I've been meaning to come on and post about one of the best driving experiences ever!
About a month ago my wife and I did whirlwind 2.5 week tour through Europe. The deal when my wife started talking about this trip was that if we are going all the way to Europe then I'm driving the Nürburgring.
It ended up being about a 24 hour excursion from Amsterdam.
The German country side is beautiful. Didn't take many pics but this was the general scenery on the drive to and from.
During the summer unless the track is rented for an event then it is open on week day evenings and weekends for Touristenfahrten which means that the track is technically an "unrestricted toll road." Which means anyone on any street legal vehicle can drive on the track if they pay the lap fee. You see everything from Sunday drivers in their station wag to vans/trucks to gnarly track day cars.
Speaking of which. All of the major European car rental agencies have wizened up and have clauses excluding you from driving the car on the Ring. Some have installed GPS devices and some pay rewards to track photographers for pics of their cars on track. If they catch you then they ban you for life. The good news is that there are agencies that rent track prepped cars for driving on the Ring. You can rent everything from little hatchback cars to exotic cars with varying levels of preparedness. All of my research about the Ring strongly advises against driving a high horsepower car on this track until you know the track thoroughly. And when the track is 13 miles long with over 70 curves ALMOST ALL OF WHICH ARE BLIND then this applies to everyone who doesn't live nearby.
I decided to rent a track preped car from Rent4Ring because unlike the other guys when you show up in the morning they let you take the car for as long as you want. So you can do 1 lap and turn it back in or you can do 12. There is no time limit. This can be critical on a busy weekend because if you rent for a 4 hour window and the track is closed do to accidents (happens all the freeking time) then you may only get to do a few laps.
I rented their BMW 125i which they prep to a "stage 2" level. This is how they describe it:
Quote:
Using the knowledge and equipment from our VLN racing team, we've upgraded the BMW 125i to Stage 2 specification. Amazing grip, rear-wheel-drive and a very potent lag-free motor make this rental car a real buzz on the Nordschleife.
• Dunlop Direzza semi-slick road-legal race tyres
• KW suspension
• Recaro Pole Position racing seats and OMP harnesses
• new ZF 8-speed sports auto transmission with sequential push/pull shifter
• Upgraded brakes using Motul fluid and Endless pads
• Excellent stability control
Absolutely NOT a car for beginners to the Nordschleife!
My car didn't have Dunlop's on it but it did have R compound 90 treadwear rated tires. This car was far far more capable in the corners than I was willing to try since I didn't know the track that well. I thought I would be able to learn the track quickly since I had raced it so many times at home on GT5. The issue is that when racing on GT5 I always had the track line and map on. Once I started practicing at home with no track map, no driving line, or gear indicator, no driver aids at all. Holy **** I began to learn just how hard this track is to learn.
Here I am getting briefed on my car.
My wife came with me on the first lap. She has been on tracks before with me in the Camaro. But nothing in the world is like the Ring, so she got out after one lap. She explained that all the blind corners was giving her pretty bad motion sickness and also she was literally scared to death.
But here is our selfie as we are about to head out on the track.
As you can see the BMW is almost totally stripped of interior and sound insuallation, equiped with a roll bar, fixed back seats and harnesses (only 4 point though...). I will admit at this point that given that it was a 95* sunny day and I was driving one of the most if not most dangerous tracks in the world I ran the A/C the whole time! ha ha
Here is video of my best lap. WARNING: it is very shaky and a little hard to watch. If you want to watch a smooth lap with much better quality watch the next video. What this video does have is me hitting 136 mph into the foxhole which was scary as ****.
For the smoother easier to watch lap.
I went to the Ring thinking I would do 4 laps, maaaybe 6 if it was fun. I did 8 laps. The Nürburgring Nordschleife really is like no other racetrack on earth. It is amazing. It is also extremely dangerous. On my 8 laps I saw a totalled car every single lap and except for the two laps in the videos above they weren't the same car. On my 2nd lap there was an 8 car pile up. I ended up waiting a combined 3+ hours while I was there due to track closures for accidents. I saw multiple wrecked Porches and expensive cars. Needless to say I was extremely happy after my 8 laps to turn in a perfectly working car with no damage.
This also made me eligible to sign a piece of body work in their shop that was damaged by someone less fortunate.
If anyone ever wants to share a shipping container or help sponsor me getting my 68 Camaro to Germany let me know! I've replaced the bucket list experience of driving this track with a new one. Driving it in my Pro touring Camaro!
Car looked like it was a reasonably good ride.......even if it sounds like a train in the video.
The sound was so much worse in person lol! Despite that the car handled awesome! I'm sure a ton of it had to do with the R compound tires but I was honestly surprised to look at the data afterwards and see 1.1+ g's in some corners because I thought I was taking it a lot easier than that and I know the car is capable of 1.3 g's from other videos of it in action.
Chad,
Great read! I assume they required you to wear the balaclava? I was also wondering about the wrecks. Are there really that many accidents and if so do they have dedicated wreckers on site to deal with them? This subject is fascinating to me and I would love to hear more. This is one of the items on my bucket list.
__________________ Steve Hayes
"Dust Off"
68 Camaro
Speed has never killed anyone. Suddenly becoming stationary, that's what gets you! "Jeremy Clarkson"
Pretty cool! I drove it years ago when our Corvette club toured Germany......was in a Volvo V40 1.6TDI wagon.....12-14 minute lap times.....still had a great time and had the front brakes ventilating black smoke after the hot laps I did. This is definitely a "bucket list" item for any car person.
Thanks everyone! It was the ultimate track experience. The only way to top it is to drive my Camaro there
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheJDMan
Chad,
Great read! I assume they required you to wear the balaclava? I was also wondering about the wrecks. Are there really that many accidents and if so do they have dedicated wreckers on site to deal with them? This subject is fascinating to me and I would love to hear more. This is one of the items on my bucket list.
Actually, I didn't have to wear a helmet. It is optional but with the risk I was fully intending on a helmet. The balaclava was more for hygiene/sanitary reasons.
Yes there really are that many accidents lol. It is seriously nuts how often cars wreck out there. They have a huge support operation. Dedicated wreckers, track marshals and even a dedicated life flight helicopter. If the helicopter is uses to rescue somebody then the track is closed until it returns. People wreck their so often they have a standard price list for everything from vehicle recovery to by the meter charges for barrier damage to by the minute charges if you close the track...
If you have any other specific questions hit me up.
Brian Hobaugh SCCA National Tour June 2014
First Hemi 'Cuda Convertible Ever Built
Short clips: Goodguys Pleasanton autocross and pit videos
So I drove the Nürburgring Nordschleife!
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