Finding Speed at The Porsche Experience Center

There are two guarantees you will find at any NASA weekend at any track in the country: You’re going to see a Miata and you’re going to see a Porsche. No question. Mazda guys love to say, “Miata is always the answer” to everything. That might be true for Spec Miata, but when I hear someone say, the Miata is the answer for everything, I assume they have never had the chance to drive a Porsche 911 GT3 RS.

And that is totally understandable. There is without a doubt a price-point/barrier-to-entry to driving a GT3 RS. Here comes the math. A brand-new Mazda Miata is $28,995 while a brand-new Porsche 911 GT3 RS is $241,300. You could literally own 8.3 Miatas for what it costs to own a GT3 RS — and that’s if you can get a GT3 RS at sticker price, which you can’t. But, what are you going to do with 8.3 Miatas?

Let me provide you with some more math. What if I told you that you could experience driving a Porsche 911 GT3 RS for a lot less than you think? And I’m not talking about test driving this car down a freeway looking over your shoulder for the cops — and let’s be clear, you won’t find a dealership in America who will actually let you test drive this car. I’m talking about driving this car in anger, on a track, for an hour and a half, and letting somebody else cover the fuel, tire and brake wear. That “somebody else” who will pick up these operating costs is none other than Porsche itself.

Porsche is so convinced in its product that it built two tracks next to its North American Headquarters in Atlanta, and the company invites anyone — yes, even you — to come on out and experience the cars. And when I say experience them, I mean drive them as intended, fast, around tight corners and through quick switchbacks and slide them through water. Not only do you get to drive these amazing precision-engineered machines of speed around a road course, you get to experience dynamic driving exercises on courses you won’t find anywhere else.

To prove how good its cars are, Porsche has spared no expense creating wild exercises you get to try out. Think of it as your favorite Hot Wheels track as a kid, only you’re driving a Porsche on the track instead of pushing a toy car. Porsche has designed different roadway exercises to let you feel the handling of their cars at different speeds. Their Low Friction Handling track is a polished concrete roadway of switchbacks where you can slide the rear of the car around and feel lateral weight transfer at a controllable speed. The Skid Pads are huge circles of water where you can drift the cars around until you’re dizzy. Their Kick Plate is an incredible once in a lifetime experience where you drive a Porsche over a slippery epoxy-coated road and the car completely losses control and you are required to have quick hands to save it.

There is also an off-road section for SUVs, an Ice Hill to tackle — epoxy roadway covered in sprinklers that gives an extremely low friction surface as you climb a steep hillside — and Launch Control and ABS exercises. But North Star is the newly constructed West Track, an incredible combination of elevation changes, sweeping corners, fast straights and elements taken from some of the best roads and tracks on the planet. All of it threaded together to create an incredible track to tackle and showcase the performance of Porsche products.

When you arrive at the Porsche Experience Center, you will immediately be immersed in all things Porsche. The design of the building, the cars on display, the café filled with books about Porsche heritage. There is a museum downstairs that has amazing historical vehicles showcasing Porsche’s motorsports dominance for 75 years and counting. All of this history and knowledge have been poured into its latest vehicles, the ones you get to drive. As you sip coffee on the upper deck of the café, you can view the tracks and hear the sounds of the newest Porsches being used for their intended purpose.

To ensure you get the best bang for your buck, I suggest you book your experience ahead of time. Their online portal is easy to navigate, and you can choose the car you want to drive and the specific track you want to play on. There are options to drive multiple cars and compare them to each other. Almost anything is possible as long as you get your wallet out. However, the experience costs less than you think, especially when you consider the consumables used on a track for an hour and a half. I booked the Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 on the West Track for 1.5 hours and it hit my credit card for $1,000. There are cheaper options for different cars. A GT3 RS for the same track for the same amount of time was $1,600.

I chose to drive the 718 Cayman because the GT3 RS is pretty unattainable for your average person. Getting to drive a halo car like that would be cool, but for me I was more interested in testing something that I thought someday I could afford. The 718 is an affordable sports car in relation to what it is, a two-seater, mid-engine, rear-wheel drive, vehicle made to perform. I chose to cater my experience to see how good the 718 is. We have all read countless articles in car magazines about how great Porsches are, but I was tired of endlessly reading about them. I wanted to actually feel it in the seat.

After I bummed around the facility for a while, enjoyed the café, played in the simulation room, looked at all of the cars in the museum, and checked the price tags on shirts in the posh gift shop — nope, I didn’t buy anything — it was finally time to stop dreaming about Porsches and drive one. I was summoned with a buzzer to the registration desk and met my instructor for the day, Chris. Chris was an affable dude with a big grin and an eagerness to show me how good these cars were. We headed down to the staging area where a Guards Red Porsche GT4 with gold wheels was waiting. Chris walked me through the specifics of the car, the usual stuff how to adjust the bucket seats, the buttons to turn off the electronic nannies and then how to engage the 7-speed PDK transmission.

For you track day purists hearing about the PDK transmission, you may say, “It’s not a real sports car if it doesn’t have a stick shift!” I used to sound just like you. But the reality is this: We were both wrong. Until you drive a Porsche with a PDK, until you experience how good this transmission is, until you realize the transmission is faster, better and smarter than you are, only then will you come to the dark side — the lightning fast upshifts side. The programming of this transmission is set for tracks. It puts the car in the right gear providing the right power always. It is simply incredible. And what it allows you to do is concentrate on what is happening through the windshield. It allows you to hit your marks, find the braking zone, touch the apex and roll on the power with sudden expertise. You are not thinking about heel-to-downshifts, you are thinking about how to knock off two more tenths of a second out of the next corner.

My instructor and I headed out on track and enjoyed the Porsche playground. I got to drift the 718 on the Skid Pad. I got to spin out on the Kick Plate, I got to slide the rear-end around on the Low Friction Handling circuit. We played with the launch control — amazing with the PDK — and felt the insane g’s of the ABS brakes. Then we started putting down laps on the West Track.

The track is complicated, it has a lot of elevation, blind turns and hairpins. It takes a few laps to get the confidence needed to really push the car. But after some recon laps and some great coaching by Chris, I was on the gas and I was hammering the GT4 around the course. Chris was an excellent guide, he allowed me the opportunity to run the car hard. He knew I had some driving experience with NASA and he allowed me liberties with the Porsche I thought might have been poor judgment on his part. These are stock cars, there is no brake pedal in the passenger floorboard.

Lap after lap we pushed the Porsche harder, deeper and faster through curves of the West Track. My favorite curve was the bowl from the Nürburgring, a steep bank allowing the car to go faster than your brain thinks is possible. But with the GT4 it was possible. The sounds this car made was a symphony to my ears, the forces exerted on my body was almost exhausting. The Porsche Experience Center has a cool little outdoor lounge between the two tracks where drivers can take a break, enjoy a bottle of water and watch the beautiful cars go by. It looked like a really cool place to hang out. But I never got the chance. I skipped the Top Golf experience of sitting on a nice outdoor couch and talking trash with other attendees and instead kept putting in laps with the GT4 until unfortunately my time was up and my heart was broken.

It was certainly the fastest hour and a half on track I have ever felt. When the session was over, my adrenaline was pumping and I had a massive smile plastered on my face. All of this joy was because the car was even better than I dreamed it would be. I’ve spent a lot of years beating on cars, and most cars eventually have their weak spots — and I usually find them quickly. The GT4 did not have a weak spot, other than me as its driver. According to Chris, all cars at the Porsche Experience Center are bone stock and have street alignments in them. “We don’t even add camber to these cars,” said Chris. “We want you to experience the car just as you would on the street.” Well, for the safety of the general public, I hope nobody experiences the GT4 like I just had on the West Track. I was absolutely smashing and loving every law-breaking minute of it.

Once my session was sadly over, I met my wife for dinner at Restaurant 356, one of a few in-house dining options, located atop Porsche’s headquarters. The food was good, the drinks were stiff — since I was done driving for the day — and my wife couldn’t care less about how much I loved driving the GT4. She liked the Porsche bread and butter — the butter shaped like 911s — but she has been married to me for a long time and doesn’t share the same passion for German automobiles. She is more of an Italian girl. Not Italian like Ferrari, more Italian like bruschetta. We enjoyed dinner, and my wife continued to look around for Chris Hemsworth. He wasn’t there.

After dinner we walked across the parking lot to our room at the Kimpton Overland hotel. Our spacious room overlooked the tracks at Porsche Experience Center Atlanta. Even though I was done driving my dream car, I was able to enjoy watching other people rip around the tracks. It was obvious who was comfortable at speed and who was still learning to trust the ability of these machines. Of course, I sat on the couch and narrated every move of every car and driver for my wife, “That guy missed the apex. He needs to get more to the right before the crest of the hill. This guy sucks!” When my wife couldn’t take it anymore, she suggested we hit the bar and get me away from the Porsches so we could talk about something else —  anything else.

The joke was on her because the bar at the Kimpton Overland is on the roof and it overlooks both tracks and the runway to the airport in Atlanta. So, then she got to listen to me narrate which driver missed an apex and which pilot had a rougher than normal landing. She is such a lucky girl. But, the drinks were delicious and the sunset was gorgeous. Overall, best day ever. Well, my best day ever, not hers.

Was the hour and a half of track time in a Porsche GT4 worth $1,000? Without hesitation, absolutely yes. I didn’t have to wrench on or tow anything. All I did was show up and drive. When you look at the dollars per minute on track and, of course, the caliber of car you get to drive, the Porsche Experience Center is a great deal and an epic opportunity to taste all things Porsche. And if you don’t want to travel all the way to Atlanta, Porsche has a similar Porsche Experience Center in Los Angeles.

There is one caveat to this deal-of-a-century opportunity to drive a super-fast car for a reasonable price: You are going to want one. What seems like $1,000 day will quickly end up with you on Porsche.com building your dream car and setting up European delivery. I’m sorry to break this to you, that will not be cheap. That is the genius of the Porsche Experience Center, “Come out, drive one of our cars, no pressure to buy, just enjoy this thing we created.”

Porsche knows what it has created, and words don’t do it justice. This is a thing of motion, and to experience the emotion of it, you simply have to drive one.

 

Rob Krider is a four-time NASA Honda Challenge 4 National Champion, the author of the novel, “Cadet Blues,” and is the host of the “Stories and Cocktails” podcast.