is coming out with a new package that includes a Mach 5 (of course), a Racer X Street Car, 20 feet of track, and endless bouts of nostalgia, according to Gadget Lab. Scoff if you will, but it sure beats that lame flash drive.
Laura's car, lucky number 7
(Credit: Laura Burstein)The Porsche Camp4 racetrack is perched more than 9,000 feet above sea level. So if the sight of the new Porsche 911 Carrera S to which I was assigned didn't take my breath away, the elevation certainly did. But armed with water, aspirin, and special acupressure wristbands to prevent motion sickness, I was ready to start my engine.
The one-day program was divided into four specific exercises: The skid pad, an obstacle-avoidance course, a slalom course, and the full track. The skid pad was a large circle cut into the snow. The goal wasn't to just drive around it, but rather, to drift around it sideways.
Laura and instructor Claude
(Credit: Jonathan Elfalan, courtesy of Road & Track)My instructor, Claude, did a couple of example laps before it was my turn. He made it look so easy. The trick is to turn the wheel and accelerate quickly to make the back of the car come out, then to counter-steer to make the car correct. To keep the car moving around the circle, it's a delicate dance of acceleration, lift, and slight but precise steering input. At first it felt unusual to try to drift the car, because many of the techniques go against what we learn in driver's ed. But after a while, the concept clicked, and I really got a feel for how the car responded in the snow.
An instructor gets sideways in the snow
(Credit: Reagan Morgan)The obstacle-avoidance course consisted of a straight, followed by a sharp swerve to the left (as if going around a car or other object at the last second). This one was slightly easier to master, although none of us went very fast. By the end of our runs, most of us were drifting out of the way, rather than steering around.
The slalom course put together the techniques we'd learned in the previous two exercises. It was fun to drift the car from side-to-side around the cones.
Laura on the track
(Credit: Jonathan Elfalan, courtesy of Road & Track)The grand finale was driving the full track. It was an exhilarating combination of uphill straights, sharp turns, and lots of elevation changes. Admittedly, some of us lost control a time or two and plowed into the high snow banks (I crashed twice, including once going into the pit lane. I claim the latter was my homage to Lewis Hamilton, a la his pit stop in Shanghai last season). Fortunately, snow is forgiving, unlike concrete.
If I were able, I'd have taken the five-day course. During the one-day program, I felt like I never fully grasped the concepts of what we were trying to learn until the exercise was over. More driving time would have definitely helped. But at the end of the day, all of us felt like we'd learned something new - and we had a lot of fun in the process.
Click here for some basic winter driving tips, straight from the Porsche Camp4 Colorado curriculum.
(Credit:
Jonathan Elfalan, courtesy of Road & Track)
When the weather turns cold, scores of well-to-do winter sports enthusiasts flock to the high slopes of Vail valley in Colorado for world-class skiing and snowboarding. But about 20 miles west of Vail Village, high upon a privately owned mountain, sits a secret winter wonderland: a racetrack made of snow and ice.
The twisty road course, built on top of a golf course, is the training ground for Camp4 Colorado, a winter driving school hosted by the Porsche Travel Club, an offshoot of the Porsche Sport Driving School. Here, with professional instruction, participants drive the Porsche 911 Carrera 4, the Carrera 4S, and the Cayenne SUV, in a variety of exercises designed to familiarize drivers with how the cars respond in low-traction conditions.
When I was invited to participate in the program, I was both excited and hesitant; this California girl has hardly ever seen snow, let alone driven in it.
Camp4 offers both a one-day program and a five-day program. The longer school is a combination of driving instruction and recreational activities (with only two-and-a-half days of actual driving time). Our media program was a tad modified--we did one full day of driving, with some additional organized activities afterward.
Some of the Porsche instructors
(Credit: Laura Burstein)The Colorado school is based on Porsche's Camp4 program in Finland, a winter-driving program in its eighth year that takes place at the Arctic Driving Center, a test facility long used by car manufacturers for covert cold-weather testing. But whereas the Finnish program takes place on a permanent circuit, the Colorado course had to be created from scratch:
While the weather was still fair, a team of designers mapped out the track circuit, careful to avoid obstacles such as sand traps. When winter hit, the builders used a "snow cat" tractor to pack snow into the grass over a period of a couple of weeks to create a base layer. Then, a water truck was used to run about 75,000 gallons of reconstituted water over the track, one section at a time, to create a layer of ice. Finally, fresh snow was dragged over the ice to create a powdery finish. That's no small feat.
Another thing that impressed me about Camp4 was the quality of the driving instructors. Most, if not all, had professional racing experience--including rally, open-wheel, drifting, and Nascar (though I won't hold the latter against them).
Our day began with a classroom session, where we learned about vehicle dynamics such as weight transfer, cornering, and traction, and how applying steering, throttle, and brakes in different combinations could control (or fail to control) a car in a slippery situation.
After class, it was time to head up the mountain to the track.
Continue reading Porsche's winter fantasy camp, part 2 >>>
(Credit:
Sharper Image)
Somehow, we don't associate the name Porsche with a hand crank--especially when it's on a radio. But that's what the venerable designers have done with the "Eton Porsche Design Radio," which combines old and new by using an aluminum crank to power its "super-heterodyne technology."
The crank, of course, is designed for use in emergencies or camping trips; the rechargeable radio can also run on AA batteries or an AC plug. But the elbow grease could come in handy for other uses, such as recharging a mobile phone with an adapter that's included.
Once it's up and running, it's basically a standard AM-FM shortwave radio, though it does include built-in LED lights and flashlight. We're waiting for Porsche to come up with a car that can start the same way.
- prev
- 1
- next
