klutch
Courteous urinator
Alright, since this post could have been potentially huge, I've decided to split it up in a couple of threads, with the factory tours of Porsche, Merdedes and BMW in other threads. So go there too.
Started off in Frankfurt, renting the car at the airport. I found a rental agency that seemed to have good rates, and a new GTI for me. For insurance/fines/liability reasons to get my deposit back, I'd rather not name them...lets just call them SyrupTar for now. They were quite nice, and I made sure that insurance was all included, so that if i stuffed it, I would be taken care of. The notice on their desk made me a little nervous though:
Since I wasn't sure what a "speedtrack" was, I didn't bother asking about it. I'm sure it would be fine to use the car on a 'de-restricted toll road' however
Left the airport in a bit of a hurry, as it was getting dark and I had about 200 miles to cover to a place near Manheim for the night. Took full advantage of the German highways:
The picture is a little shaky, I know...I didn't want to wake the co-pilot, as I was readjusting my underwear as I was taking pictures. 190 in a rented car, at night, in a foreign country on what may or may not have been de-restricted roads while the driver has his hand in his pants and a camera in the other, while driving, may not be a pleasant sight to wake up to.
Anyways, made it past Manheim, crashed for the night, and woke at the ungodly hour of 11, to make our pilgramage to automotive Mecca. Which meant driving all the way back to Frankfurt, then west.
We struggled a bit with navigation, as we didn't want to program it for Nurburg or Nordschliefe, since we didn't know how to wipe the satnav's memory for when we returned the car. Instead, we aimed for Koblenz, and decided to just look for signs to our destination.
We saw this, and just shut off the satnav, and reconfirmed we were on the right track when a Z06, F430 and a tuned Exige flew past, all with ring stickers on the back. These sights also gave our location away:
At the F1 track:
Finally made it to the entrance of the Nordschliefe, after driving past it 3 times. Studied the rules, couldn't find any mention of rental cars...
Stood around for a while, watching some fine machines head out onto the track:
It was pretty cold; temperature was hovering around 3 degrees, and the track looked a little slippery in places. My car had winter tires on it, so that wasn't reasurring. But I was getting cold, so dumped some money on the ticketmaster's desk, headed back to the car, and took the plunge.
Cameras are forbidden on the track, so you'll have to forgive the shoddy pictures. Copilot was a chickenshit, and decided to hang out in the restaurant while I risked life and limb drving on the green hell.
I dropped the camera when the car went sideways through one of the chicanes, so that was it for pictures. I wanted to focus on not crashing too, and there were ring marshalls out, so it was a good idea to have both hands on the wheel anyways.
Only timed my first lap, and just using the car's clock, since timing equipment is banned on public days - too many people have been dragged from wrecked cars, with a stopwatch in their (severed) hand. I was pretty happy with my time though - 13 minutes, first time out, with snowtires, front wheel dive, and a wet/freezing track. On public days too, the ring isn't complete - you have to re-enter the parkade on the straight, and put another ticket in the machine, so I timed from leaving the gate to entering the cones on the exit.
Did a few more laps, with the TCS off, and the car going sideways a few more times in the bends. A guy in a track-prepped M3 stuffed it into an armco ahead of me; they were all standing around, surveying the damage as I flew passed...a good reminder I should probably back off a little. By the time I finished, the track was almost closed, so we drove off, to the northern part of the ring, I think near the village of Adenau, to get some pictures of other ringers coming in over the bridge, and up the hill.
Just the drive to the 'Ring, and the roads around it and around the villages within the track were amazing; winding roads through the forests, with switchbacks and off-camber corners coming in and out of the towns. You could tell people have had some serious fun around there - various car bits around the guardrails, and gouges in the road on the switchbacks where people have pushed their track-prepped cars a little too hard.
The area near the straight section of the 'Ring has some major development going on, as all the serious car and tire manufacturers are setting up test centers there. BMW's M division has even moved there.
The trip was totally worth it, and I recommend anyone going to Germany to go there, even to watch on a public day. I'll upload a video of some of the serious Ringers in just a second. Check out my other threads for the trip to the Mercedes, Porsche, and BMW factories!
Started off in Frankfurt, renting the car at the airport. I found a rental agency that seemed to have good rates, and a new GTI for me. For insurance/fines/liability reasons to get my deposit back, I'd rather not name them...lets just call them SyrupTar for now. They were quite nice, and I made sure that insurance was all included, so that if i stuffed it, I would be taken care of. The notice on their desk made me a little nervous though:
Since I wasn't sure what a "speedtrack" was, I didn't bother asking about it. I'm sure it would be fine to use the car on a 'de-restricted toll road' however
Left the airport in a bit of a hurry, as it was getting dark and I had about 200 miles to cover to a place near Manheim for the night. Took full advantage of the German highways:
The picture is a little shaky, I know...I didn't want to wake the co-pilot, as I was readjusting my underwear as I was taking pictures. 190 in a rented car, at night, in a foreign country on what may or may not have been de-restricted roads while the driver has his hand in his pants and a camera in the other, while driving, may not be a pleasant sight to wake up to.
Anyways, made it past Manheim, crashed for the night, and woke at the ungodly hour of 11, to make our pilgramage to automotive Mecca. Which meant driving all the way back to Frankfurt, then west.
We struggled a bit with navigation, as we didn't want to program it for Nurburg or Nordschliefe, since we didn't know how to wipe the satnav's memory for when we returned the car. Instead, we aimed for Koblenz, and decided to just look for signs to our destination.
We saw this, and just shut off the satnav, and reconfirmed we were on the right track when a Z06, F430 and a tuned Exige flew past, all with ring stickers on the back. These sights also gave our location away:
At the F1 track:
Finally made it to the entrance of the Nordschliefe, after driving past it 3 times. Studied the rules, couldn't find any mention of rental cars...
Stood around for a while, watching some fine machines head out onto the track:
It was pretty cold; temperature was hovering around 3 degrees, and the track looked a little slippery in places. My car had winter tires on it, so that wasn't reasurring. But I was getting cold, so dumped some money on the ticketmaster's desk, headed back to the car, and took the plunge.
Cameras are forbidden on the track, so you'll have to forgive the shoddy pictures. Copilot was a chickenshit, and decided to hang out in the restaurant while I risked life and limb drving on the green hell.
I dropped the camera when the car went sideways through one of the chicanes, so that was it for pictures. I wanted to focus on not crashing too, and there were ring marshalls out, so it was a good idea to have both hands on the wheel anyways.
Only timed my first lap, and just using the car's clock, since timing equipment is banned on public days - too many people have been dragged from wrecked cars, with a stopwatch in their (severed) hand. I was pretty happy with my time though - 13 minutes, first time out, with snowtires, front wheel dive, and a wet/freezing track. On public days too, the ring isn't complete - you have to re-enter the parkade on the straight, and put another ticket in the machine, so I timed from leaving the gate to entering the cones on the exit.
Did a few more laps, with the TCS off, and the car going sideways a few more times in the bends. A guy in a track-prepped M3 stuffed it into an armco ahead of me; they were all standing around, surveying the damage as I flew passed...a good reminder I should probably back off a little. By the time I finished, the track was almost closed, so we drove off, to the northern part of the ring, I think near the village of Adenau, to get some pictures of other ringers coming in over the bridge, and up the hill.
Just the drive to the 'Ring, and the roads around it and around the villages within the track were amazing; winding roads through the forests, with switchbacks and off-camber corners coming in and out of the towns. You could tell people have had some serious fun around there - various car bits around the guardrails, and gouges in the road on the switchbacks where people have pushed their track-prepped cars a little too hard.
The area near the straight section of the 'Ring has some major development going on, as all the serious car and tire manufacturers are setting up test centers there. BMW's M division has even moved there.
The trip was totally worth it, and I recommend anyone going to Germany to go there, even to watch on a public day. I'll upload a video of some of the serious Ringers in just a second. Check out my other threads for the trip to the Mercedes, Porsche, and BMW factories!
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