Articles
Women should take to the track in order to develop their auto selves.
So says Marie Petermann - in your reporter’s summation of an hour’s conversation on a cold winter afternoon when the closest one could come to the pleasures of Mosport was clicking on to the UCR website and signing up for driver-ed.
To develop their auto selves? Say what? To be specific, to gain confidence. To drive better. To better understand this Porsche thing that takes hold and won’t let go. To escape the boredom of waiting on the sidelines, to learn 20 minutes of track time is never enough.
In 2008 Marie talked her husband, Horst, into signing up for UCR driver-ed for the first time. “It was my idea,” she says, “I was looking forward to it.”
Indeed, anyone reluctant to expose himself/herself and his/her Porsche to a race track should hear out this couple discussing the subject as they anticipate another summer of incredible weekends.
Maybe Marie was predisposed to taking the leap in the first place because her father owned a 911S when she was growing up in Portugal. Memories of him letting her steer at age 11 while he controlled the pedals and gearshift remain golden.
Yet Horst had his own memories....
In one corner of the sunny front room of their home, scale models are on display of a 550 Porsche, a 904, a 908. He raced them all. Few of today’s UCR members were there to see it, but Canadian racing aficionados remember him winning the six-hour Sundown Grand Prix at Mosport in 1969, sharing the 908 with Rainer Brezinka.
Strong finishes in Ontario racing earned Horst second in class in ’69 in the provincial championship and increasing prominence over the years. In 1974 he drove the 908 to seventh in a Can-Am race at Watkins Glen, a race won by England’s Jackie Oliver in a Shadow DN4.
A quarter century later driver-ed certainly wasn’t in his plans. But the purchase of a 2006 911 Carrera S2 after several years of driving a 928 S4 automatic, at least opened the door to the possibility of returning to Mosport.
“I wasn’t going to go there, you know, been there, done that,” Horst says. “But since Marie was so enthusiastic about it, I had to go along. And I went through the whole system of the Porsche club, and despite all of my years of racing and thousands of laps at Mosport, I got a lot out of it. Because these instructors are good guys.”
As for Marie, knowing how much she enjoyed driving the 911, she was convinced coaching would allow her to enjoy it more.
So it was that in July, 2008, the Petermanns despite their vastly different levels of experience started at the most basic level, attending a PCA UCR Introductory Driver Experience at Mosport.
“I always thought I’m a good driver on the street,” she reflects. “But when I got there I realized it’s totally different. I did not know what an apex is, for example.”
She drove the family Mercedes-Benz AMG SLK55 in the introductory program, he the Carrera S2. As they moved into driver-ed itself, Horst was moved in May of 2009 from the green group to the faster yellow group, leaving the Carrera S2 available for Marie to begin in the green group.
“The first weekend, I was nervous because I didn’t know what to expect,” she says. “But then I started feeling more and more comfortable and I couldn’t wait to do more and more. I didn’t want to stop. I found 20 minutes (one session) is not enough, it just goes by so fast when you’re having fun.”
A different instructor occupied the passenger seat every session and Marie found all of them extremely positive. None pushed her to go faster. Incidentally, she has seen several female instructors at the track, but in several driver-ed weekends was not assigned another woman.
“The instructors don’t push you,” Horst agrees, “they help you with technique and as you develop your car control you’re naturally going to go faster on your own. But nobody is ever going to say, ‘Hey it’s time to put down the foot a little more.’”
When a driver with Horst’s racing credentials credits PCA UCR instructors for improving his own performance on the track, you’re impressed both with him for his self confidence and with the driver-ed program for its ability to contribute.
He says now that in his thousands of racing laps at Mosport he somehow found his way around (really quickly, truth be told) turn two, but it wasn’t until driver-ed Horst that learned the corner has two apexes, not one. He was delighted to have been taught the faster way.
Marie, for her part, at last year’s final driver-ed felt that she was ready to be moved up from the green group, following Horst who has been moved up to a more advanced group weekend after weekend. – and she fully expects it to happen early this year.
It’s not all about matching racing speeds, after all, it’s about improvement. As Marie puts it, “I feel I can handle the car much better and that I am a better driver on the street as well.
“I don’t think enough can be said about the absolute safe way the PCA-DE system works. For members out there reading this, I say come and join in, start enjoying your P-car the way it was meant to be.”
Not many women seem prepared to try, your reporter dared to generalize. Marie nodded in agreement. “I think they are scared of speed and that they’re going into an accident.”
Horst thought for a moment before offering his take on the matter.
“Many are very good drivers, but you have to love driving and also have the confidence which not every woman seems to have. Most of the time the husband is the driver.”
“ I’m thinking of a couple attending one of our introductory weekends where you can drive with an instructor and they show you the track.
“Both of us talked to the woman and we asked, ‘Are you going to drive too?’ She said no, so we said ‘You’ve got to, just go out there and drive. Because nobody has to drive fast. Just go. And then you’ll enjoy the car,” Horst continued.
“You can’t enjoy a car on regular streets, you have to consider oncoming traffic, there’s no such thing as an apex on the street. On the track to me it’s like slalom skiing you’re cutting the corners, looking for the straightest line, and once you enjoy that, you’re hooked.”
It was as though we’d turned a corner in our conversation, from talking about newcomers to the sport to Horst’s own reflection on the experience. Smiles all around.
Marie spoke up. “And the thing about it, is that Horst told me when we started going to Mosport, ‘I feel like I’m 20 again.’ So that helps.”
He responded. “Like I say I wasn’t going to go there (return to the track), but I find more of us older guys really should, I’m trying to get more of us ex-racers out. Because there aren’t many things you can do as well as you used to, but driving is one of them. We can’t run as fast as when we were 20 years younger, we can’t do other sports as well. But this is something you never forget.”
The final word was Marie’s. What would she say to a woman considering driver-ed, but wary of the prospect? “Not to be afraid. It’s safe. And it’s a lot of fun.”