Meet Golf Ball: The Hail-Damaged Cayman Built to Be Fast

Golf Ball doing what it was built to do.

Golf Ball looks like a white Porsche that lost a fight with a Texas hailstorm. Under the dents is a proven time-trial car built by S Collective—which made it a useful contrast to several earlier Ball Pit purchasing decisions.

I did not build Golf Ball. S Collective did, and that distinction matters. The North Texas company started with a salvage-title base Cayman and built it to prove that a properly prepared 987.2 did not need an S badge to be competitive. S Collective produced results with it, the car became recognizable around regional tracks, and the hail damage supplied the name. Silvio and Kelsey are the people behind S Collective, but Golf Ball is first and foremost an S Collective build.

By the time I had a chance to buy it, Golf Ball already had a reputation. My job was not to take credit for its original decisions. My job was to learn the car, maintain it properly and eventually carry S Collective’s vision forward.

Why I bought a proven car

The First Ball taught me how rewarding it can be to develop a track car one modification at a time. It also taught me how expensive that approach becomes.

In early 2025, I was thinking seriously about moving beyond the Miata. I sent Kelsey at S Collective a listing for a Cayman with a bored-out 3.8-liter engine, and that conversation revealed that S Collective might be willing to sell Golf Ball. The company had acquired a fully caged race-car shell and needed room for its next build.

I knew Golf Ball’s regional history and trusted S Collective. The company had built the car for its own competition program, not assembled it quickly for resale. That peace of mind was worth something. I decided to buy it before I had even sold The First Ball.

It was still a leap of faith, but it was a leap into a car that had already proved it worked.

Golf Ball with Cheese Ball. The dents are not damage to hide. They are how Golf Ball got its name.

The Most Valuable Upgrade Has Been the Driver

Golf Ball was faster than The First Ball, but speed was not the biggest adjustment. The real difference was learning how a mid-engine car responds to braking, turn-in and weight transfer.

I was comfortable trail braking in the Miata. In the Cayman, my early attempts felt like jumping onto a bucking horse. Too much brake on turn-in unsettled the car. Over-braking made me slow. Abruptly lifting the throttle mid-corner could create far more rotation than I wanted—and once resulted in cosmetic damage that I decided not to repair because, frankly, the car was already covered in hail dents.

The solution was not another modification. It was seat time.

I learned to manage brake pressure, release the pedal smoothly, set the nose and become comfortable using small slides rather than reacting to them. Dirt driving in Blue Ball and Low Ball helped me understand rotation, but Golf Ball forced me to apply those lessons at much higher speeds.

The most valuable upgrade has been the driver. The car was already good. I needed to catch up to it.

Competition and progress

Golf Ball became my primary time-trial car and introduced me to NASA, SCCA and faster regional competition.

My first NASA time trial ended with a fourth-place finish and a new personal best. At the Apex Ranch to Canyon weekend, I finished fourth in wet conditions at Motorsport Ranch Cresson, then took third at Eagles Canyon Raceway in an LA5 podium separated by just over a tenth of a second.

With SCCA Texas Time Trials, Golf Ball delivered two second-place finishes during a wet-to-dry weekend and a new personal best on a configuration I had never driven. At the following SCCA national event at ECR, the car earned first place in the combined two-day result.

Those results matter, but they are not the whole point. Golf Ball has become the car that lets me measure progress honestly: braking later without over-slowing, releasing the pedal better, trusting the platform and using data instead of guessing.

Verified lap times and event history will live in The Grid rather than being frozen on this page.

Golf Ball’s first combined SCCA national-event win.

The COTA axle lesson

Golf Ball also provided one of the more memorable lessons in trackside repair.

During my third session at Circuit of the Americas, the rear axle bolts backed out where the axle connects to the transmission. I felt the power disappear mid-corner and initially thought I had lost the transmission. I was carrying enough speed to coast uphill to a safe pull-off, signal the corner worker and wait for the flatbed.

My passenger, Jon Fountain of Drive At The Limit, and I returned to the paddock in an ambulance—not because either of us was hurt, but because there was not enough room in the tow truck. That detail was less funny to the friends who saw the ambulance arrive before they saw us climb out.

Once the car was on stands, we found that the axle was hanging but the failure had not caused major damage. We located replacement hardware at the nearest dealership, raced there before closing and repaired the car in the paddock with hand tools, a torque gun and plenty of borrowed determination. Golf Ball returned for the final open-track session and ran the following day without another issue.

The post-event inspection found that the opposite side was also loose and that both axles needed rebuilding. S Collective rebuilt the axles, torqued and secured the hardware, and added paint marks so movement would be visible during inspection. Axle hardware is now part of the routine checklist.

Golf Ball at COTA before an axle-hardware failure became a trackside repair lesson.

Build highlights

Golf Ball is a 2011 base Porsche Cayman 987.2 powered by a 2.9-liter flat-six. Its original concept, setup and major build decisions belong to S Collective.

Highlights include Nitron R1 coilovers, an OS Giken limited-slip differential, Tarrett GT3 front and Cayman R rear sway bars, Sparco seats, a Competition Motorsports half cage, an AIM MXL2 dash logger with SmartyCam, upgraded cooling, GT3 brake and underbody components, Sebro slotted rotors, Cobalt brake pads, a GT3 master cylinder, Fabspeed headers, a Soul race exhaust, a Softronic tune, Numeric shifter components and solid engine and transmission mounts.

It is loud, direct and unapologetically functional. My favorite part may be the sound. My favorite improvement remains seat time.

The next chapter

When I bought Golf Ball, I promised S Collective that I would eventually finish the vision by converting it from a time-trial car into a wheel-to-wheel race car.

That conversion will require a proper six-point cage, window nets, an electrical disconnect and a fire-suppression system. It is still on the road map, but I am not rushing it. For now, the car continues teaching me how to drive a mid-engine platform, use data and compete without pretending I have mastered any of it.

Ball Pit Motorsports is about learning in public, sharing the mistakes and bringing friends into the experience. Golf Ball fits that philosophy perfectly. It arrived already fast. The ongoing project is becoming the driver it deserves.

Where to go next

Read How Ball Pit Motorsports Started for the larger brand story. Meet The First Ball to see why I moved from building a track car one part at a time to buying a proven platform. Then meet Cheese Ball, the Spec Miata opening the door to wheel-to-wheel racing and rentals.