But first things first... Here are two quick videos... The first is the official Scumrun version, They also visited the ring only 2 weeks before I did so here is a little promo video...
The second video is my video blog of the visit, less flashy and shot on my phone so pardon the quality!
The Nurburgring is more than a place, more than a few days past time, more than a chance to make a fool of yourself on a race track, it is nothing less than a way of life.
You see it all around you when your there, the Nurburgring's victims. Not in the sense of the unfortunates who tangle with the armco but in the sense of the people that feel compelled to devote all their spare time and money into being part of the ever-ongoing scene.Whether its the local Golf owner who has rebuilt it from the ground up over many years and remortgaged his house to pay for the annual Nordschleife season ticket...
...or the well off, nothing better to do with his time, ex businessman with the Porsche GT3 RS who tells everyone how they only just bettered there 8 minute and 3 seconds lap time yesterday... or the miriad of inbetweeners they all share one same total conviction and passion for the home of German motorsport.It's easy to see why, and even easier to feel part of it.
The ferry journey over was fairly uneventful, but I was the first to arrive in the queue for the ferry which made for an opportune photo moment...
After getting the 2am ferry, then driving down to the ring having had no sleep whatsoever I thought it would be a fools game to head straight onto the track. I setup camp (quite literally) at the Nurburgring camp site where we stayed with Rag the Ring last year and tried to get some sleep.
After convincing myself that 1 hours sleep was fine I headed up to the Nordschleife entrance. Here are a few pictures of what I found waiting...
But it was fairly obvious what was standing out in the car park... This swedish guy's Gumpert Apollo, 750hp and the fattest tyres I have ever seen.
On my first lap I got overtaken by this thing...as it changed gear it was like a 3 way split between a thunder clap, a ship's fog horn and Thor's dyson.
Donning my helmet I bit the bullet and headed out onto the track. The great news was that being a random monday in October it wasn't horrendously busy. In fact on most of the laps I did I had a good few kilometres between seeing other cars whether overtaking or being overtook.
On rooting through the interweb I found these pics of my work...I have ordered a couple of them but they haven't arrived yet so please forgive the watermarks.
The last one is my personal favourite.
I did do one lap with the roof down as I felt it would not being doing justice to the poetic nature of the place and the car unless I did. However the photographers either chose to ignore me on that round or were otherwise occupied. I like to think the latter.
On the Tuesday I had a little time before heading up to Bochum where the reason for this 'ahem' work trip was waiting so I headed back up to the track. I had already found out that the Nordschleife was closed to the public that day. This was actually a blessing in disguise as it forced me to do two things. Firstly I explored the surrounding roads, up and down the mountains, through the picturesque villages and around the only slightly less infamous 'Sudschleife', and secondly it enabled me to head to the various viewing spots and spy on what was going on that was so important to stop the almighty Team Bugsplat head out on track.
As it turns out it was a manufacturer testing day...Marques I spotted were, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Renault and Land Rover amongst others. There were supporting roles played by Aston Martin, a Nissan and Lexus that seemed to be benchmarking themselves against each other, 2 Porsches and even a Maserati made an appearance. I toyed with the idea of turning up and telling them the bug was a prototype for the new 'retro' mx-5 but I think they would have seen through that one...
Here are a couple of spy shots...get me I feel all secret agent
I quite like the 'disquises' that they endow these test models with. Personally I think they should offer that as a colour option in the showroom.
So that's pretty much it, I have many more photos but don't believe you want to see them all, so I will leave you with my 2 favourites, both Mercedes, both on the same corner...
So until the next time, which given I now count myself amongst the contaminated I'm sure there will be a next time...Team Bugsplat from the Nurburgring signing off...
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