Der Sportwagen

July / August 2016 46 pecially when you are driving said vehicle to the track and back home again. There is no point in driving to the track with a known deficiency be - cause it will be amplified once your car is on the race track. Luckily, Porsches were meant to be driven hard; so usually all that is necessary is making sure the tires, brakes, and all vehicle fluids are fresh. You can see my personal work list for the COTA trip, (refer to photo), which included check - ing the timing belt tension, a known weak link on the 944 engine. The goal of prepping your car in advance is to maxi - mize the time on track and avoid mechanical issues. Last year Terry and I man- aged to sub-lease our way into one of the garages at COTA. Doing so, turned out to be the hot ticket, as having a garage kept us out of the rain and the sun. The garages at COTA are FIA compliant and one garage can hold six cars. In addition to lights, electricity, and elec - tric garage doors every garage has an attached restroom. As far as garages go the ones at COTA are the best of any race track I've been to. Unfortu - nately, the folks who rented the garage we used last year were not attending this year, presenting a dilemma. If Terry and I rented a garage on our own, we'd have to find four other renters to join us. Also the price to rent a garage in - creased from $1,000 to $1,500 this year. Ever the entrepreneur, Terry decided to rent a garage and find four others to join us. He was able to recruit two guys, Steve and Jeff Gehring, from the Great Plains Region (GPR), Terry's Porsche Club of America (PCA) region. He found another interested renter, Brian Schlueter, from the Planet 9 forum, and one of our "garagistas" from last year, Dennis Mitchell, decid - ed to join us this year. So we were all set until someone hit Jeff's car a few days before the event. Now we had one spot open, which was filled by a lo - cal driver, Juha Vehnia, from Austin, once we got to the track. I'm glad Terry decided to take the risk on filling a ga - rage as it is definitely the way to go at COTA. Now we were set for three days of on-track fun! Track events are always more fun when other "track rats" from your region attend. Un - fortunately this year, like last, the turnout from the KCRPCA was sparse. Brian Gay was at the event working as a PCA Club Race scrutineer. He and I talked several times during the weekend, including at the so - cial event hosted by the Texas

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