Review of Porsche Track Experience Track Icons Course At Spa Francorchamps on September 3, 2024
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Last week, on September 3 at Spa Francorchamps in Belgium, I attended the Porsche Track Experiences Track Icons 1 Day Course, which is run by Manthey Racing. I took this course to familiarize myself with Spa prior to taking the much more intense and advanced two day Master Racecar course that was held on the following two days.
SUMMARY: This course is an excellent ten hour program (running from 8 am to around 6 pm) that provides an introduction to the Porsche brand and to driving a Porsche roadcar on track to participants with no prior track experience. This is not a course that is suited to advanced drivers or those who expect to receive advanced level race driving or advanced track driving instruction. Nor does the course have any one-to-one instruction.
This course provides great value for a relatively low price point of 2,299 Euros. You get track time in three of Porsche's great street legal track cars as well as the electric Turbo S, but it is at a fairly beginner level where you follow the instructor in large groups of about 6 cars where you split the driving with a partner. The instructor will try to teach you the racing line but there is no one-to-one instruction, no recording of or analysis of your driving data and no teaching of any advanced driving techniques such as trail braking or rolling back on throttle past the apex. This is to get you on track and give you a taste of just how great Porsche's street legal track cars really are. And you get a good overview of the Porsche brand and some of its latest technology in the classroom sessions.
THE BASIC STRUCTURE OF THE TRACK ICONS COURSE
After an initial safety briefing for the entire group (which had to be at least 60-80 participants) about the very basics of driving on track, the course then broke the participants into smaller groups of 9-11 participants (I will call them classes). Each class is led by a single instructor who has prior racing experience (not exactly a surprise given that the course, like all Porsche Track Experience Courses, are run by Manthey Racing.
The classes were rotated through different courses during the day, which was a full day of instruction.
The day's programs for each class consisted of two classroom sessions of about 45 minutes to one hour, a drag racing program using the electric Taycan Turbo S and three track sessions using the GT3RS, GT3, GT4RS and Taycan Turbo S. Next, I will describe each program.
