Has anyone made the trip to the 'ring with their weekend pride and joy and if so how did you get on?
The idea of having a car for this sole purpose seems to get more and more appealing as opportunities in this day and age for 'enthusiastic' motoring are a trifle rare.
I have seen that the circuit runs week-long training courses in the summer months which look appealing, I quite like the idea of being coached by the professionals in one of the circuit's cars before committing to any solo laps. It would also teach car control skills which could prove invaluable in a real world emergency.At the very least it would make the long journey worthwhile.
Surely there can't be a greater challenge for the keen driver, at least if we want to keep it legal. What do you reckon: a cheap, reliable kick-around for the mundane every day stuff, and 'ring toy in the garage?
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My brother in law goes to the Nurburgring at least three times a year with his buddies. He takes his uberfettled Honda Fireblade. Sis in law has a very smart 5 series BMW but he just hacks about most of the time in an old M reg Corsa. He doesn't brag about it but according to his friends he is very very quick on that bike.
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Been round it twice in the Omega I used to own. Great fun, lap times adversely affected by 1) too nervous to really go for it 2) my own tyres 3) not being prepared resulting in cases of duty free beer etc rolling round inside the car and 4) encountering a fairly serious accident during my second visit.
Also went watching this summer (after an LMES race) but just as I arrived the track went quiet, the ADAC helicopter came in and after about an hour the first vehicle round the track was the wrecker truck carrying the badly smashed up bike which had caused the closure.
It's really great fun, and I am certainly no killjoy, but do be careful...
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I went there with my family in August this year in a Citroen C5!!
We decided to go to one of the viewing areas first off just to take a look at how things are. There was nobody coming round the track for the first half an hour because there had been an accident. The very first vehicle we saw was therefore the course ambulance.
This went down very badly with the wife, who started to get cold feet.
Then the cars / bikes were let loose. 75% cars / 25% bikes. 75% really serious people with helmets / roll cages / westfields / lancia deltas / porches etc etc. They really knew what they were doing and it was great to watch.
The fun starts when people start coming round in family saloons. One guy in Renault Scenic with his wife and kids, someone in a VW LT35 van, a Skoda Roomster...all levels of talent are out there.
We saw a LOT of very near misses. Its a really hilly circuit and there were plenty of near 'incidents' with the talented people in the fast cars rapidly coming up behind 'talent-free' people like me and nearly smashing into the back of them.
It freaked my wife out so much she banned us from taking to the track altogether. To save my marriage I did as I was told (yet again).
Had to take a gentle drive alongside the Mossel river instead.
My advice...go in a car you dont care about and have fun.
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See you can race a Roomie - there's a 140bhp chip kit for my version !
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The one we saw looked more like about 70bhp....it was struggling big time
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I'm sure you'll know, but it's also a very long circuit - my first lap was around 13 or 14 minutes - that is quite wearing when you are trying to go quick, while concentrating on what's coming up behind much faster, and making sure you keep on the road.
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A feeble response to keep the thread going, in the hope that better is to come.
We had a holiday flat in the Eifel earlier this year, and looking for local trips it turned out that the Nurburgring was a strong contender. We ended up going two days in a row- but only looking through the fence, like a schoolboy looking through a shop window. Never mind, it was very interesting and enjoyable. At least you really could look through the fence and get a perfectly decent view, as it is still nominally a public road. By the same token, however, the whole area is very pleasant from a driving point of view, with plenty of German-quality roads and good twisties. In fact we saw a greater number of expensive performance cars going at a good rate outside the circuit than we saw inside, and had a very reasonable time ourselves. If you want out and out speed and not cornering, the local autobahn serves very well too! On the circuit, the kings of the road were old ( I mean 1980's) M3's and old Porsches, sounding glorious and going well. But the circuit really did seem tricky and there were a fair number of accidents together with pick-up trucks on the surrounding roads, conveying their loads sadly back to the UK. I got the impression that if you were to take it seriously your "Ring car" would spend a lot of time in the workshop, not just the garage. I would have liked to take my car round to see for myself, but would have wanted to find my own speed without pressure from the die-hards. The nicest sight in a way was a Transit-type people carrier, with its right-hand indicator on all the way and a nice-looking couple taking their young lads round just for the experience.
It is still a thing I hanker after and I hope people who have actually done it (in their regular car, as a "special" is sadly not for me) will tell us what it was really like.
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It's far too difficult for an inexperienced driver. If you want a track day experience, please try something shorter first.
As the threads here make clear, there's an awful lot of 'down time' due to accident recovery. At the pinnacle of my 'career', I raced single seaters at Siverstone (unsucessfully), and I wouldn't consider the 'old circuit' without at least several hours of tuition.
The circuit is far too long, with way too many corners for the novice to remember, and there's too many drivers/riders who think they're experienced coming up very fast behind you!
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I raced at Silverstone in 1999 - a hidden side to PU, I have a photo to prove it !
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Wow PU, that's when I was there.
D'yer remember a driver turning up in a diesel Maestro?
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I think the excitement would be too much for me these days.
Daughter's b/f has been there twice with his heavily tweaked Skyline. Did sub-10 minutes the second time. Of course there were still people coming past him.
He cares very much about the car by the way.
Edited by Lud on 16/11/2008 at 23:18
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The nicest sight in a way was a Transit-type people carrier
TopGear repeats on telly yesterday - Sabine Schmidt and the hamster taking the Diesel Transit round the ring.
"Get out of ze vay, blinkin english bikers..."
I've seen it many times, still raises a chuckle
Edited by Webmaster on 18/11/2008 at 00:33
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It's even a long way on my X-Box.
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I have never been, and what ensures I never will is the ludicrous mix of such a wide range of skill levels / circuit knowledge on track at the same time.
Surely this detracts from everyone's experience. The fast guys just intimidate the slow guys and give them one more unexpected obstacle to crash in to, and the slow guys get in the fast guys way and ruin their pub bragging lap times.
Many UK trackdays are segregated into groups dependent on skill and experience, with each group getting the track to themselves. This is safer, and ensures everyone has a better time.
Cheers
DP
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DP, the problem is that the 'ring is a public road, so discriminatory tactics would be illegal under the Human Rights legislation... :>)
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I've done about 10 laps - each time in a smart! Its cool, take it easy have a plod round. Maybe get one or two corners right, dont annoy anyone but have a good time.
Then make up a time afterwards ;)
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The week-long training courses are run by BMW and seem to offer a substantial amount of tuition on matters such as car control and general driver training. The list of tutors includes the likes of Sabine Schmidtz and Hans Stuck, so you would be learning from some highly talented individuals. Of course it's expensive (can't remember how much), but you could turn it into a holiday with little effort. That part of Germany is, after all, a rather pleasant place to spend time and to do a bit of sight seeing.
I still think the 'ring would be a fine place for a keen driver to have a bit of fun, providing that you don't go nuts. OK, you may have to watch the fast stuff coming up behind, but there are far more hazards present on the open road back home; oncoming traffic, trees, cops, cameras, congestion and generally less safety provision. For me the Nurburgring offers the challenges of the open road with a smattering of the safety associated with purpose-built race tracks. I have, however, never been there so it may be as dangerous as some say!
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I regularly check the webcam at nuerburgring.de/fileadmin/webcam/webcam.jpg
There are some fancy vehicles at times queuing up.
Not sure what the tent is for at the moment though.
Camera is at the toll booths (begin replaced)
Edited by martint123 on 17/11/2008 at 16:09
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Good forum, this: somebody posts an interesting question, there's a good range of replies and then you can see where you stand yourself.
Well, it's not really much of an open road, rather a series of difficult bends with very limited space for overtaking or being overtaken; and - as is very clear from a number of the replies - it is much less safe than an ordinary road.
So, for me, I'm afraid it's now a case of "I once almost drove round the Nurburgring ".
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"it is much less safe than an ordinary
road".
Perhaps so, but is it any less safe than driving 'enthusiastically' on the public road? I think not.
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it is much less safe than an ordinary road.
Nah. No oncoming traffic makes a huge difference.
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make sure you take lots of cash/credit card with you if something goes wrong it will cost you BIG time
A friend came off last year the bill at the end was horrendous! Had to pay for scratch marks he put on a wall,
pay for recovery,
They refused to stop traffic to recover his car unless he paid for loss of income due to stopage,
I think it cost him about 800 euro
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I beg to differ.....there is in fact loads of 'oncoming' traffic. Its closing speed is probably 50 to 70mph; and its closing on you from where it's very hard to spot or avoid...it's closing on you from behind!
In fact we visited the track three times in eight days and chickened out all three times.
We witnessed two accidents, loads of near misses that that made us all shriek and a few scrapes and bumps.
It was brilliant fun to stand and watch it all kicking off; but sadly we just couldnt take the risk of taking to the track ourselves.
So I too can say that, "I once nearly went around the Nurburgring".
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I've pottered round it once in my Porsche GT3.
Treat it as you would a country lane that you don't know and you'll probably be ok.
Treat it like a racetrack and unless you've already done a hundred laps then it will go very very wrong. A lot of insurance companies specifically exclude "one way toll roads with derestricted sections" so you may well not be insured. Ask them specifically before you go on it or be prepared for the possibility of a big bill.
It's entertaining, but I'd far rather have a play on an English airfield. You can hire one of several for a day between a few mates for the cost of a trip to the ring and have far more fun, far more freedom, far far less risk and you won't be shelling out huge amounts on medical fees should it go wrong.
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If you damage any armco you have to pay for it, and it's surprisingly dear I believe.
But even well organised track days and so on have their risks. You take your lumps, even when it's someone else's fault, and it can come expensive. Or so I am convincingly told.
Can't help wondering how spikeyhead induced his GT3 to potter though...
Edited by Lud on 18/11/2008 at 00:37
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"If you damage any armco you have to pay for it, and it's surprisingly dear I believe. "
I know of someone who damaged armco in the UK - and his insurance had to pay. Fair enough mind
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Try a novice trackday at Cadwell Park first, it's often called a mini-Nurburgring. I only live up the road and I'm tempted to take my Impreza but I think I'll go to an airfield-based trackday with plenty of safe run-off if (or more likely, when) I get it wrong.
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'll go to an airfield-based trackday
If you're close to Cadwell, then you're close to Binbrook, who certainly used to have airfield days (although I did once see them digging up concrete). Elvington isn't far either.
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Can't help wondering how spikeyhead induced his GT3 to potter though...
It's a relative thing really. Pottering in a 190mph, 0-60 in 4.1 secs car is still traveling at a rate beyond what 90% of the cars about are capable of.
Until you'd driven a car like that you don't really appreciate what a true modern supercar is capable of. A half mile long straight is quite comfortable to hit 160 and back to zero. Get up to 130mph, the aerodynamics kick in and the car settles lower, even more planted than it was. The grip levels are phenomenal and because of that I really wouldn't want to push it close to its limits on a track I didn't know, with minimal run off area and with the potential of several thousand pounds of bill for track closure and armco repair. That's before possible damage to other cars and shelling out £50k for a replacement car.
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Quite enough porn for the time being spikeyhead.
:~{_ _ drool...
I'm off to confession now.
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I want to add a little more about the ring itself.
Most of the corners are blind, that is you can't see the exit from the turn in point. Thus, you're braking heavily for the corner, classically finish braking before turning in, hit the turn in point and turn to clip the apex before applying power and accelerating away. That's the basis of driving quickly. If you can't see the exit it makes it very difficult to judge where the apex is unless you know the track extremely well. Miss the apex, get too early on it and you'll run wide on the exit. A lot of corners have very little run off before the armco. Its expensive painful stuff and won't do a lot for your car or health. There's also a few corners that you can't even see the apex from the turn in point. Its that that makes the ring so difficult, On touristefahrten days, ie those open to the public there are also a considerable number of mobile chicanes and even buses being driven round being chased by turbo nutters trying to set fastest laps. It can be a fun place to be, sometime, I'll take a decent car, probably a Caterham, over there on a trailer for a couple of weeks and learn the track properly. It certainly isn't a place to learn to drive fast, to learn how your car handles and certainly not a place to learn to race.
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Certainly looks just as you describe it in video I've seen. Definitely not a place to try too hard, especially in all that traffic.
Makes you think though, Rosemeyer doing record laps in those huge, terrifying GP Auto Unions...
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I see the record has been broken by a Dodge Viper. 20.8 km in 7 min 22 sec or 169.4 km/h.
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