Make: Porsche

Model: 911

Year: 2001

Mileage: 80,000

Horsepower: 300

Backstory:

The owner of this Porsche 911, David Hayes, has the need for speed and exercises it as a hobby. This Lake Nona resident spends his free time participating in High Performance Driving Education (HPDE) events through the Porsche Club of America (PCA). A good friend of his is the chief driving instructor for PCA in the Florida Citrus Region. His friend talked him into coming out to one of their events so he could discover how the car was truly meant to be driven. Hayes was eager to see how well the car gripped corners, accelerated and braked. HPDE did just that. HPDE allows the driver to take their car on a track where they are taught proper high-speed driving techniques. As soon as Hayes began doing runs in his car, he got addicted to it. He has been doing HPDE for the past two years. He says the more you learn and the more comfortable you get on the track, the more you progress as a driver.

When he first began taking the Porsche on the track, it was not with his 2001 911. It was a newer model, a 2013 911. He eventually sold it for the 2001. “The guys here in Orlando that worked on my car called me and they had one available that had all the track work done to it. So I bought that one and sold my newer one to have one that’s really dedicated to the track,” said Hayes. He has had the car for a little over a year now.  

He has always been into cars. When he first got out of college, he worked for Ford Motor Company for a while and then was employed by Mercedes-Benz. After the car business, he got into aviation. For Hayes, cars, planes and speed make the world go round. High-performance driving has a lot of physics behind it, and he likes the fact that a lot of it is just like the physics one learns in flying.

Hayes says the red and black on the car are his colors since he went to the University of Georgia. The car had a lot of suspension work done to it prior to its purchase. However, there are no mods done on the engine itself. He says he would love to get a Porsche 911 GT-3. His 911 is up there with the GT-3’s performance package, however, all it is missing is 200 horsepower as the GT-3 sits at nearly 500 horsepower.

Mods:

• Bilstein coil-over suspension
• Porsche GT3 front and rear sway bars, drop links, and front control arm
• Recaro racing seats with six-point harnesses
• Rollbar
• Third radiator
• Oil cooler
• Pagid racing brake pads
• B&M short shifter
• Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires
• Corner balanced and aligned for track use

“I took my wife out for a few laps around Sebring racetrack. The Porsches are built for road course driving like that. They really handle the corners well. I think that’s the thing that’s most eye-opening to me, how fast that car will take you through a corner.

“I’m a limiting factor of how fast that car can go around the track, not the car itself. Every time I go out, I learn something new. I get faster and faster. When you’re on the track, you want to be on gas for as long as you can before you hit the brakes. Full gas to full brake in a corner and gas it as you get a corner,” says Hayes. The fact that the Porsche is built with the engine in the rear helps with cornering. It pushes you through the corner.

Not only is HPDE a thirst-quencher for adrenaline, but it is also an excellent social event. He says both men and women take part in track driving. Drivers will go out on the track in what they call “run groups” that range from beginner to advanced. “There can be 36 cars on track at a time; everybody works with each other,” says Hayes.

You can find this Porsche 911 at Cars & Coffee Central Florida and at the Porsche Club of America for the Florida Citrus Region. Their website is flc.pca.org.