President’s Report – May 2013
Greetings!
Just to remind you all this month’s meeting will be at my house! It’s a great opportunity to drive your cars out to Prospect. We can get about 15 cars on the driveway and there is more room on the street as being a cul-de-sac there is very little traffic. We will be grilling out and on the menu are burgers, brats and Lucy’s famous cedar wrapped salmon. We have two limited addition 911 Club Coupe models to give away as door prizes so make sure you attend the meeting to be in with a chance of winning one of them.
This year I have been following F1 more than I have in the past few years and I like what I’m seeing; some fun wheel to wheel racing that takes you back to the Prost and Senna days! I hope the rumors of Webber leaving F1 after this year are not true as I want to see more great action from him and Vettel battling it out.
First track run of the year went reasonably well with a slight mishap on Sunday when my left rear center bolt which holds the bearing and hub decided to come loose going round turn 10 at Putnam. Not a good feeling, fortunately I was able to pull off the track and save the wheel from fully detaching from the car. Lesson learned – check every nut on the car each time you come in, a wise thing to do on a nearly thirty year old 944!
I popped into Bluegrass Motor Sports on Saturday to see the official launch of the new Cayman and had the privilege of test driving one of the manual S’s. What impressed me the most was that it will blip the gas for you when you shift the gears down; it sounds really cool and would be very useful feature on the track.
This month’s Porsche fact is close to my heart!!!
944 Turbo (951/952)
For the 1985 model year Porsche introduced the 944 Turbo, known internally as the 951. This had a turbocharged and intercooled version of the standard car’s engine that produced 220 PS (162 kW) (Template:217 in the US) at 6000 rpm. In 1987, Car and Driver tested the 944 Turbo and achieved a 0- 60 mph time of 5.9 seconds. The turbo was the world’s first car using a ceramic port liner to retain exhaust gas temperature and new forged pistons and was also the first vehicle to produce identical power output with or without a catalytic converter. The Turbo also featured several other changes, such as improved aerodynamics, a strengthened gearbox with a different final drive ratio, standard external oil coolers for both the engine and transmission, standard 16 inch wheels (optional forged Fuchs wheels), and a slightly stiffer suspension (Progressive springs) to handle the extra weight. Major engine component revisions, more than thirty in all, were made to the 951 to compensate for increased internal loads and heat.
Don’t forget the summer DE event is coming up really fast. Registration will open in May so if you want to secure a place make sure you register early.
Hope to see lots of you at my house! Cheers.
Cheers!