The Nurburgring... Whoa.

Today was the day I finally drove the Nurburgring... 2 months of planning finally came to fruition, seeing myself and Mark Chambers get 12 laps around the most spectacular and phenomenal race track in the world.  For those that want background or fun facts, let me fill you in :)

The Nurburgring is a motorsports complex based around the town of Nurburg, in Germany.  It's about 120km northwest of Frankfurt, and exists as several configurations.  The most popular part (the section we drove on) is called the 'Nordschleife', which translated to English means the 'Northern Loop'.  This is a 23km race track, which is regularly used for races, testing sessions and training throughout the year.  It was given the nickname 'The Green Hell' by Sir Jackie Stewart (world famous F1 driver), and to this day is considered the most demanding and difficult race track in the world.  That said, it is still a public road that is open for tourist rides, with a lap costing 26 Euro.

Some fun facts...

- The track has 73 corners, with a total elevation change of 1,000ft/305m

- Because of the sheer size of the track, it's not uncommon for the weather to be completely different from one part of the track to another

- It was originally built in 1925 to help alleviate local unemployment and to create a testing facility for a failing German motor industry

- The fastest production car lap is 6m 48s, with the fastest ever recorded lap coming in at 6m 11s

- There are 7,000+ crash videos from this track on Youtube

- The 'ring has claimed a total of 72 racing drivers lives, and claims 3-12 public lives a year

So to say that this is a track to be respected is an understatement... 

The second I decided I was definitely going to the 'ring, I began practicing the only way I knew how, in a video game :)  The game in question was Race Injection, a racing simulator that has a variety of cars and tracks, but one of the few in the genre that actually has the Nurburgring in it.  3 monitors helped with peripheral views, and a Logitech G27 providing a very realistic driving experience, including H-pattern gearbox, clutch, and force feedback that makes this setup more realistic to drive than most cars these days.

First lap I did?  Rolled it.  No kidding.  Plenty of practice was needed, so plenty of practice was had!

2 months of practice later, here I am... at the entrance to the ring :)

Our hotel for the duration of our stay here was the Hotel Nordschleife - a very cozy place in Adenau, a town at the Northwest corner of the track.

This was the view from our hotel room... looking over the corner 'Ex-Muhle'.  Each corner has a different name with a different reason behind it, from something near that part of the track, to a description of the nature of the corner, to paying tribute to a driver who crashed or died there.  Ex-Muhle translates to 'Water Mill', which stands on this corner next to a petrol station. Riveting stuff!

Naturally, the hotel had a racing theme... But they also provided a free buffet.  Breakfast is the most important meal of any day, let alone one where we're about to attempt to drive the legendary Nurburgring.  I have to take this opportunity though to mention just how crap German bed linen is... Seriously, I don't know how the whole country gets by with pillows that resemble soggy bread.

After brekky we headed to the ring entrance.  A lot of the hire car places have their own garages/car parks where you pick up your car.  Ours just so happened to be right in front of the 'ring entrance :)

You get a massive amount of variety when it comes to cars... from Minis to  Renaults to Porsches, and everything in between.

While we were sorting out the paperwork for our car, I spotted these plates.  Lol!

This is what we ended up with, a Suzuki Swift Sport.  Originally I wanted the Mini Cooper S, but thanks to some strict insurance policies, this was the only option.  To get most cars you had to be over the age of 25... nang-dabbit!!  Turned out to be a good thing though, I'll explain later.

For the Swift, we paid 700 Euro for 12 laps (6 each), and this included both fuel and lap tickets, which in itself was worth 400 Euro, so not all that bad.

It needs to be said, this little bad boy was still a force to be reckoned with - 130hp, Monroe shocks, EBC brakes, Yokohama semi-slick tyres and a half cage - all in a car that weighs less than a tonne.

The front half of the car was pretty standard...

But the rear half had been completely stripped of any luxury - seats, carpets, panels... everything was gone, and replaced with a half cage.

The 1.6L engine was bog stock, but still had plenty of poke!  Being N/A (normally aspirated), it was incredibly responsive, which turned out to be worth its weight in gold.  In hindsight, driving a turbo charged car in the conditions we faced would've been absolutely suicidal.

Here's Mark and I just before we headed out on track for the first time...  Little did we know what lay ahead of us.

We knew it was cold, but the car confirmed our suspicions...

The entrance to the track is basically a toll road, with a couple of attendants directing traffic, and several boom gates that let you on once you have payed your dues.  Because it's a public road, you aren't allowed to do consecutive laps.  Each time you must come off the track in the middle of the home straight, and then head back out 200m up the road after paying your toll again.

Believe it or not, we were first cab off the rank.  We literally had the WHOLE track to ourselves :) well, until the next car came onto the track... but this is a technicality I really couldn't give a crap about if I'm to be honest.

It needs to be said though, conditions were absolutely terrible... and they stayed that way for the whole day.  But still...

Try wiping that smile off of my face!!!

As I said earlier, the track forms a ring around the town of Nurburg.  This is a truly picturesque area - plenty of hills and valleys, trees absolutely everywhere, and just all around stunning vistas.  It was further enhanced by the fact it was autumn... the diversity in colour in the countryside was phenomenal!

Naturally, the first lap was an incredibly precautionary one.  The first thing I noticed?  It was nothing like anything I had practiced... Sure the corners were in the correct order, and their general shape/direction was consistent with what I knew... but being out here, for real, in person, I mean wow.  There's just so many little things you're not aware of, so many little dips, curves, bumps and cambers that you just don't expect.  But before I knew it, it was over!

To change drivers, you have to drive out and then back in, through a small car park where a lot of the serious guys fine tune their cars, or simply let them cool down.  With the 'ring being the place that it is, you're always going to see some purpose built cars.  This Porsche 911 GT3 RS was just one of many fine examples we saw.

It was then Mark's turn to head out... his smile was just as big!

To say driving this track was difficult is an understatement.  On a normal day, this would be absolutely crazy.  But we also had to deal with rain, fog, the spray coming off of other cars, the unfamiliarity of a road we've never driven before and the sheer lack of grip. 

When I say sheer lack of grip, I mean NO grip.  You can see here just how wet the track was, and we were in a front wheel drive car.  That means using the front wheels for accelerating, braking AND turning, on a surface that had the same amount of grip as wearing fresh socks and running on tiles.

THEN you take into account the challenges that the track throws at you.  Off camber corners, blind corners, corners that tighten on you, blind crests, corners that aren't actually corners... and if you screw up, there's no sand traps, no run offs, just meter after meter of Armco (safety barriers) and concrete.

Time for our serious faces...

The funny thing was, as much as the car would be inadequate on any other track or any other day, here it really worked in our favour.  The lack of power meant we couldn't go too fast, and light weight body meant we could make use of grip that more powerful cars dreamed of.  The rain also meant that we were extra cautious, taking corners a lot slower than you normally would.  As weird as it sounds, the track was easier to drive when it was absolutely bucketing down.  That said though, don't think for a second that we had it easy.  

Understeer was rife every time you turned the wheel.  Torque steer would happen in every gear except for 5th.  If you even thought about carrying too much speed into a corner, you'd better hope you could scrub off enough speed with what little traction you had before you ran out of road.  Accelerate too quickly out of the corner and you'd just keep going straight.  As we consumed more and more fuel, the weight over the rear axle disappeared, and you had to be sure you were braking in a straight line.  Otherwise the ass of the car would try overtaking the front.  

What I will say though is that we had it easier than other people... there were a couple of casualties, including an s14 that spun out and hit both the front and back of his car.  A mini cooper that decided to bump uglies with the barrier.

The guy in the black BMW, first corner... got it crossed up and very nearly went into the wall.  Needless to say he nursed it the rest of the lap.

As careful as we were, we also had our fair share of moments.  Nothing serious, but each and every time you slid or felt the ass end get loose... it reminded you that this was dangerous, and any shred of confidence you have in your ability to drive needs to disappear ASAP.  Having the 2 of us in the car worked out really well, as it meant we could keep each other in line and stop each other from getting too cocky and doing something stupid.

Bloody hell though, being a passenger in conditions like this was stressful.  The driver gets plenty of feedback as to how the car is handling through the steering wheel and the pedals, but the passenger gets squat.  While the driver has confidence in what he/she is doing based on how the car feels, the passenger is sitting there thinking that every corner is too fast, that the car is constantly out of control, that the safety margin went out the window long ago.  You just have to have faith that the other guy knows what he's doing, and believe me, this is something both myself and Mark felt.

On a side note, there's our hotel!!

As I mentioned before, weather changed constantly.  The photo above and the one before that are all on the same lap... clear, then fog.  Dry lines starting to form and then puddles wherever you look.  You couldn't arrive at any corner and assume that it would be the same as the last time you went round.

The only section you could rely on was the home stretch... Several kilometers of straight line goodness!!

180 km/h was about all you could get out of this puppy... but believe me that was more than fast enough.

Have a video of one of my laps... I'll tell you right now, yes there's parts that look slow, but I'm not joking when that's as fast as you could go on some of those corners.  That said, we were still taking a lot of corners in excess of 100 km/h.  You'll also get an idea of just how crap the conditions are, but also what the track looks like from our point of view!  Apologies for the camera continuing to go below the dash, you're not actually allowed to take any photos or film at all, and if you get caught, you get kicked off straight away... whoops!!! ;)

With each lap, we got better.  Our lines improved.  Our ability to judge speed and grip improved.  Our confidence in the cars driveability improved.  But there was one thing you always remembered... no racing.  We did try timing ourselves, and we both came out at 12m 45s... but then stopped straight away once we realised we were starting to push the envelope trying to beat that time.  We tried keeping up with a couple of cars (there was a chain of 3 BMWs drifting around corners which we were keen to keep watching), but they were going faster than we could safely, and after a hair raising entry to a corner, we let them go.  Every time you thought you could go faster, you were reminded very quickly and very scarily that that was a stupid idea.

By no means though did that stop our fun.  Here we were, on the freaking Nurburgring, driving around the freaking Nurburgring!!!  As scary as it was, there was an unmatched level of pure excitement, a feeling of exhilaration and a geeky awe that I have never found anywhere else doing anything else... This is something that has been on my bucket list for years.  A track who's reputation precedes it, a mecca for motorsport, a drivers holy grail... 

And we did it :)  It's still sinking in...

12 laps went by so quick.  At 13-15 minutes per lap, simple maths would tell you that worst case scenario would see you taking a grand total of 3 hours to do it all... Yet 6 hours later, we finished our last lap with half an hour before the track closed for the day.  

Our little trooper after the days work... 12 laps of crazy nuts-ness saw us use a full tank of fuel, use up all the adrenalin in our bodies, and crap enough diamonds to open our own jewelry store.  We were flat out exhausted...

But you could NOT wipe the smile off of our faces... What a day, what an experience!!

After handing the car back and passing on a big thank you to the company who lent us the car, we decided to see what kind of view we could get from the viewing area near our hotel.

This is a full panorama of what we could see, i.e. the whole of Ex-Muhle :)

What I found amazing was the sheer variety of vehicles that get taken around the track.  From your hot little hatch-backs...

To your purpose built sports cars (modified in many different flavours)...

To even vehicles you would not expect... I mean a van, really???

You can see just how much graffiti is on the track.  Some of it is 'we waz here' messages, some of it was wishing people luck, but there was also a fair bit of graffiti that was dedicated to lost friends or family members.  What really hit home was one message we saw on this corner, a tribute to a bloke who died, born 1989, died 2011.  Whoa.  Made us really appreciate just how lucky we were to get through the day unscathed, and that was only possible because we kept our heads screwed on straight, and were realistic about our driving abilities and the cars capabilities.  My advice for anyone wanting to do a trip here?  Know your stuff.  Be prepared.  Be sensible.  But don't be put off by how dangerous this track is.  Don't think that being safe is going to diminish your ability to enjoy yourself.  Even if you were to do 20 km/h the whole time, I guarantee you that you will have the time of your life :) 

Heading back to the hotel saw a beautiful sunset - something that topped off a truly special day.

I could go on for hours, and I could upload twice as many photos, but I fear this is long enough as it is.  I'm sure that there's heaps that I'm forgetting, but you know what?  I'll happily spend every day for the rest of my life trying to remember everything about this experience.  

It's something I'll never forget.