My First GTS Track Day
As I expected, the GTS performed very admirably at Thunderhill Raceway in Northern California on April 15. The weather was cool in the morning with a few sprinkles but the clouds soon gave way to partly cloudy skies in the afternoon, with temps in the low to mid 70's (F), making track conditions perfect for the afernoon runs.
Thunderhill is a 3 mile track with one straightaway, 15 turns and is 36' wide. It is a fun track with lots of dirt and grassy run off areas for those who are inclined to push their egos and cars too hard and often end up having an "off track experiences".
Although I was cautious (running on the Michelin PS 2's that came on the car) and not about to push the new GTS too hard, the car felt right at home on the track and it was a very exhilarating experieince!
I have driven this track many times in the past (my previous car was an '03 Boxster S) so I'm very familiar with the track.
The track has one main straightaway between Turn 15 and Turn 1 where I was able to upshift into fourth and reach 125 mph, before having to brake heavily and downshift to third before the entrance to Turn #1. The braking was always smooth and perfectly balanced. I also tried a bit of trail braking into a couple of turns with no problem.
I ran mostly engaged in Sport Mode with PSM, and the handling and response was fantastic! The exit speeds from the turns is where I really really noticed the high performance and outstanding low end torque. I easily pulled away from the other cars out of the corners (except for one GT3 and a couple of other race prepped cars). The stock BMW's and other 911's, etc... were no match for the GTS coming out of the turns and down the straights.
The car had just 2400 miles on the odometer when I arrived at the track...and I put on about 100 miles of track time on the car. The GTS seemed to just continue to run better and better throughout the day! At least three guys in the paddock told me the car sounded fantastic going down the main straight from 60 mph to 120 mph in the afternoon.
All in all it was a VERY fun experience and I had no mechanical or engine problems at all! I barely even used much oil. The oil gage now shows "down one bar". Of course I hit the rev limiter a couple of times two in third gear (just for fun). It did kicked in about 7600 rpm.
My only problems came from trying to operate the sport chrono lap timer while driving...a bit nerve racking and quite inconvenient when traveling between 70 and 100 mph most of the time and trying to hit the lever at the correct moment on each lap. Next time I think I would use my old in-car lap timer that is automatically triggered by a transponder every time the car passes the start-finish line.
I loved the GTS at the track! ...and cruising the 120 miles home with the top down and a big grin on my face wasn't too bad either!
A few pics from the day...