I completed my first Porsche Drivers Education event at the Putnam Park road course this past weekend.  I'd been wanting to do something like this for quite some time, but just never made it happen.  I'm very pleased that I finally did.  The people I met were awesome and the time on the track was probably the most fun I've had in my Boxster in the 8 years I've owned it.

At first, I was concerned that I'd feel this strong urge to upgrade my 2.5L Boxster to something more powerful.  I was surprised that the weekend had the exact opposite effect — I was happier with my car than ever before.  It was more capable on the track than the driver and having less horsepower and great cornering is the best way to learn high-performance driving.

I was very glad to have an instructor in the car with me.  TJ was very calm and composed and slowly taught me the track without pressuring me to push beyond my limits.  By the end of the first day, he was telling me when to give the car more throttle and I was listening.  I was surprised by the cornering forces generated by my Boxster!

The second day started off with rain, which was zero fun.  I didn't feel like I was learning anything about vehicle dynamics on wet surfaces, so I started to push it a little more and kicked out the rear end much more than I expected.  The only thing I learned was "drive the exact opposite line of what you would when the track is dry."

Most people left (including my instructor) when the rain started, but Sunday afternoon turned out to be beautiful.  I was exhausted due to not being able to sleep the previous night but excited to go out on a dry track.  However, I wasn't having much fun because I wasn't pushing myself at all – just the same slow lap over and over (I had my solo sticker).  So I asked an instructor to ride with me and he was the burst of energy I needed — pushing me to enter corners faster and carry the speed around the track.  That was my last session of the day and it was thrilling.  I'm hooked.