Interlude: A Porsche nearly killed me. And I loved it.

In addition to being a Mac geek, I love speed. I used to ride motorcycles, and even raced very briefly, but a bad accident several years ago (and my inability to get back on that horse well enough afterward) slowly made it less fun over time and I’ve since turned to track driving in my car as a replacement. My car isn’t the sportiest or fastest and frankly earns me a few funny looks at the track driving and club autocross events I go to, but it does me just fine to drive as fast as I can, leaving hot little bits of my tires on the track as vicious mementos of my passage.
 
At today’s club autocross event, I took a ride with a fellow club member who owns a Porsche 996 GT3. I wasn’t enamored of its color (lime green) but it’s a Porsche, so I let that slide. The driver was an older gentleman and I fully expected that he would be fast but not horribly aggressive in flinging it around the track. I mean, who wouldn’t be a little careful with a sports car that costs over $100,000? I was wrong. HOLY JESUS MOTHER OF GOD WAS I WRONG.

The fastest I’d ever gone on a motorcycle (if there are any Maryland state troopers reading this, please avert your eyes now) was 155 mph on my old Honda F4 on a deserted stretch of highway. I was trying to keep up with some riding buddies. I was the only girl. And I couldn’t keep up with them even at 155 mph (they were on liter bikes while my sweet little red and black Honda was only a “mere” 600). I survived that (mind-numbingly stupid) escapade and shortly stopped riding on the street and restricted myself to riding on racetracks only. Regardless, speed in a car doesn’t bother me. I’ve had past boyfriends try to impress me with their fast cars, but I never squealed and pleaded with them to slow down in the way they expected. Why would I have? They were going slowly compared to what I was used to.

So, color me surprised when I got in that Porsche today because that grandfatherly-like-yet-wickedly-fast man scared the ever-loving crap out of me. I was clinging to the door handle and the seat, eyes and mouth wide open inside my helmet, and I’m pretty sure the high-pitched screeching sound that I heard throughout the ride came from me and not his brakes. It was highly undignified but I could do nothing to stop myself. Fortunately, I don’t think he even noticed as he worked to keep that beast of a machine shiny side up and heading in the right direction. He didn’t have an in-cabin video camera as some drivers do. There will be no videos of me drooling and screaming in a Porsche on YouTube. Yay for me.

This is what I need. Yes. Yes, it is.

I’m proud to say that the Porsche gentleman made his fastest run of the day with me in the car – he said I was a good luck charm. My knees nearly buckled when I stepped out of that lime green monster. I’ve never met a car that made me feel like that – not even the Maserati Quattroporte I had the good luck to flog a little under the most unlikely circumstances (on a job interview a few months ago – that was the best hiring manager EVER) or my cousin’s BMW M3. I really need to get me a Porsche.