As you probably know, my fantastic, lovely wife, Eva, is from Hong Kong. Hong Kong lived through SARS (v1, or, SARS-CoV-1). It was bad.

The official name for Covid-19 is literally SARS-CoV-2. As in, SARS v2. Well, Eva and I had seen this movie before, so we quarantined. HARD. Starting in January 2020. And, yes. Some people made fun of us. At first.

I also setup 5 households for quarantine, staying ahead of the shortages, mailing 200+ lbs of boxes, every week or so. We called these households our "quarantine quadrangle" for months. Now, it's called a "pod".

Then, I had a total of SIX personal catastrophes in 2020! I'm not going to talk about those for a while, so don't ask.

However, my family and our pod emerged better than average, so we all feel very, very lucky.

This pandemic is terrible. It's going to be with us for years. Yet, there are some little consolation gifts, hidden in this disaster of a year. I love every minute with my family, so a quarantine can often feel like a staycation. Our WiFi router company had to pivot, and that turned out great too. Mostly, it makes us grateful for essential workers and for our family.

We setup a structured charitable fund in 2018, and have continued our habit of informal donations since before 1998. However, it became clear that 2020 would require extreme help, that even the charitable fund couldn't accomplish. So, we've helped about a dozen households in 2020, and expect to help them through 2023 if needed. It worked out to way over $150k this year, and it's our pleasure. These people were always there for us when we needed them. We can't turn our back on our friends, especially when this disaster randomly clobbers some of their households, leaving others relatively unscathed.

Please stay safe and well,

Love,

​Todd, Eva, and Vivi

As long as she lets us cook, though, that's awesome help!

Like any small kids, Vivi likes to do anything we do. At the Brennan house, that means cooking and computer hacking.
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Gardening.

​Reading. Socializing.

Or, all of them at once!

I purchased this 2016 beast, lightly used. It arrived with less than 1,300 miles on the odometer. They only made purple ones for a couple years. I LOVE the color. Since breakin is 2,000 miles, it took quite a few commutes to the gym before I could push it at all.

I use it as a daily driver, on any dry day. Everyone thinks the Portland OR area is rainy all the time. If you think so, I'm not going to convince you otherwise :) That said, I drive my GT3 RS 3-days-a-week, for most of the year (8 months).

Even limited to 1/3 power, it's intense. Braking and cornering exceeded 1.2 g's. The Dunlop Sport Maxx Race 2 tires would roll on the rims under those loads. No squealing or loss of grip. Even at +6 lbs warm tire pressure, on a 360-degree exit ramp, you could see wear smearing past the outside of the tread. I had to wait to push harder...and get new 13"-wide, Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 N1 tires. The before and after are equally hilarious.
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Being able to rev to 8,800 RPM is amazing. However, the last 500 RPM goes very quickly, and I bounced off the limiter a few times. YUK. It's really, Really, REALLY LOUD. The sound at full power and revs is literally deafening. More than 15 minutes at that sound pressure would damage your hearing. Ear plugs will be required at the track.

Under acceleration, even in a straight line, the GIGANTIC rear tires squirm. It feels squirrelly, at speeds from 30-80MPH. From 80-120MPH, max acceleration can create a body-roll and also a squirrelly yaw too. From 100MPH-160MPH, you can hear huge wind noise, as the aero smooshes the tires into the road. The cornering grip is literally off the charts. The grippiest road cars in the world struggle to exceed 1.2g's laterally. My light, powerful BMW M5 will start to squeal around 1.0g and can't really get past 1.1g.

I can try to explain these numbers someday, but for now, think: violent, brutal, unhinged. 
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The 1.2g's forward acceleration is very violent, and it sounds as if the engine will grenade itself at any time.

Over 1.4g's cornering and the tires start to slide. Add the 1g straight down, due to gravity, and the combined force is pushing 2g's! These are all low-speed numbers, below 80MPH. Above 80MPH, on a track, where aero can plant you down harder, I've seen numbers above 1.7g's. The GT3 RS has 80% of the aero downforce of a Porsche Cup race car. That's insane. This is a race car with a license plate on it. You will never feel anything like it in your life.

I need to exceed 1.3g to even get the ABS brakes to wake up. Again, with aero and at speed, I should be able to exceed 1.5g on a track. At 1.4g stopping, you can feel the seat belts squish into your chest, and your breath is shortened. I use core strength and the third pedal to stabilize under those forces. However, a 5 or 6-point harness would help spare my core on a track. Racers strap in tight so they don't have to fight sloshing around inside the car.

Under full load, in the race setting, the Porsche dual clutch transmission (PDK) is mental. The lightweight flywheel and electronics can cause the revs to bounce. I've never seen that before! On the other electronic-clutch systems I have tried, I can manually upshift faster than the electronic clutch. The sound and feeling of the PDK is violent, yet the shockwave is just small enough to not scramble the rear tires. I cannot shift up or down faster than this. It's less than 100ms.

A GT3 RS is designed to drive hard for over 100,000 miles. Normal race cars have to be overhauled every race day or two. Road cars tend to break or explode after a few race days. These cars have a reputation of pulling those g-forces all day long, day after day. Your body will get tired. The ceramic brakes will not fade, but they will get worn. The tires will bald and shred. Yet the car will ask for more.

I'm used to tiny crumbs coming off my M5 tires. After I park, there are glazed shreds coming off my strong, racing tires:
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Even with all of the electronic stability controls on, a GT3 RS still feels slightly murdery, when you push it. The maximally-safe setting on this car is "change your adult diaper". It will understeer, oversteer, 2-wheel drift, 4-wheel drift, Tokyo drift, spin, and god-knows-what-else. I've heard that if you track them hard, the stability controls can eat up your brakes. Almost no reviewers push the GT3 RS to see these things.

Since 1.4g of braking causes my carbon-ceramic pads to smoke, as if on fire, then I may have to turn off some of the stability, when I track the thing. That, or I have to save up for new PCCB brakes...which is pricy, but cheaper than replacing a mangled car.

I have most of my fun at night. The optional LED lights are computer controlled, and light up like the sun. At higher speeds, they focus a more narrow beam. At lower speeds, they cant into corners.

All the non-racecar stuff fits into a small rectangular hole. If you are crazy about weight, you can "delete" AC and other stuff, leaving an empty shelf there. All the controls are crammed in there: optional AC, radio, sat-nav, and phone. If you want any of those "luxuries" then you have to reach awkwardly and fiddle with the buttons and knobs, all in a central area blocked by the shifter. In theory, a loaded GT3 RS like mine is a civilized, fancy driver's cabin. In reality, the car is loud and busy, so those features are an afterthought. You require them in modern life, but I wouldn't want to have meetings in the cabin.

I'm getting ready to bed it down for the winter. By spring, it will have a roll cage, plastic wrap, extra electronics and cameras, a higher rear wing, and maybe some new exhaust headers. There's a minor thermostat/cooling assembly piece which fails early under duress, and I managed to kill that before 3,000 miles. I'll get that fixed over the winter, along with replacing the OEM ceramic brake piston plugs with titanium. Heat can break and burn the OEM plugs. I definitely overheat my brakes. My commute doesn't have cool-down laps!

So, what's it like to daily-drive and push a Porsche GT3 RS? Invigorating!

Also, it's a very pretty car up close. After thrashing it, I like to spend a few guilty minutes just walking around the car...listening to the *tink* *tink* *tink* of the hot metal parts...feeling the heat pour out of every corner...smelling a bit of oil... car-guy heaven!

​:D

Here is a professional racer, with essentially an identical car: