Kirby's Trip to the Nurburgring
Warning - there is some swearing in this article
As some of you know, I recently started a new job – full time now, no more contracting – back in the construction industry with a company called Reid. This job involved being sent to Germany, just a week after starting at Reid, for three weeks to learn how to use a new CAD system. I won’t bore any of you with any more details of the job or the software, because that’s not what this story is all about.
As soon as I found out the details of my travel to Germany, I started looking on the internet to find out about the Nurburgring. The first thing I looked into was location of the track relative to where I was staying in Darmstadt. It seemed to be about 250km – which at German highway speed is less than 2 hours away. No problem I thought, we regularly drive more than 2 hours to Winton for a track day.
The next thing to sort out was a car. I didn’t want to drive some shit box Volkswagen Golf Diesel Europcar rental car around a race track. Besides all the legal and insurance issues which could arise, it would be no fun to drive. So after a bit more looking around on the internet I found a company called RSRNurburg. They had cars set up for racing with roll cages, race seats, harness, R Spec tyres and race suspension. They went from 25 year old Alfa 75’s right up to Porsche GT3’s. There were a few catches though. The cars are not insured for the damage you do to them in an accident or even a minor scrape. This ruled the Porsche out straight away – a minor bump in the car park could end up costing a couple of thousand euros so I would hate to think what a hit with the barriers could end up costing – probably more than my house. The Alfa was beginning to sound like a good option. It was still a bit expensive though. 750 Euros ($1250) which included all petrol and 10 laps(each lap of the Nurburgring costs 22 Euros). Fuck it I thought, it’s not like this opportunity comes around every day, so I’ll raid the race car account and give it a go.
I sent the form in by email while I was still in Aus and waited for a reply. 4 days and a couple of emails later, I had no reply to my emails and the credit card had not been debited. At this point there was not much I could do about it as I was trying to get work stuff sorted out, so I left for Germany and hoped for the best.
So after a 10 hour flight, a 2 hour stop in Hong Kong and then a further 11 hour flight I arrived in Frankfurt. I was feeling shithouse. One thing I can strongly recommend to any of you is if you fly somewhere internationally don’t go Cathy Pacific. They have the worst fucking seats I have ever encountered on any plane, including Virgin Blue and Jetstar, and after 21 hours in one I was pretty pissed off. What’s worse is I had another 21 hours to look forward to on the trip home. Anyway it was about 7.30am Sunday the 16th and one of the guys from the software company picked me up at the airport and dropped me at the Hotel. The trip from Frankfurt to Darmstadt was my first encounter with the German highway system. Let me tell you there was no fucking around – we were straight up to 180kph. As you all know they drive on the other side of the road and sit on the other side of the car. This meant I would be changing gear with my right instead of my left Sould be no problem on the normal streets – not sure how we will go on the track.
On Tuesday the 18th during a break in the software training I called RSRNurburg as the money had still not come off the credit card. They had received my form and they were able to process it while I was talking to them on the phone. I was confirmed for Saturday the 22nd of August, 10 laps in the Alfa 75 “stage 2”. Stage 2 meant it was a 4 cylinder about 145 hp – so not a lot of grunt – but properly set up for that track. I figured it would be something similar in speed to an Escort like a lot of the guys in the club are racing. They told me to try and get there early - the track would be a lot quieter early in the day – around 7.30 would be good. This meant I would have to leave around 5.30. No problem I suppose.
The last thing left to arrange was a normal hire car. The people at the Hotel helped me with that – a small Volvo wagon with a 1.6 diesel engine. Not quite what I am used to but it runs I guess. 120 Euros for Friday Saturday and Sunday including a GPS and insurance. And Reid said they would pay for a hire car on the weekends – awesome.
So finally Saturday morning arrived and I ended up leaving the Hotel at about 5.50am. I had driven the car for about I hour on Friday afternoon to try and get used to driving on the right and sitting on the left, but the gearchange still felt a bit strange. I hit the freeway and managed to wind the Volvo up to over 170kph – but it took a while to get there. Got to the track at 7.40am. I of course, was wearing the FFCC long sleeve T shirt. It was a perfect day – blue sky and a maximum temp of about 27 or so.
The Alfa’s were sitting out the front of the workshop. They were very basic cars. The rollcage was quite simple but if I do completely fuck up, it should keep me alive. I was then given a briefing. First thing is no instruction is allowed on public days – so I was told to just go slow on the first couple of laps and treat it like a dangerous country road – with no speed limit. The track works a bit like a toll road. There is a boom gate with a card reader at the start. You queue up, one of the security people scan the card – which has been prepaid for 20 laps – and you head out onto the track. You do the lap and when you get back to the main straight there are witches hats to guide you back into the toll area again. You can line straight back up and do another lap or go into the car park. Simple.
Anyone can go onto the track on public days. Bikes and cars of all speeds and driver skill level. In my time on the track I saw at a few family station wagons with roof racks with things on them, 3 or 4 transit vans no doubt trying to beat Sabine’s time and even a couple of tow trucks driving wrecked cars back to the car park. All of this while there are Porsche GT3’s and Superbikes going at full race speed.
Some of the other things I was told during the briefing – no lap timing, no video cameras in cars, you pay for all damage to the track as well as 1350 Euros per hour if the track has to close because of an accident you caused. If you are a slower car being passed you must keep right as far as possible and if you are a faster car you can only pass on the left. If you break any of these rules you can be fined – and fines in Germany are fucking horrendous – and banned from the Ring for the day.
I lined up for my first lap at around 8.10. There were not too many other cars on the track. Up until the point I entered the track I had been a bit worried about getting it wrong, having a crash and costing myself a years wages, but as soon as I turned into the first corner all that was forgotten. The Alfa had fuck all power but the grip was amazing. I started off the first lap quite slow – driving to what I could see. At least half of the corners on the ring have either a blind entry or exit – so I was quite cautious gradually getting a bit quicker towards the end of the lap. Although the first lap probably took about 13 minutes it seemed to be over in no time. There were only about 10 or 15 cars that I had to let passed as things were still a bit quiet. I lined straight back up for another lap.
My first impression was the track was not as dangerous as I was lead to believe. The main problem was not knowing which way it was going to turn over the next crest, and there were a lot of crests. On to the second lap. A bit quicker now. I was attacking the corners which I could see through a lot more. The old Alfa was very impressive in the handling department, but as I started to try and go quicker I found out how little power it has. Hills were a real problem – and at this track you were always going up or down hill. I was starting to get used to the gearchange with the right hand, but changing gears in an old Alfa is fucking hopeless. Luckily all the corners were fast enough that the only time I used second gear was when I left the toll area and on a couple of corners where I had to hold a tight line to let someone pass me on the outside. The rest of the time it was 3rd and 4th. So I finished that lap and lined straight back up for lap 3.
During laps 3 and 4 I started to get into the groove a bit. I was using the whole track where possible and sliding the Alfa through the corners a bit. There were a couple of the “Ring Taxis” out on the track now. M5 BMW’s with professional drivers taking passengers for a couple of laps. Through the tighter sections of the track I was able to get through the corners almost as quick as them, and if they were showing off a bit with a bit of sideways stuff I was a bit quicker. But as soon as we got to a straight they disappeared very quickly. During these first few laps although the track was not too busy there were still a lot of fast cars out there. The amount of Porsches, Ferraris, BMW’s was amazing. There is no global financial crisis at nurburgring.
About half way around lap 4, I was driving on a long and kind of straight (nothing is dead straight at Nurburgring) section. It was a long run at full throttle and slightly up hill. Towards the top of the hill there was a dip in the road. You can't really see it, but you can really feal it - the car gets light and a bit unstable. I could see a Porsche behind me catching me quite quickly so I was all the way over to the right side of the road. Just as I was changing from 4th to 5th I hit the dip. Because I was off line trying to get out of the way of the Porsche, the dip was a lot worse and the car went sideways - first off going to the right - and I still was trying to find 5th at this point - so I only had my left hand on the wheel. I corrected - over corrected really and next thing I know I'm pointing at the Porsche - Fuck! A second later and the car was straight again. That was lucky. But there was no point worring about it now - so I just got on with it and finished the lap with no more dramas.
Back out for lap 5. I was told during the briefing that the most common time for a crash was lap1 when people go too fast and get caught out because they don’t know the track. At the time I thought if I was going to have any problems it would be as I got some confidence and out braked myself – as all of Ford Four has seen me do at Sandown, Calder and Winton on occasion. So about 4 or 5 km into the lap I was going through a left right left right section which tightened more the further you went through it and I entered the 3rd corner too quickly and ran over the ripple strip and onto the grass. Normally I would have just kept going, but I had been told that in the event of any off track excursion I was to stop and check the car for any oil or water leaks. If I was to drop oil onto the track the next bike through that section could slide off on that oil, hit the barriers and die. And it would be my fault. That would be bad. So I stopped on the grass, got out of the car and looked underneath. Nothing leaking. All 4 wheels still attached. Lets go. I started driving again, but there was a noise that I thought was the exhaust coming loose. So I had to drive the rest of the lap – about 12 km nice and slow so nothing fell off. Debris on the track could also kill a bike rider or 2 so I had to be careful. The slow lap seemed to take hours. I drove off the track and back to RSR’s workshop and they put it up on the hoist. Just a loose heat shield on the exhaust. A bit of bending and we’re ready to go again.
I drove back down to the track and lined up again. Lap 6 was the worst I have driven on a track. I started to get better towards the end of the lap, but up until then I was all over the place – wrong lines, braking too early and on the power too late. Fuck, I need to get my shit together. I lined straight back up for lap 7. This was better. I was starting to recognize large sections of the track now. There are some sections that although blind on entry, can be taken flat in 4th in the Alfa and I was now remembering where they were and entering these sections much faster. This lap and the next were my best of the day. The traffic was still not too bad so I was able to use all the track for a lot of the lap. The car was handling beautifully and I was feeling a lot more comfortable driving on the left. There was a section around 6 or 7 km into the lap – a series of medium fast corners that I was really getting right. And I was going around the infamous Karussell really quick now – almost leaping out the other side straight to the next apex – but I still needed to work on my entry there and try and carry some more speed in.
So now back to RSR to refuel the car. I had lost count of my laps and thought I had 3 to go instead of 2. This was a problem later as each extra lap was worth 65 Euros. I dropped the car off at the workshop and they took it to get filled up. After this they also did a bit more welding for the exhaust to fix a hole. The exhaust was a bit of a lost cause as I think it scraped around Karussell and a couple of other spots so it would always be getting knocked about.
All of this took about 45 minutes. When they were finished I drove back to the track to find it closed. Someone must have really given the barriers a nudge. So I waited. And waited. Got an ice cream and waited some more. After about an hour the track was back in action. By now it was about 12.45 and there were a lot of cars lining up for a run. I lined up for another go.
Laps 9 and 10 were a struggle. There was a lot of traffic both fast and slow. I spent less than half of these 22 laps on the racing line the rest of the time I was trying to avoid fucking idiots in Porsches who would cut you off as soon as they passed you and other various clowns. Don’t get me wrong it was still fun, just not as much fun as when the track was less busy. There was also a Porsche in the process of being recovered about 4km into the lap. He had lost a wheel and done a bit of damage to the rear body work. They were trying to drag it onto a tow truck and taking ages. No where near as quick as Vic. And they were going to charge the driver about 200 Euros for the 15km tow!
I lined up for the last lap. After the ususal cruch changing from 1st to 2nd I got a reasaonable clean start to the lap. There must have been a little break in the traffic as it was a bit less crowded. I got a reasonable lap in – not as good as lap 7 and 8 but not too bad. I encountered the tow truck now with the Porsche on it, about half way around the lap. It reminded me of Bathurst in the 70’s. Race cars running full noise past a truck carrying a dead car. That kind of sums up how things work at the Nurburgring. Where we in Australia and especially at Ford Four Car Club have learned from the mistakes of the past, and have very high standards of safety, over in Germany things are still like they were 40 years ago. But that is part of the attraction to driving there. It’s a lot more of an adventure. No scrutineering, no race licences, in a lot of cases no helmets, in the family car, sharing the track with race prepared M3 BMW’s and GT3 Porsches and even a few super bikes– Awesome!
So I made my way back to RSR and dropped the car off. They then informed me I had miss counted the laps and had to pay for another one. 65 Euros. Bugger. It was worth it though, lap 11 was a lot better than lap 9 or 10.
I was talking to a couple of the other customers back at the workshop and was able to arrange to do a lap with an American bloke in his Porsche. Mike had been a regular customer at RSR and had done a couple of driver training days with them. He had also done about 120 laps of the track. You won’t need a helmet he tells me, I can’t afford to crash this is my every day car! So we put the helmet in the boot and blast out onto the track. He was quite a good driver and the car was very impressive. He was on steet tyres but the grip level was still very high. He also new the track very well. It makes a huge difference if you are committed to the blind corners, rather than wondering which way the track goes next. He was able to point out a few things which would have helped me a lot if I was able to do some more laps – next time maybe.
To sum up - if you get the chance to have a go around the ring - do it! Yes it's expensive and yes there are a lot of dickheads out there, but it's a unique experience in motorsport. As long as you treat it with respect the Nurburgring is a really fun place. If you do get a chance to do it - call or email RSRNurburg. The guys that work there and some of the regular customers will give you loads of help which should make sure you don't put it in the wall.
Kirby