Peter Wilson
Adelaide, Australia Model 930 3.3 Year 1980 Acquired 2011
In a recent email exchange with our esteemed editor Lee, I mentioned that writing for Living the Legend encouraged me to actively seek more opportunities to drive and work on my Porsche in order to have a new topic each month. I also bemoaned my poor photography skills which have been stretched by the need to illustrate each story. I decided to get on the front foot this month, did some Googling about photographing cars and read about ‘light painting’ as a technique. This was new to me but any serious shutterbug will know about it – using a tripod and very long exposure while illuminating or painting the subject with a handheld light. The main trick is to avoid camera movement, unwanted light trails or ghostly body parts in the image if you stay still for too long.
So, the other night, I took the 930 and wife Alison (also a keen photographer) to a quiet cul-de-sac near home and set up the tripod. It actually turned out to be a lot of fun as we experimented with different lights and camera settings while dancing around the car with torches in the pitch dark dressed like ninjas. The result is hopefully published nearby, but don’t get too excited – there will still be plenty of iphone pics in future articles!
Also influenced by LTL, I joined the local Porsche club (Porsche Club of SA or PCSA) a year or so ago after having owned my
930 for almost ten years. I have been in various car clubs over the years which have focused on social events or competition, country drives or displays, but the PCSA does all of these and more. Last weekend I ventured out to one of their Super Sprint events at Mallala, a club racing circuit built on an old WW2 airfield about an hour north of Adelaide. I took the 930 for a drive and to check out the format of the event.
It was a hot day but a very wide range of Porsches were tucked away in pit garages, ranging from classic 911s to water-cooled, several GT3S, lots of
Boxsters and a 944. There was even an invitation class for non-porsche entries which included a Lamborghini and a heavily modified Mitsubishi Evo. The cars went out in small groups based on lap time and the best lap time achieved was used to score points in an annual championship spanning all events.
As always, owners were pleased to chat about their cars and I spent some time talking to Hamish Eaton about his beautifully prepared RSR replica painted in powder blue. This car runs a potent 3.5-litre 930-based engine with 50mm
PMO carburettors and sounded fantastic. It also had fully rose-jointed suspension and coilovers – a serious track machine! Another standout was the highly modified 1977 911 of Darien Herreen. I had read about this car in the club magazine, as it had been engineered in the US with a lot of lightweight composite panels and exotic suspension attached to a heavily reinforced 911 shell. To cap things off, it was painted in a striking original Porsche colour called Karminrot, a very loud magenta.
While I was only at the circuit for a couple of hours, it was great seeing and hearing a huge variety of Porsches being driven as intended and bringing immense enjoyment to their owners. I now plan to enter a club competition event in the near future, but need to decide between hillclimb, motorkhana, super sprint or regularity.