ED Memories: July 23, 2023

Sunday, July 23, 2023

In the mountains! Finally! The morning starts well, we are up at 8 o'clock for a delicious breakfast of particularly yummy scrambled eggs and great coffee. We soon get through the kit pack-up and are ready to get some twisties under our belt at last. We prepare to hit the first pass. It's cool and overcast and I realize I didn't bring a sweatshirt so I'll probably need to wear my jacket. Annoying. I hate being constricted.

Before we set out though I need to wire up my radio antenna properly for best range. That takes a while as the little clips that I got are not useful – they just don't stick to the carpeting. Somehow, my Velcro pack has gone missing, much to our annoyance as I had all sorts of bits of Velcro and tape and such for just this reason. You can tell when you're carrying this much gear, you need to have a place for everything. Time for some reorganization. 

Anyway, duct tape to the rescue though I will keep my eye out for a hardware store to pick up some black tape as the silver is a bit of an eyesore on the nice Boxster interior. Even though Andrew says it matches the brushed aluminum LOL. 

With everything in place and the radios tested, we get on the road towards the Nockalmstrasse Pass. Top down. Good temperature and sun / shade. We hit a very enjoyable road uphill and as we get to the higher treeline it opens up into some pretty nice, tight stuff. Our first real hairpins at last!

Now, somewhat unleashed to 5500 RPM, this machine really pulls out of a first gear hairpin. Wow. I'm finding myself having to lift off and shift fast to not take any more revs, so quickly do they build. We're just not ready to hit the higher RPM yet as we want as sensible a break-in as possible. First impressions? Tons of grip and torque. What an engine. And there's still another 2300 RPM to unleash. 

This particular pass is a motorcycle mecca, and there are tons of them. I see signage saying that they are banned after 5 PM though because of noise. And sure enough they are all way louder than our cars. As we mix it up with a few bikers, we pull in for some photos at the Porsche museum in Gmund, the actual birthplace of Porsche, cool! A couple of guys even ask for a photo standing next to our cars. One cheerful fellow puts his hand on Andrew's mirror for the photo, like an almost "I am touching this gorgeous Porsche" moment. Nice, but a bit presumptuous I think.

We cross into Italy at 6 PM with a couple of hours to go to get to the rifugio for the night. Once again Andrew works his magic and finds us a place to stay. Have to say this is a very nice feature, having someone as experienced as him to sort out accommodations. I'm feeling rather spoiled   

The wooded twisties that we pass through are amazing, even the rough parts - and I say rough by which I mean smoother than pretty much anything we have back home.

This car is: Just. So. Stable.

With fuel getting low, I find myself becoming increasingly agitated by the warning message on the dash. There's no gas stations around here and I really don't look forward to the thought of running the cars dry and having to get a tow. Andrew is calm and sanguine about it over the radio - I wish I had his ability to block out the catastrophic thoughts. True to form however we reach the rifugio without difficulty and are greeted with an excellent meal. I guess we will figure out where to get gas tomorrow.

For now, it's dinner and bed and dozing off to reflections of a stellar first day of 'proper' driving. 

~ Luke

p.s. You can read the full, no-holds-barred accounting of this day at gtschronicles.com.