Another August, another Ring trip ... this time without the excuse of an eclipse to watch. The usual suspects (myself, Adamanda, the Plants, the Seaberts, Rich Browning and Ian Archbold) hired a holiday cottage for a 9-day trip, combining Ringing with a bit of exploration of the local area.
Amanda and Martin get in some last-minute practice on the
ferry
As before, Motorola walkie-talkies were useful for convoy-coordination
Quick lunch-stop at a Belgian service-station (photo: Ian
Archibold)
We hired a holiday cottage about five mins from the Ring,
costing just £500 for 12 people for a week
View from the back of the cottage,
looking towards the Ring
Where some birds decided to make my car their home (photo:
Ian Archibold)
Our various toys ...
Sadly none of us could match the new toy of one of the Ring13 gang, Andy:
Andy's Ultima, which attracted a great deal of attention ...
... most of us having to check the petrol-cap to find out
what it was
Despite our determination to make this a crash-free trip, Rich Browning managed to crash his Elise on the first day there! After I'd done just one lap, the track was closed and it wasn't long before reports arrived of a crashed R-reg silver Elise. Rich got the car out of shape in the notoriously-slippy Hocheichen S-bend and ended up spinning backwards into the armco. The rear of the car was looking rather secondhand:
Proof that armco is hard (photo: Adam Curtin)
I'm no expert, but I reckon that's broken (photo: Adam
Curtin)
With Nürburgring GmbH's usual sympathy, Rich was informed he would be invoiced for 12 metres of armco:
1
Rich Browning's personal piece of armco
Fortunately, reports of his passenger's injuries were rather exaggerated. While he did need five stitches in his head, and his t-shirt was rather impressively blood-soaked, he was essentially fine.
Ouch! (photo: Adam Curtin)
Some laundry to be done ...
I'd already decided to wear helmets in the car following an email on a US Miata (MX-5) list about a track crash there, and the above was enough to make it a priority plan. I decided full-face helmets were a bit OTT and would also restrict vision too much given it's much harder to turn your head than on a bike, so went to the bike shop in Adenau to buy a couple of open-face lids:
They had to be matching black, of course ...
(photo: Frame-grab from video footage shot by Martin Plant)
The Saturday was pretty crashy, with this sequence a familiar sight:
At one point, there were six crashed vehicles on the
Ring at the same time!
On a more cheery note, Adam was back on a bike at the Ring despite his neurologist banning him from driving or riding himself, getting pillion rides from several of the gang:
How dangerous is this - Crasher Curtin on the back of Smasher
Seabert's bike ...
Ian acted as the bike equivalent of the Ring Taxi
Despite the appallingly slow service, it seems we just can't stay away from the Lindenhof, where the usual volume of beer was consumed:
There was also the usual digicamfest ...
Mobile phones proved a good silencer for the older kids:
Claire exchanging SMS messages with her pals back in England
...
... and Sam playing games
The adults were harder to pacify, a skinhead threatening a football hooligan:
Sunday lunchtime saw us returning to another familiar haunt for lunch, the Castle, where they have English translations of the menu. However, ordering by letter isn't a great idea as the English and German versions of the menu are different. Some of the translations are a bit dodgy, too ...
Sunday afternoon was exceedingly wet! But I actually really enjoyed myself, just reducing pace to suit the conditions and getting the chance to find out how smoothly I was driving. :-) The other huge benefit of the downpour was that virtually everyone went home. At one point, there were literally about half a dozen of us there, and I must have done four or five successive laps without so much as seeing another vehicle on the track.
What a difference the rain makes to the Ring's popularity!
I was pleased to see another MX-5 out there through the
deluge
Also did a few passenger laps with Martin in his M3
And an amazingly well-driven van was able to remain ahead of
said M3!
On Monday, the Ring was open from 12 noon, so most of us had a lie-in and a lazy breakfast that turned into lunch.
Rich Browning was not having a good time. First, the AA had told him he hadn't bought AA 5-Star Breakdown cover, only AA 5-Star personal injury cover, so they wouldn't recover his Elise back to the UK. Then Norwich Union Direct told him that he was uninsured outside the UK because he had taken out a budget insurance policy which required a supplement to be paid for overseas cover, despite him having specifically checked and been told that he was insured for mainland Europe. :-(
Although I had previously been assured that my own policy was fully comp throughout the EC, I decided that I'd better check. It was fortunate that I did, as Norwich Union claimed my insurance policy had been cancelled by my broker! Even when I pointed out that I was in possession of a certificate of insurance from them, they initially said they would not have issued it. I had to read the whole thing to them before they would accept that it had been issued and that they would reinstate the policy. They then confirmed that I was fully-comp throughout Europe.
This insurance certificate 'wouldn't have been issued',
according to Norwich Union ...
Insurance sorted, I then decided to investigate the Südschleife before heading on up to the track. One of the Ringers list had posted a map showing the location of the old 'south loop' of the Ring, suggesting that part of it had been turned into a road and part of it was simply abandoned tarmac. We'd already found the road, and Martin had spotted what looked like a bit of the abandoned tarmac so I parked up and went for a brief walk to see what I could find. Sure enough, I found what looked like it was indeed part of the Südschleife:
It looks like a country lane, but doesn't go anywhere
and had Nordschleife-style painted markings
It looked very narrow, and the hedgerow made the Nordschleife look like it had good forward vision! I was also very surprised to see the tarmac in such good condition. There was no obvious way to get a car or bike in from where I walked in, but there may be elsewhere. However, the Nordschleife was calling so I decided to leave further investigation for another day.
Reaching the track, I did one sighting lap to see if the track had dried out, then Claire asked to come out with me on my second lap. At Hatzenbach, I caught up with a black Polo who didn't want to let me past. I didn't have sufficient power advantage to get past on the straights, and he was taking such an unpredictable line through bends that there was nothing I could do to safely pass him.
A white Fiesta with full roll-cage and driver in race-suit slotted in behind me and when we reached Miss-Hit-Miss I waved him past, thinking he would probably be more aggressive with the Polo and create an opportunity for both of us to pass. This plan paid off as the Fiesta intimidated the Polo out of the way on the approach to Bergwerk and both of us got past.
I then followed the Fiesta, who was going really well. He was predictable enough that I felt safe being close behind him, and was really enjoying following him. Until we reached the final right-hander at the end of Wippermann.
The Fiesta was sliding sideways when it suddenly flipped up into the air and was rolling diagonally across the bend in front of me! I knew I couldn't stop faster than he was going to stop rolling, so I had to pass him. The trail of debris he was leaving on the right of the track ruled that out, so I had to go for the left, despite the fact that he was rolling in that direction. By putting two wheels onto the chocolate-block at the side of the track, I made it safely past him just as he came to rest on his side, blocking two-thirds of the track.
The safety car and ambulance arrived in about two minutes
because they were on their way to a bike-crash on the next bend!
The Fiesta's windscreen
And what turned out to be the culprit - the left rear wheel
Back in the car-park, looking rather secondhand
My resolve not to stop was defeated only partly by the altruistic thought of someone coming round the bend at speed and hitting the Fiesta - I was so shaken up that I didn't feel safe carrying straight on. It was my closest ever escape on the Ring, and I wanted a few minutes for my heart to stop pounding.
Fortunately the Ring safety routine kicked in totally automatically. I pulled up where we were shielded by the wreckage, got Claire immediately over the other side of the armco, got over the armco on the opposite side of the track and held my helmet up to warn oncoming vehicles. Fortunately, there wasn't long to wait - coincidentally there had been a bike crash on Eschbach, the very next bend. We were apparently the last car out before the red light went on and the track was closed, so the only vehicles still heading towards the scene were the ones we had overtaken - about a dozen cars and two or three bikes. The safety car arrived about two minutes after the crash, and the ambulance not long after, but both driver and passenger popped out from the car pretty much immediately and the only injury was a minor cut to the passenger's arm.
I couldn't understand what had caused the car to flip since I was sure he hadn't touched the kerb. I suspected the left rear wheel since that was lying on the grass before any of the rest of the debris, and when I spoke to the driver afterwards he confirmed that the wheel had simply come off the car! :-O
I wasn't much inclined to head straight back out when the Ring re-opened, so decided to take the opportunity to check out a squeaking brake. There's a Mazda dealer in Adenau, they confirmed one of the front pads had worn out and told me they could replace them if I returned in a couple of hours. Some of the others were planning on some spectating at Brünnchen, so I joined them, taking a few photos of passing gang members:
Luca
Martin, so fast he was just a blur ...
Then back to Adenau for the brake-pads to be replaced. With the car in the air, I also had the chance to find out where it was grounding out in the Karussellllllll, something it hadn't done before the previous trip. The mystery was revealed: a sheet of plastic shielding at the front of the car had cracked and was hanging down somewhat, and it looked like it was this which was scraping along the ground.
Both Sunday and Monday nights, we sacrificed tradition for faster service and better food at a local Italian restaurant. Like many of the local restaurants, it has a good selection of Ring photos:
This particular restaurant also has various racing driver's autographs on the ceiling & walls:
Sam challenges RichB to an arm-wrestling match. One of them looks more interested in the event than the other:
While others lose interest in the proceedings generally!
With the Ring open only in the evening, we decided on a spot of sightseeing. Or rather Amanda did, having discovered that there's no way to get such a large group of people to make a decision: it just needs one person to say 'Right, this is what we're doing'. We set off promptly about 90 minutes after our scheduled departure time of 10am.
We spotted a chair-lift so decided to take a trip up to
wherever it went
Claire & I got bored with the path and decided to take an
alternative route
Good view from the top
As many of the group as we could gather in one spot at one
time
The castle we walked miles uphill to see
Having found the abandoned part of the Südschleife the other day, I decided to see if it was possible to drive on it! I started out by walking back onto the track and getting a GPS fix. I then found an open barrier on one of the entrances to the car-park opposite the Grand Prix stadium, headed in there and drove around the maze of car-park link roads following the GPS pointer. I finally spotted a gap into what looked like the right sort of place, and sure enough it led onto the Südschleife. :-)
The bit I'd found before was in good condition, and it now appeared that this was because it is used to access one of the car-parks. The stretch below had grass growing through it, and the undergrowth was wilder:
Parked on the abandoned part of the Südschleife
When I reached the end, there was some broken up tarmac, so it seemed rude not to help myself to a bit:
My personal piece of the Südschleife
(More photos of the Südschleife can be found on my Südschleife page.)
In the afternoon, we went off to another castle. It was a long, hot walk through the woods, but it was quite impressive:
The woods did make a rather splendid setting
Doing better at getting the group together for a team photo
...
But we still had some stragglers
Cold drinks and ice-creams after the uphill slog back to the
car-park
But RichB will remember Wednesday forever as the day Norwich Union Direct agreed to pay for his Elise! :-) It seemed the recording of the conversation in which he said they confirmed full European cover and they said they hadn't had mysteriously gone missing ...
Oh, and avoid the Chinese takeaway in Adenau ...
Thursday was a trespassing day. :-)
I pretended the MX-5 was a mountain-bike and explored some of the mountain-bike tracks which follow the Ring round, and as well as the official spectating points found several ... um ... less official ones:
What looks like a Ring Course judging point at Schikane
There was what appeared to be a manufacturers' test session in the early afternoon, with Porsches, Audis, Mercs, BMWs and a few other cars flying round. A couple of them had disguised bodywork.
A Porsche travelling at some speed through Schikane
I also decided to see if I could see what was happening on the Grand Prix circuit. A few minutes' exploration of the car-park access roads revealed an open gate into the stadium area:
Well, if they wanted people to stay out, it would be closed,
wouldn't it?
Even better, there was a hole in the fence by one of the marshall points, enabling me to watch the race-school from behind the tyre-wall:
Don't mind if I do!
Wouldn't mind this viewpoint when there's a Grand Prix on ...
Then back to the Ring for the evening session. Now fully confident at sliding the car round pretty much every bend, I especially enjoyed Klostertal where there was sufficient space to make it safe to play. I'd thus push the back end out and do a power-slide all the way round. I realised I was getting a bit too confident at this when I found myself completely sideways, but fortunately all I had to do was apply full left-lock and wait for it to come back into line. Just so long as I remember to reserve such antics for the few bends with room for manouevre ...
A trio of Brits turned up in TVR, Boxster S and Fiat Coupé. They'd been to the Ring before, and a combination of their awareness of which way the track went and their substantial power advantage made it fun finding a way past them. Outbraked the first on the entry to Hatzenbach proper, the second likewise at the top of Quiddelbacher Höhe and the third halfway through Adenauer Forst - good fun. :-)
The track was open from 2.15pm today, so the plan was to spend most of the day there. It was unfortunately quite busy at times, with a whole influx of Ring newbies, some of whom were taking it easy and some of whom weren't. There was thus the usual spate of 'straight on at Adenauer Forst' incidents, with other crashes at Hatzenbach, Klostertal, Brünnchen and Schwalbenschwanz.
Quite a few people who'd visited my website and exchanged emails with me introduced themselves, and quite a few grabbed passenger rides with me so they could see what they were letting themselves in for. Having passengers for about half my laps was useful in curtailing any tendencies towards over-exuberance, though I took advantage of the room for error at Klostertal to do power-slides the whole way round, the tail-slide doing all of the work in getting the car round the bend. :-)
Rich Browning was not having too much luck with his vehicles. After crashing his Elise exactly a week ago, a German M5 driver reversed into his MV Agusta at the entrance to the Ring! The damage to the MV was thankfully limited to the headlight and front mudguard, with some quite impressive damage to the rear of the M5.
The inspection team assesses the MV damage
The M5 with an MV-shaped dent ...
... complete with pieces of MV headlamp on the bumper
The M5 driver was at least quick to admit liability and apologise profusely. Rich was also completely cool about the whole thing - perhaps a slightly dented MV is small beer after a major reshaping of one's Elise ...
Less cool was a German biker who'd had an altercation on the track with an M3 driver. The M3 driver had apparently overtaken him on the right just as he was entering a right-hander, forcing him onto the grass. The biker kept it upright, followed the BMW back to the car-park, kicked the car, pulled the driver out, hit him and then forcibly dragged him into the office to be given an Official Telling-Off for overtaking on the right. My guess is that he'll be rather more careful with bikers in future ... Sadly nobody had a camera or camcorder handy at the time, so I had to settle for taking the biker's photo afterwards:
Don't mess with this man!
After RichB earned the nickname GayBoy for his camp vests, Martin was the next to be affected - they apparently walked across the car-park like this:
Justine, however, was the same old girl as usual, seen here in her usual pose:
Obligatory Justine tongue photo
Saturday was an evening-only session so we again had time for some sightseeing in the day. Amanda found a nearby place with some old volcano lakes so we trooped off there and walked around one of them.
View from about halfway round
There was a very definite edge to the main part of the crater
We then went off to do different things: Adamanda & Ian went off to a wildlife park, Martin, Karen & the Seaberts went off for lunch and I went off to a local airfield to have a flight in a motorglider.
The airfield was literally on a hilltop. The motorglider was as flimsy-looking as gliders always are, and the puny engine needed the whole length of the runway to get airbourne, but was excellent fun. The 30-minute flight took us over Cochem, flying directly over the castle we visited, then some open country and woods. We swooped over all three of the volcanic lakes, before flying almost level to land on the hilltop: no descent was needed!
Me posing by the motorglider
Circling above Cochem
One of the volcano lakes
And an almost level approach for the hilltop landing
Then it was back to the Ring for the evening session. Unfortunately, the combination of a weekend and extremely limited opening meant that the track was absolutely manic. A mix of overtaking the slow tourists and letting the fast locals by meant that very little time was spent on the line. I did a few laps first thing then went and socialised for a while.
Jorund from the Ringers list - a blindingly fast rider
A group of Brits with a Boxster S, TVR, Elise and Fiat Coupé
And a cute local
We ended the day with a BBQ back at the cottage:
Rich Seabert had about 53 bits of dead animal on the go
Adam looking ... um ...
Claire helping herself to a modest forkful of salad
The plan had been to get to the track for 8am, do a couple of hours on the Ring and then come back to the cottage at 10am to pack. A rainy start to the day resulted in most people deciding to stay in bed instead, but I headed up and had a good series of wet laps on a deserted track.
Some other early risers had a bit less luck. Two of the Brits had had incidents, one fortunately avoiding any damage as he spun at Hocheichen while the other had a slide in Wippermann and didn't quite manage to come to a halt by the time the armco arrived:
A Fiat Coupe with slightly modified front end
By the time we'd packed and returned to the track with bike-trailers loaded, the rain had increased. I forget whose idea it was to do a lap of the Ring towing the bike-trailers ... We were going so slowly I was afraid we'd slide straight out of the Karussel!
Whose idea was this, again? (Photo: Adam Curtin)
Not fancying doing Belgium again at 65-80mph, nor following trailer-spray for six hours, I went straight to Calais at a more bearable speed, stopping off for a quick bite near Brussels, and got there in time to catch the 8.30pm ferry. I paid an extra £8 for access to the Club Lounge, which was a more civilised way of doing the crossing. Good trip. :-)
Copyright © Ben Lovejoy 2000