RE: Porsche spin-out (with Alfa content)

["Brian Shorey" <bshorey@domain.elided>]

> Brian, that may be so (it is news to me), but do you think those
> flaws the engineers believed to contribute to racing performance at high
> speed at LeMans can be felt by street-drivers doing 40 in a straight
> line?

The handling 'flaw' I described had to do with lifting the throttle in a
corner, not going in a straight line.

As for going in a straight line, jump on the throttle in *any* vehicle with
a reasonable amount of torque and HP and you're liable to bring the rear end
around (unless, of course, you're dealing with 4wd or fwd).  I guess if
somebody punched the gas in a 911, and the tail started to come around, then
lifting the throttle could exacerbate the problem.

> I'm not that great of a driver -- any one of the NWARC guys will gladly
> point out how Tino Perrina can run up my Audi's tailpipe in his
> 4-cylinder Alfetta and then leave me standing wondering what happened.
> But I feel totally, undeniably safe in a rear-engine Porsche. It is
> not a car I look at and say "that is going to get me into trouble". I've
> driven lots of bad 911s. Also before I started restoring my own '72 911,
> it was so shot it felt like a train de-railing. But I've always had to
> get up to some kind of speed (like 70 mph) before they get squirrely in a
> straight line.

Maybe you're not pushing your 911 hard enough to get bitten ;)

> I just think it is unfair to say it is the car, given the relatively tame
> circumstances. If Porsches were unsafe, wouldn't the Germans have banned
> them long ago?

I dunno, they don't ban SUV's here in the USA, why would they ban Porsches
in Germany?

;)

Seriously, early 911's were the worst in this area, IIRC one of the first
things Porsche did in the early years was to start adding weight to the
front.  If my Porsche driving friends can be trusted, my understanding is
that the problem has gotten a *lot* better in more recent years.

bs

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