Back in December of 2008 I published a post over on TTAC.com (The Truth About Cars) about how being seen driving a Porsche can increase your testosterone level. It didn’t seem like much of a stretch and after thinking it through seemed fairly obvious as well. Hmmm, medical science explains the mid-life crisis automotive purchase. Go figure.
Well now, in the event you had any doubts, Jalopnik recently quoted a new study that not only confirmed this first experiment, but took it one step further.
According to Jalopnik, “The study put 39 male volunteers into both a 1993 Toyota Camry and a Porsche 911 Carrera Cabriolet and let them drive the car around on a quiet road and on a pedestrian dense road where women would be looking at them. After each instance saliva was taken and testosterone levels measured. Surprise, surprise, the Camry didn’t effect levels at all, however, the Porsche caused sustained and elevated testosterone levels, with or without onlookers.”
Did you get the difference? The Porsche caused sustained and elevated testosterone levels, with or without onlookers.
So apparently now they’re saying it doesn’t matter if your seen or not. The simple act of driving a Porsche raises your testosterone level. Again I say, they needed a scientific study to prove this??? Who’s funding these studies? Seriously, can I get involved?
Lastly, I wonder if a guy’s having trouble getting his wife pregnant, could he get his doctor to write him a prescription for a new 911? More importantly will insurance pick up the tab?
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Nothing, not a damn thing relates to this. 
[Source: 993C4S, Jalopnik]
For those of you who couldn’t attend the 36th Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races in person last August, there’s the next best thing in Speed Channel’s hour-long special coverage of the event this Friday, October 16 at 8 p.m Eastern / 5 p.m. Pacific. You can catch all the action of 450 vintage cars racing in 15 groups spanning nearly every era of motorsports today as well as the passion of their drivers who consider this the most significant vintage racing event in the country. As most of you know, this year’s event featured Porsche as the honored marque.
Repeat broadcasts are scheduled for:
Friday, Oct. 16 8 p.m. Eastern/ 5 p.m. Pacific
Sunday, Oct. 18 4 p.m. Eastern/ 1 p.m. Pacific
Monday, Oct. 19 2 p.m. Eastern/ 11 a.m. Pacific
Thursday, Oct. 22 4 a.m. Eastern/ 1 a.m. Pacific
Related Post
Video Recap of Porsche’s Participation during Auto Week on the Monterey Peninsula 2009
[Source: Monterey Historic Automobile Races]
I’m hoping to start a bit of a discussion with this post. Let’s talk about the ways you get information on and about Porsche.
I’ve stated before that I have my own list of Porsche resources (and I definitely need to update it) that I use to collect information, educate myself and come up with ideas for blog posts. I’m interested in what you use.
What are your favorite ways of learning more about Porsche? Your answer can include anything Porsche related, on-line or off. I suspect that most of you will have one or two on-line spots you favor (maybe this site is even one of them). Perhaps it’s a magazine, maybe it’s a friend or mechanic, maybe it’s your local club. Anything goes!
But please limit it to 5.
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Porsche Resources
[Source: Post idea courtesy of Problogger.net]
In this weekend’s Grand Prix of Miami Porsche scored the Acxiom GT Team Championship and the Rolex Grand-Am GT Manufacturer’s title while Leh Keen (Charleston, SC) and Dirk Werner (Germany) drove the #87 Farnbacher Loles Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup to clinch the Acxiom GT Drivers Championship and complete the “Hat Trick”. Meanwhile, Hurley Haywood stepped out of his psuedo retirement and onto the podium helping Brumos to “bookend” the season with wins at the first race of the season (Daytona) and the last race (today at Miami). Full story below.
The Brumos Porsche Riley scored a stunning bookend victory in the Grand Prix of Miami and Leh Keen (Charleston, SC) and Dirk Werner (Germany) led the #87 Farnbacher Loles Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup team to a clean sweep of the three Acxiom GT class championships in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Cask No. 16 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway Saturday.
Joao Barbosa (Portugal) made a strong pass on the backstretch banking with less than 28 minutes remaining in the 2 hour, 30 minute race, drafting his #59 Brumos Porsche Riley into the lead over Scott Pruett’s Lexus Riley. And even though the race ended under caution, Barbosa was never seriously threatened for the lead and claimed his first Daytona Prototype victory.
His teammate was the legendary Hurley Haywood (Ponte Vedra Beach, FL), a last-minute addition to the driver lineup. Haywood qualified and started the race, pitting after 40 minutes and turning over the Brumos Porsche to Barbosa in 11th place.
“I am so excited,” Barbosa said. “I did not think in the beginning we had a car to win. The crew made the car better on every pit stop and suddenly I am in position to pass for the lead. When I went by him (Scott Pruett), I was so happy I could cry. To be competitive, to be in position to win a race is a great feeling. And to win it, is the happiest a driver can be.”
“This is a testament to the Brumos legacy,” Haywood said. “To go through the emotions this team has gone through this week, and to put an old guy in the car with hardly any practice time, to have Joao bring the car home in the dramatic fashion he did, well, that is Brumos. This victory means so much to this team. To open with a victory in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, then to struggle most of the year, and to win – and I don’t think anybody thought we could win today – well, it’s just overwhelming.”
The victory helped Porsche improve one position to runner-up to Ford in the Grand-Am Rolex Daytona Prototype Manufacturer championship standings.
Keen and Werner entered the final race with a solid 30-point lead in the Acxiom GT driver’s championships, and each driver needed only to complete the mandatory 30-minute stint to clinch the title. It is Keen’s first and Werner’s second GT championship in the last three years.
The #87 Farnbacher Loles Porsche 911 GT3 Cup also won the Acxiom GT Team Championship and helped Porsche clinch the Rolex Grand-Am GT Manufacturer’s title. Keen and Werner were the top finishing Porsche GT teams in nine of the 12 GT races this year. TRG fielded the top finishing GT Porsche in three events.
“To be honest, I was pretty nervous before I got in the car because you never know what’s going to happen,” said Werner, who finished third in GT. “There was aggressive racing out there, some contact with DPs even. It was not easy just to drive 30 minutes. You had to be 100 percent concentrated. Once I had my 30 minutes in, I raced a little harder. I wanted to win to bring the championship home in style.
“Leh has been a great teammate. He has matured as a driver and has become a really good friend. This was only possible with the team we had. The result makes everybody happy. Me too!” “My stint was uneventful,” Keen said. “The front running guys got a gap on me and I didn’t want to try and chase them as I did not want anything to happen to the car and take away the championship. I just wanted to drive 30 minutes and give Dirk the car at 100 percent. I want to thank my crew for giving me a great car for every race. This is the happiest I’ve ever been in my career. We won races. We earned this championship, and that makes all of us very proud.”
Brumos opened the 2009 season with a victory by the #58 sister car driven by Darren Law (Phoenix, AZ) and David Donohue (Malvern, PA) in the prestigious Rolex 24 at Daytona.
“We got the bookends!,” Law said. “Brumos wins the first and last races of the season. Throw out all the stuff in the middle like an Oreo cookie. We got the bookends and that will carry us through the off-season and we come back to Daytona as defending champions. I am really happy for Joao. He has worked so hard all year and today he proved what a great driver he is. I am really happy for him and Hurley and the entire Brumos team.”
Donohue was running third late in the race when he went off at turn 8, falling to a fifth place. That was just after a restart, a critical moment in the race that proved to be the undoing of the #12 Verizon Wireless Penske Porsche Riley of Timo Bernard (Germany) and Romain Dumas (France). Bernhard was penalized for jumping the restart, and had to pit for a stop-and-go penalty.
“I was penalized for moving to the left to avoid another car,” Bernhard said. ““Well, that does it. A fitting end to a season hopefully we will quickly forget. What disappointment! We had a good car today and once again Romain leads and then get another penalty. We never had a chance to win this year. They changed the rules on us so many times, it took a long time for the Penske crew to learn the car, and for the drivers to learn what the car could do that it kept us from the podium. We are unhappy at not winning. We race to win, and we have won everywhere we’ve raced.”
Dumas qualified third and ran strong early, even leading six laps before turning the car over to Bernhard in fourth place. Bernhard got as high as sixth before the fateful penalty that dropped him to 11th.
Bernhard and Dumas finished fourth in the Daytona Prototype drivers standings but despite their glorious history – two American Le Mans Series LMP2 championships and 23 international sports car victories together – they were classified as rookies in Grand-Am competition and were declared Rookies of the Year.
Spencer Pumpelly (Suwanee, GA) was classified as fourth and 12th in GT competition. He started the race in the #66 TRG Porsche 911 GT3 and turned it over to Andy Lally (Dacula, GA). Unfortunately, Lally was driving when the car got hit and heavily damaged in pit lane. John Potter (Salt Lake City, UT) started the #65 TRG Porsche 911 GT3 Cup and Pumpelly relieved him and brought home #65 in fourth place, just missing the podium.
The newest Porsche Motorsports customer team, the #48 Marquis Jet Porsche 911 GT3 Cup, was having a great race when it suddenly ended when Bryce Miller (Summit, NJ) got caught in somebody else’s wreck and retired with heavy damage. Kevin Roush (Upland, CA) started and was running as high as second.
“The team did a great job with the pitstops – there were positions gained and that was a nice luxury,” Miller said. “The pit strategy was very good and I think we found the right pressures on the tires for the very last set that we took on. We were one of only two cars that had new tires from the last pitstop. It’s just unfortunate to come so close to a top finish – absolutely, my feeling is that we would have had a podium. We had the tires to fight for the position at the end and the car was very good. So it’s upsetting not to get the results, but the team deserves a huge pat on the back. It was a big, big step forward and we made lots of progress. I think there’s a lot to be proud of to take into next season.”
Unofficial Final Grand-Am Points
DP Drivers
1st 337 Jon Fogarty & Alex Gurney
2nd 331 Scott Pruett & Memo Rojas
3rd 322 Brian Frisselle & Max Angelelli
4th 296 Timo Bernhard & Romain Dumas
DP Manufacturers
1st 386 Ford
2nd 344 Porsche
3rd 343 Pontiac
DP Team
1st 337 #99 GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Pontiac Riley
2nd 331 #01 TELMEX/Chip Ganassi Lexus Riley
3rd 322 #10 SunTrust Pontiac Riley
4th 296 #12 Verizon Wireless Penske Porsche Riley
5th 276 #6 Michael Shank Racing Ford Riley
6th 283 #59 Brumos Porsche Riley
7th 282 #58 Brumos Porsche Riley
8th 282 #61 AIM Autosport Ford Riley
GT Drivers
1st 359 Leh Keen & Dirk Werner
2nd 334 Kelly Collins
3rd 317 Andrew Davis
4th 308 Paul Edwards
5th 301 Sylvan Tremblay, Nick Ham
6th 295 Andy Lally
GT Team
1st 359 #87 Farnbacher Loles Porsche 911 GT3 Cup
2nd 332 #57 Stevenson Pontiac GXP.R
3rd 334 #07 Drinkin’ Mate Pontiac GXP.R
4th 316 #66 TRG Porsche 911 GT3 Cup
GT Manufacturer
1st 390 Porsche
2nd 367 Pontiac
3rd 357 Mazda
Here’s the 2010 Grand-Am weekend schedule, which was announced yesterday. Note that actual race day in some instances have not been finalized, depending on TV and other races on those weekends:
Jan. 9-10 Testing at Daytona
Jan. 30-31 Rolex 24 at Daytona
March 6-7 Homestead-Miami
April 9-10 Barber Motorsports Park (Saturday race, IndyCar Sunday)
April 24-25 Virginia International Raceway
May 28-31 Lime Rock (KONI on Saturday, Grand-Am load in paddock Sunday, Grand-Am practice, qualifying and race on Monday)
June 5-6 Watkins Glen
June 19-20 Mid-Ohio
July 2-3 Daytona (Friday practice, Saturday race)
July 17-18 New Jersey Motorsports Park
Aug 6-7 Watkins Glen (Saturday race, with NASCAR)
Aug 28-29 Montreal
Sept 11-12 Miller Motorsports Park
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Porsche’s Results in the Grand-Am Rolex Series Utah 250 at Miller Motorsport Park
[Source: PCNA]
Dentists must love the month of October. Too much candy handed out and consumed equals a second, third or fourth Porsche for your local dentist. In fact, there’s little more than three weeks until Halloween. That means it’s time once again for our annual Porsche Pumpkin Carving Contest.
Last year I put my Porsche Pumpkin Carving skills to the test and found them to be severely wanting. My original attempt is below:
Fortunately, a number of you did the same and did a much better job than me. Of all the carvings I saw, the best was far and away a GT3 RS carving by Porsche Pumpkin carver extraordinaire Adam Person (see below). In fact, Adam won our pumpkin carving contest and received a free copy of Porsche The Road From ZuffenHausen.
This year’s Porsche Pumpkin Carving Contest
Here’s the deal. Carving a pumpkin into a tribute to Porsche isn’t easy. However, it’s not rocket science either. While it’s easier to do with a rotary tool
, it can be done the way I did it with a simple hand held pumpkin carving set. Carve your own pumpkin using either the Porsche 993 Pumpkin Stencil or the Porsche GT3 RS Pumpkin Stencil (along with the instructions at the end of this post) and then leave a comment on this post. Once your comment is made, I’ll send you an email address to forward me a picture of your completed pumpkin carving. Alternatively, you can take almost any picture and tone down the color in a photo editing tool so it looks similar to the GT3 RS template and then follow the same instructions as above.
All entries must be received no later than 3:00 pm EST on October 29, 2009. An independent panel of judges (my wife, dogs and a few friends) will decide which Porsche carving is the best and declare a winner on Halloween (complete with the winning picture.) What do you win? How about a copy of Porsche: The Fine Art of the Sports Car. This lavishly illustrated hard cover history of Porsche makes a great coffee table book and the pictures must be seen to be believed. Good luck and have fun carving!!!
Porsche Pumpkin Carving Instructions
1. Purchase a pumpkin large enough to manage the stencil. In my case I had someone else pick it out and deliver it.
2. Have your wife, girlfriend or significant other cut off the top and clean the pumpkin
3. Ask very nicely and she might just clean, bake and salt the pumpkin seeds for you
4. Print out the template and tape to pumpkin as securely and as flat as possible
5. Use a pin or pen to trace/outline the black areas. Remember you are only going to be cutting out those areas in black
6. Remove the template
7. Using a pumpkin carving kit or a rotary tool carve the template that you have outlined above
8. Clean up all the mess on the inside leftover from your carving
9. Put a small candle inside, light and put the top back on
10. Turn out the lights, take a picture of your latest creation and enter to win a great Porsche book!
Additional Pumpkin Carving Tips
- Never cut anything completely through until the end, just pierce and cut the design maybe 1/4″ in.
- Plan your work, don’t cut out the silhouette first only to realize you’ve got a lot of things to do on the shape itself, it will break off. Trust me, I know.
- Think of the picture’s colours/shading in terms of layers, you can re-create a lot of colour effects by using 3D shapes. ex. The taillight isn’t going to need to be as bright as a window or open space. Try cutting in just a bit, and sort of carving it out while leaving a good bit the white flesh, you’d be surprised how well it lights up.
- Cutting one line perpendicular, and then another at 45 degrees at say 1/32″ away will let you establish things like doorsills, panel gaps, etc. It doesn’t need to go deep, just has to be there.
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Extreme Porsche Pumpkin Carving Contest
The Picasso of Porsche Pumpkin Carving
[Source: 993C4S, Adam Person]
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