TWISTS & TURNS

PCOTY TESTING BEGINS WITH OUR 10 FINALISTS TACKLING SOME DEMANDING TARMAC IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA

- LOUIS CORDONY

KID MARKS – HUGE, snaking elevens into and out of corners, all the way up the hill. Yes, we have arrived on the road down which we’ll be punting our 10-strong, kilowatt-packed convoy, and somebody’s rubbery graffiti indicates as much.

Only a couple hours ago, before coming all this way to the north-east of Adelaide, there was a chance our target road could have been anything but the driving nirvana it seemed on Google Maps. But as we hunt it along the Stott Highway between Angaston and Sedan, ascending to the ridge that looks out across the Mount Lofty Ranges, I let out a sigh. Then a gasp. The enormous knuckles of earth lying between us and South Australia’s dusty eastern plains look as if someone had chiselled a slice of the Nurburgring Nordschleife into the side of them. It has delivered on our hopes.

Fast corners whittle down into challenging sections as the road twists and tightens. Then it loops downwards, disappearing around foothills before appearing again and running around another. The surface is superb, mostly, but gnarls for just long enough to ask a car’s chassis the questions you won’t find on a billiard-smooth racetrack.

As we snake down the road in convoy my pulse quickens at the very idea of wrestling our 10 contenders up and down this blacktop. Almost every second corner boasts full sight lines. And after a year where rain plagued every significant MOTOR event leading up to this one, the skies are clear.

So, rather than tease myself and leave the most anticipated car until last, once we’re all accounted for at the turnaround point I lunge for the 992-gen Porsche 911 Carrera S. The company turbocharged its icon in the second half of the last generation, which should make its acceleration less surprising, but as I pull away it’s bloody obvious turbocharging has stuck a rocket up the new 911’s clacker.