POC Racers Clinic

by Adam Abrahms & Alan Watts

Each of us had long shared a passion for Porsche, each separately, and occasionally together, sporadically enjoying various track days with POC and other organizations. Eventually we both bought new 991.2s (Adam a Turbo and Alan a GTS) and decided to pick up where we left off and have some fun opening the throttle up and doing some PDS track days.

POC made it easy to sign up/renew our memberships to get back on track again with the PDS events through the Festival of Speed special pricing offer. Our PDS instructors always made us feel comfortable while helping us advance our skills and gain confidence. Maybe, equally important, they shared with us their experiences with the Club and the community. It drew us to come back more on a regular basis and advance through the PDS program, meeting more people along the way. We advanced into Time Trials and thought it was perfect for us. Competitive, fast, simple. We were easily getting our speed fix but the addiction only grew both because we were competing (mainly with each other as often our S3 class was pretty small) but also because we were getting to know more members of the Club and more cup racers. Talking with them made cup racing seem even more exciting, not just because of the nature of the wheel-to-wheel racing but because we observed their comradery before and after the races.

We continued to enjoy Time Trials through the pandemic but in the second half of 2021 decided (Alan before Adam) to dip our toes a little deeper into the water by putting our 991.2s back on the street and buying Boxster Spec cars. Our mutual decision was part encouragement from others in the Club for reasons of safety, skill advancement and competition and equally out of concern for the potential impact and damage to our cars – Alan bending a couple of GTS centerlock wheels and Adam watching the BaT 991.2 Turbo auction prices rise at the same time cars were going into the wall at Sonoma certainly pushed things along. Whatever the reasons, after a couple of events with the Boxster Specs we were even more hooked – deciding 2022 would be the year we got our cup licenses.

We attended our first Racers Clinic at Buttonwillow in March. As likely with many first class attendees, it was intimidating, intense and exciting. By the end of that weekend we knew we made the right decision to pursue our licenses; having learned that what we didn’t know about racing far exceeded what we thought we did and having enjoyed the hell out of our first taste of wheel-to-wheel racing. Spring Mountain and our second clinic could not come soon enough ...and did not disappoint.

Our second clinic was full of some firsts. In addition to having a class almost half-full with new racers in their first clinic, we were treated to a brand new track – Charleston Peak. We started the clinic vowing to Chief Driving Instructor Dwain Dement to be the best Spring Mountain Charleston Peak clinic class ever – and we succeeded, at least until POC hosts the second clinic there next year. The clinic also incorporated video for the first time – as Dwain, along with fellow instructors Mike Monsalve and Duane Selby, were able to supplement their excellent instruction by use of video clips of prior races to show good, safe starts, passes and maneuvers and also, well, not so good ones, including the unnecessary and unfortunate carnage that results. Dwain, Mike and Duane also artfully interweaved race craft instruction with emphasis on how POC racers are a community; a community where reputation, respect and responsible driving are always more important than gaining the next position. Of course, the classroom time was followed by education in action, as all clinic racers were able to put the instruction to use on the track with valuable exercises on driving offline, passing and practice starts. It was certainly interesting doing the clinic on a track that we had not been on before but with the way POC progresses drivers up through PDS and Time Trials, experience allowed the clinic racers to quickly understand the track more than we would have without the progression along the way. No Racers Clinic would be complete without a practice race to culminate the weekend and Charleston Peak did not disappoint. While the newness of a technical track and verve of the

racers left almost all of the clinic racers finding some fine Nevada dirt off track at least once during the race, the training and education provided ensured everyone reentered the track safely and finished the race, further prepared to continue to progress through the Club. All in all, POC hosted 19 racers in the clinic, many of whom graduated with their full dot. Of note, 11 of the 19 racers were driving Boxster Specs so it looks like POC’s largest and most competitive class soon will be even larger and more competitive. Graduating the Racer’s Clinic and getting the full red dot is exciting for both of us but the journey that got us here has made it even more meaningful. POC’s process of bringing drivers along and getting them up to speed (pun intended) smoothly works. The POC process doesn’t allow you to jump into racing right away but rather leads drivers through several levels of learning where everyone aquires the necessary skills to eventually compete safely. In addition to learning all of the rules one also acquires a sense of community...and this is what makes the POC so special. We are both so happy to be cup racers now, but we’re even more excited for the years to come where we can continue to enjoy the community that POC has created. We’re looking forward to joining the pack in 2023.