Hockenheim Pro-Am ; Wherein professional fast guy Paul Gentilozzi tests the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup race car and we get a turn behind the wheel, too.

Let's start by taking Porsche's assertion at face value: Porsche Pirelli Supercup is the fastest single-marque racing series anywhere.

Okay. Enthusiasts and racers in the United States can now buy the spec race car-a model named the 911 GT3 Cup. But unlike those Americans who buy Ferrari Challenge race cars, the Porsche owners don't have a marque racing series to run in. North America, Porsche's largest export market by a mile, long the sports car maker's cash cow, does not have its own Supercup series.

If the series is so appealing, why not?

We'll wait a minute to answer because circumstance allows us to indulge ourselves.

Journalists are paid to get questions answered, not to drive race cars, and for good reason. Such evaluations are best left to experts-in this case, we chose double Trans-Am series champion Paul Gentilozzi, who had driven in

the Supercup race last fall at Indianapolis in support of the F1 race weekend.

That leaves the writer with the enviable privilege-the indulgence-of driving a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup on one of the world's great racetracks for no particular purpose. The expert's thoughts on hustling a 911 around Germany's Hockenheimring are in the accom- panying sidebar story penned by Gentilozzi-who also offered some provocative opinions in response to our questions about Supercup, America, and what place there is in our country for the 911 GT3 Cup spec racer.