Watkins Glen International

Welcome to Watkins Glen International!

Driving cars is fun pretty much 100% of the time, and driving them faster than normal makes it even more enjoyable. After driving for 3 days at Watkins Glen with the New York Metro Region of the Porsche Club of America last weekend, well, that's got to be about as much fun as you can have! Shoot, I'll just say it's my favorite track. That might not mean a lot since I've only driven on a few (CMP, Darlington, Charlotte, Martinsville, Pocono, Palmer, NJMP Lightning, NCCAR) so I guess I need to get busy and hit the other 100+ tracks in the US.  Here's a few highlights. 

Yes, I visited the souvenir shop at the track!

Each day included a  safety "tech" inspection of each car, because SAFETY. After that, for those of us driving with instructors, there was a classroom session in the morning, and then 2 morning drives on track and 2 afternoon drives on track. Each driving session was 25-30 minutes time, so that might not sound like a lot, but if you are paying attention to what you are doing and tryin to do it to the best of your ability, well, that's harder than eating ice cream. And I know a LOT about eating ice cream. 

I bet you can't outrun this police car!

Bottom line: I learned a lot about driving Watkins Glen, enjoyed perfect summer weather (until it rained Sunday afternoon, but I was heading home then anyway) and managed to use up a lot of gas! It was well worth it! 

And I KNOW you can't outrun this Porsche GT4 Clubsport MR!

Special thanks to my great instructor Steve Drgon, who kept me on track (ha-ha, "on-track") and safe. I learned a lot about how to approach a track, so I can't wait to do it again. Steve let me ride along with him on some laps, and good gravy, I've got a LOT to learn!

The track, although if you're driving NASCAR you can skip the turns in the 
lower right "boot" section. 

Besides the driving, I met a lot of drivers and had a great time. Like the Porsche Club says, it's not the cars, it's the people! If you are at all interested in driving, check out a Driver Education or High Performance Driver Education event near you. There's probably an SCCA, NASA, BMW, Porsche, Corvette, Audi, Mustang, or some other club near you that would love to have you join them and get behind the wheel.