Porsche’s Experience Center (PEC) invites owners and fans of the marque to come to the manufacturer’s Carson, California campus six times each year to celebrate their cars and join with like-minded owners in the area. They call it the “Morning Shift” gathering and, this past Sunday, February 16, more than 100 cars and their owners came to the site where Porsche Motorsport North America performs its services for the racing set and where owners and fans can try out a variety of Porsche cars on a variety of courses on the campus.
This Carson, Calif. site is one of two Porsche Experience Centers in the United States. The other is located in Atlanta, Georgia and offers similar amenities to what is available in Carson. These include the ability to drive on simulators, to take to the track, enjoy fine dining and, perhaps, have one’s new car delivered to the site from the German firm’s factory. Among the configurations at both Atlanta and Carson are handling tracks, off-road course, drift circle and straight-line area where one can learn how to effect a standing start.
The Porsche Motorsport North America (PMNA) areas of the Carson facility allows enthusiasts a rare, behind the scenes view of the workshops, with windows to the repair facility as well as an area for restoration of previous Porsche race cars. PMNA has spurred the innovation, development of both street and race cars and helped the brand achieve more than 550 championships worldwide.
The noses pressed against the window to this workshop showed the validity of the work inside. That Porsche placed the Porsche 908-008 driven by Vic Elford and Jo Siffert facing outward to the lobby increased the number of supplicants, as they made their way to the restaurant and gift shop on campus.
There was more than Morning Shift occurring at this first meeting of the year. Porsche used this Sunday morning for its “Young Driver” session, with 20 drivers on-site to find out if they had the right stuff on one of the many track configurations of this campus. They had the opportunity to drive three different Porsche cars during their visits; we met with one young man whose family and girlfriend had teamed up to gift him with this session as a birthday present.
Morning Shift was graced with the presence of the founders of Luftgekuhlt, the celebration of Porsche air-cooled vehicles. Signing their Luft V3 book were both former Porsche factory driver Patrick Long and eight-time Pikes Peak International Hill Climb winner Jeff Zwart, who has attacked the 156 turns of the Colorado mountain 17 times. The Luft Book V3 offers 248 pages of the duo’s journey through their most recent air-cooled gatherings. Their latest Porsche Air|Water celebration returns to the Orange County Fairgrounds on Saturday, April 26.
By Anne Proffit
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