California Festival of Speed: Power to the Porsches
The Porsche recipe is so simple, and so perfect, it’s almost funny. Take a short, flat, horizontally opposed six-cylinder engine, mount it low at the back of a RWD car, add a stout four-wheel independent suspension, fit it to a low and wide chassis with generous amounts of rubber, add in an acceptable amount of passenger room and creature comforts, and design the rest to complement.
Tweak mildly over the years, and remain one of the top-performing and most highly sought-after lineages in the world. Easy, right?
So, what better way to honor Germany’s premier performance brand and enjoy the fruits of its labor than with three days of meet, show and track time at one of California’s premier speed destinations for the ages.
Such is the California Festival of Speed, a 16-year-strong joint production between the Porsche Owner’s Club and Porsche Club of America. If you’re a Porsche owner, racer or fan of any kind, you need to be there.
As its name would imply, the California Festival of Speed is first and foremost for the drivers.
Three full days of practice sessions, open-track time, sprint races and a final 70-minute enduro around the infamous Cal Speedway “roval” — a configuration that combines the low-speed, technical turns and hard braking zones of its infield road course with the all-out speed of half its two-mile NASCAR oval — provide ample opportunity for drivers of nearly any model/vintage Porsche and any ability level to enjoy what their cars do best: perform.
What turns out each year is every bit as diverse as the classifications allow. This year saw everything from loads of weekend track rats to late-model Cayman GT4s and 991s, as well as insanely widened and sequentially shifted full competition cars from series like Pirelli World Challenge, IMSA GT3 Cup, ADAC and more.
More than a few 944s came out to play, along with lots of Boxters and every variation on 911 you could imagine.
There were even some 918s and mid-century 356s in attendance, but were mostly relegated to off-track duties.
In between the track time, showgoers could find all of these in and near Auto Club Speedway’s pit area; seeing such a diverse and impressive collection of Porsches under each roof is an awesome experience in itself.
Outside of track festivities there was the softer side of Porsche enthusiasm, by way of Vendor Alley, the Swap Meet and the Owner’s Corral.
There was even a mobile dyno, which was more for the racers to diagnose problems and tune their cars than compete for peak numbers. But we suspect there was some of that as well.
Even the general parking area was impressive.
When the very first Porsche 911 debuted in 1965 with its bare-bones, performance-minded build and future-classic styling, it sold at dealers with a humble MSRP of only $6,490. Twenty-four years later, the classic 911’s price had grown nearly 10-fold despite having changed minimally over that time, a testament to just how perfectly Porsche nailed that performance recipe.
And if what we see each year at the California Festival of Speed is any indication, Porsches, and the enthusiasm performance lovers have for them, will continue to appreciate with time.
