Most Sunday mornings I set my alarm for 7:30, so I can spend an hour or two in Pioneer Square at a small cars and coffee event. Unofficial, a bit under the radar, and I felt like I was crashing a private party the first few times. Now I show up like I own the place and bring my kids as often as I can get them out of bed! Caffe Umbria has great coffee, some nice pastries, and there is usually a great collection of Porsches. Some other nice brands as well. I love how low key the whole thing is. On this visit, Shep was still having fun taking car photos, and here is his collection of shots. I love how he looks for the unusual shots…like the one below with a chair obscuring the foreground:

I previously talked about Luft 9, which had one day showcasing all air cooled Porsches, and a second day that included more modern water cooled cars. In 2024, the same team decided to break up the shows into multiple events, the first was was Air | Water, put on a second show in 2024. It was taking place in LA around my birthday, so I decided to use my birthday wish and force my whole family to come with me to the event! We made a long weekend out of it, flying to LA and staying at a beachside hotel in Huntington Beach. We got to enjoy some shopping, a day of biking at the beach, lots of pool time, and a full day walking around the fairgrounds admiring some of the most incredible Porsches in the world.

Originally I had planned to show my Spyder, but wasn’t able to make the logistics work. That’s okay, because it feed me up to just enjoy the day. Speaking of freeing myself up…I handed off the camera to Shep and he spent the day capturing some amazing photos:

Sometimes you have those moments where you just have to pinch yourself to be sure you aren’t dreaming. This was one of those days. While I’m brainwashing Shep with kart racing, Gabe has a license and is able to race on a real track! I’m a big believer that we don’t invest enough time in driver education in the US, and that taking classes at racing schools will help make anyone a safer driver. You learn car control, how to stay focused and that you solve more problems with the gas than the brake. It is also a hell of a lot of fun!

Gabe and I escaped for a full day with ProFormance Racing School. We are incredibly lucky to have the Kitch family in the Northwest and for the passion they put into their racing school. Don Kitch Jr. started the school and is a very successful race car driver. He is the author of a fantastic essay, The Art of Racing in the Rain. It was this very essay, and much of Don’s life story, that later inspired my favorite book by the same name and eventually a much loved movie as well.

Don’s essay was focused on the “mental and physical disciplines for drivers to become efficient driving a car in the rain”, a topic that any driver, race car or not, needs to be familiar with living in the Northwest. Garth Stein, the author of the book, met Don when he enrolled in the driving school, became an instructor and went on to have his own racing career. The book is told through the eyes of Enzo, the Kitch family dog, and is one of my favorite stories. To live where it took place and to know the people (and dogs) that inspired the story would be incredible enough. To be at the same racing school with Gabe, spending the day being taught by the racing legend himself, was almost too much to take.

Gabe did an incredible job. We spent half the day learning car control skills. High speed slalom, emergency braking, accident avoidance, and losing and regaining traction. The second half of the day was spent driving the track with an instructor riding shotgun to provide coaching. We had everything from a soaking wet track (even hail) to a nice dry track which was perfect for learning.

At the end of the day, Gabe and I ended up in the same run group and I was lined up right behind him. I was going to have some fun with him…show him his old man still had some tricks up his sleeve. I knew I would be faster, but I didn’t want to embarrass him with an early pass. Not only did an early pass not happen, I never managed to get close enough to attempt any pass…the boy was a fearless natural!!

I’ve made no secret of trying to brainwash my boys into loving cars. What better way than to get Shep on the path to be a real race car driver! I know, I know…you shouldn’t live out your own childhood dreams through your children. Where’s the fun in that!

For Shep’s 12 birthday we rented an indoor karting track and he had a blast racing with his friends. He was a natural and throughout the day got progressively faster without getting frustrated.

You need to be 14 in order to go karting at PGP Motorsports, but they have a training program for younger kids. If you can pass the program, you can get signed off to driver before 14. They only run the program in the spring so Shep had to wait all winter to take the course. The day finally came, on Easter Sunday, and Shep delayed the candy, we got up super early, and he suited up for a day of high-speed kart racing. You need to demonstrate car control, the ability to listen but most of all you need to show that you can be fast enough to not slow everyone down and make a mess of their real events. I’m proud to say that Shep made it with flying colors and his best lap of the day was 98 seconds. Not enough to win any races, but more than enough to qualify to be on the track.

Shep is hooked. He now has his own helmet with some unofficial sponsors (PNWR and Avants of course), racing gloves, and he pesters me every week to hit the track. He may not be the fastest on the track yet, but he is certainly the best dressed!

Practice makes perfect, and Shep is putting in a lot of practice time! He keeps chipping away at his best lap times, and is down to 85 seconds. Ideally he should be in the 79 to 82 range consistently before he starts to join more competitive classes, but I’m sure he will be there soon. When he isn’t on the track, he’s practicing at our new in-home racing sim. At least when he can pry the wheel away from me!

Here’s a video of Shep’s most recent adventure at the track. Mostly so he can see where he wants to improve, but it is pretty entertaining as well, at least to me.

After trying and failing to be a truck guy…again, I decided to part ways with the Ford F150 Tremor after only 1 year. It was a nice truck, but it is just too damn big for my life in Seattle. Trying to navigate through a downtown parking garage was comical at best, downright scary at worst. I wanted something that could haul the family, be reasonably fun on my daily commute and wouldn’t break the bank. Two out of three ain’t bad!

I wasn’t going to get a new vehicle, and I certainly wasn’t going to get a Porsche. Then my Spyder needed service, and the dealer hooked me up with a relatively new Porsche Cayenne and a nicely equipped model. I’ve resisted the Porsche SUV since it was introduced, and frankly I’ve never been in love with the looks (I tend to like boxy trucks/suvs), but after spending a few weeks with the loaner, I was hooked. Now I know why the dealers use the Macans and Cayennes as loaners! Big enough for the family without being too big, and man has Porsche worked its magic and made a big vehicle feel small and sporty. When I picked up the Spyder from service, I placed an order for the new 2024 Cayenne S with my dealer. Is it an EV…or even a Hybrid…nope. It is a fire breathing 468 horsepower twin turbo V8 with a sports exhaust that sounds like a muscle car!!

A friend of mine, and long time member of the PNWR, left Seattle for the greener pastures of the Methow Valley. He’s a big outdoorsman, adventurer, racer and I love to see the photos he shares while he explores the stunning countryside. Thankfully he shares his experiences by organizing a multi-day Porsche Club overlanding tour.

While we all may think of Porsche as a sports car company, and images of 911s flash through our minds when we think about the brand…the truth is they sell way more SUVs than sports cars. It was the success of the Macan and the Cayenne, once thought of as blasphemy, that actually saved the company. While most Porsche SUVs never venture off-road, it was a blast to grab Gabe and Shep and escape for a few days to explore life off the tarmac.

The trip would have us exploring the beautiful Methow Valley in North-Central Washington for a weekend of playing in the mountains. We spent almost the whole time on gravel or dirt roads. While we didn’t do any serious rock crawling, there was plenty of off-road adventure to challenge the cars, the drivers and test the strength of those low profile tires Porsche likes to stick on even their SUVs. We spent Friday and Saturday nights at Howard’s on the River in Pateros.

I played official photographer duties for the tour which was my penance for bringing a Ford F150…I didn’t have the Cayenne yet! The 944 Safari was my favorite car on the trip, and the driver had some fun drifting a few corners to cheering fans.

Given what has become a very hectic work schedule, constant business travel and what feels like fewer scheduled events, I haven’t been spending as much time at The Shop lately. Maybe I need to make it my work from home office a few days a month! When the PNWR and The Shop join forces to host a Porsche themed Cars & Brunch, I’m not going to miss it!

Eric Jensen is one of the founders of The Shop, and his car collection is incredible. Toping the list is this amazing Porsche Carrera.

Here are some other favorite cars from a great day:

As a lifetime car nut, I’ve always been hoping that my kids would love cars as much as I do. It’s not that I want to subject them to a lifetime of poor financial choices chasing “the next one”, I just find an enormous amount of joy in and around the automobile and want to share that with them. Okay, I really just want to co-opt them into my hobby so I don’t have to choose between family time and car time!

You may have heard that this latest generation of kids doesn’t even want to drive…doesn’t bother to get their license. That wasn’t the case with Gabe. At 14 he started asking me about driving lessons and when he could get his learners. He signed up for driver’s education the second he was eligible. He took the classes seriously and we spent many hours driving together, building up the seat time he needed to qualify. He was on a mission to be a licensed driver!

Secretly, Meg and I were on a mission of our own. I wanted to get Gabe a car that would be safe, reliable and fun. Not too much fun…but fun. After a lot of searching, I settled on a new 2023 Mazda 3 hatchback with the 2.5L Turbo engine. It had all the safety features but is also a drivers car at the same time. I had to buy the car in advance of his birthday, but I worked out a plan with The Shop, the car club I belong to. They agreed to store the car, and on his 16th birthday, we would go to the onsite restaurant, Derby, for brunch. We go there pretty often, so it wouldn’t give too much away. The Shop had Gabe’s car waiting for us in the lobby and the rest is history. Huge surprise, he was blown away.

One of the first things we did after Gabe got his car, was to attend a Porsche Club Drivers Education day. You get to learn about car control, understand how ABS works, feel your car at the limits of grip in a safe environment, and generally have an awesome time! Gabe did a fantastic job and had no problems keeping up with me in the Spyder!