My second trip of the month, driving directly to the Ring from Birgit's place near the Czech border. Unfortunately the bulletcam was playing-up (dodgy power connection), so not too many frame-grabs this time. Nice as the RF Concepts cameras are, the reliability leaves a lot to be desired - a high proportion of us have experienced failures.
I should have known that I couldn't really start a Ring trip without new tyres. While they made it through the first weekend with a tiny bit of tread intact, there was no prospect of them making it through a second weekend with the possibility of having to drive home in the wet. I thus began Friday afternoon with a trip to the local tyre dealer, having ordered the tyres earlier in the week.
German registration documents specify the exact tyres to be fitted, and it is illegal to fit anything else! When the dealer had asked to see my registration document, I explained that this system didn't apply in the UK, but he still wanted to see for himself so I dutifully waited while he all but shook the V5 to see if some tyre specifications fell out of it. Eventually, however, he shrugged and ordered the tyres I asked for. They were almost exactly the same price as in the UK.
The second amusing moment was when he saw the tyre wear. The guy removed the first wheel, looked at the tread wear, put the wheel down, walked round to the other front tyre, looked at the wear on that and solemnly pronounced: "The geometry of this car is not ok." I said "Der Nurburgring." His face lit up, and he replied "Ah, Der Nurburgring! Ok! All es klar.". :-)
I took the opportunity to check the sensor cluster to see if I could track down the intermittent ABS warning and speedo failure. Couldn't see anything obviously wrong, but pushed everything snug anyway.
Since the tyres would do for another Ring weekend so long as I didn't have to drive home on them afterwards, I decided to hang onto them. I took them back to Birgit's garage with a view to her bringing them to Nurburg next time she comes (she's just picked up her temporary company car - a BMW 5-series).
Have tyres, will travel
Speaking of Birgit's garage, only a German garage could have instructions for use printed on the wall! Not just a few, either, but thirteen points:
Birgit works for Rosenthal, so I also stopped off there to buy a few things. I also wanted to get some proper Weissbier glasses for beer-and-video evenings, but thought that expensive glasses and drunken Ringers was not a good combination. However, as the Czech border is just a few kilometres away, there is also a works outlet shop for a Czech glassware company which does ridiculously cheap things, so I headed there to buy some for the princely sum of €1 each! I briefly contemplated the possibilities of buying 25, but had to admit that packing was a tight enough fit on the way out so settled for 10. I might see if Birgit can pick up another 15 and bring them in September, though. :-)
Then it was time for the drive to the Ring. Despite Birgit living in Germany, the drive there is no less tedious than the one from Calais. Though shorter, it is almost all autobahn and involves a lot of long-term roadworks, so the journey involved quite a lot of this:
And also some of this:
Hood down, naturally
And for poor Birgit, who was told at the last minute that she'd have to do some work over the weekend, some of this:
A weekend saved by in-car power
Birgit took this arty pic of the last bit of the run down towards Nurburg:
And a pretty sunset to greet us as we arrived there:
As I'd been late finalising my August plans, my usual B&B was full for the Oldtimer weekend and I knew everywhere else would be too. But the owners charmingly said that Birgit & I could stay at their own home in Adenau. :-) We took them a bottle of champagne as a thank-you for the kind gesture.
They told us that a marshall had been killed in an Oldtimer race that day. After the 24-Hour tragedy, in which miscommunication led to the death of a marshall when he was on the track with no flag warnings, it seemed hard to believe that this could have happened again. Fortunately, it turned out to be a slight exaggeration - we heard from Fred the next day that he had actually hard a heart-attack while running towards a three-car crash at Kallenhard and was alive in Adenau Hospital.
Adenau is not much competition to Nurburg in terms of nightlife: at 10.30pm, everywhere was closing. It never ceases to amaze me how the local places stop serving food at around 10pm whether it's a wet-and-windy October or the busiest weekend of the year. We ended up eating in what looked like the poshest hotel in town, Zum Wilden Schwein. The food was average, the service was, um, not. But it did have some cool autographs on the wall:
And one for which I will be the prime suspect if it ever goes missing:
Being the Oldtimer weekend, the car-park was busy even early in the morning. Well, ok, by 10:30, anyway: it was wet first thing, and we needed to take some of our stuff back to Nurburg before breakfast, so we weren't exactly at the gates at 8am.
Busy car-park
My baby in her reserved space
One lap then reduce the hot pressures to the normal cold ones
The Oldtimer weekend always makes for lots of interesting car-park viewing:
Of course, it also makes for oil on the track and lots of breakdowns. This 911 was seen parked-up at Brunnchen:
And this Cobra, er, didn't make it very far at all:
A Cobra broken-down inside the coned lane at the start!
The track was greasy for the first couple of laps, but soon improved. Or at least it would have done had people not kept dumping oil on it. A Cobra dropped oil from Schikane to Flugplatz. He was one of Cobra Rob's group, and Rob confirmed later that the driver had no idea it had happened until the oil-warning light came on when it was almost empty. One of the Byrne-up guys went down on the oil but fortunately wasn't hurt. We pointed him towards Rob's group so he could sort out insurance. The police also attended and clean-up took a while, but the closure just gave us time for more car-park wandering and safety-leaflet distribution.
Rob is the guy who provides the server-space for this website. It started out on my homepage space, but I ran out of space. Then a friend lent me a chunk of his server but we ran out of bandwidth. Rob stepped in and offered me a large slice of his server's bandwidth, which was just as well as visits after Jørund's death took monthly usage to 12Gb!
Rob's Cobra
After the success of last weekend's car-park leaflet-dispenser, we decided to do the same again - albeit this time using an uncrashed car:
A Dutch biker asked me where to get a map, and I pointed him to the restaurant. He brought back a whole bunch and added them to the display, which provoked even greater interest, so I think for the next batch we may want to consider having them double-sided with a map on the reverse. But we kept having to renew the leaflets as they were taken, so it was definitely doing its job:
People reading the safety leaflets taken from Birgit's car
We also did some car-park distribution, and this again went down well, with many of those we gave them to expressing appreciation. There were masses of copies, too, in the Byrne-up Tours enclave:
Together with an large display packed full of advice. I would say that it was excellent advice, but as much of it was text from my website, modesty forbids. :-)
We met Fred and Wendy in the car-park and learned that this trip was their first once since Fred's crash. It was good to see them back there. Fred said his back made it too painful to ride a sportsbike, so he was riding a Fazer, and enjoying it. Robin joined the photo, saying it was an 'Over-60s Helicopter Ride Club':
Fred & Wendy's return to the Ring, with Robin Helby (left)
Birgit was amused by the disabled sticker on Robin's bike, and Robin told us that the full-sized sticker he had on his RC30 had some English text reading 'The holder of this badge is blind or otherwise disabled'. He says most Germans only got as far as reading the first line and were under the impression that the rider was blind ...
The badge on the back of Robin's bike
When the track re-opened, we headed straight back out. The marshalls again announced that the first 15 minutes was cars only. Having previously opposed separating cars and bikes, I do now have to say that I think the laps without bikes are much safer, and it's also good not to get held up through the bends only to have the bike do full-throttle down the straight just in time to block the next bend. Equally, I'm sure most bikers would be more relaxed not having to mix with cars, so perhaps separate sessions would be a good move despite the reduced track-time that would entail.
I'm less certain about rigidly enforcing the 'overtake on the left' rule. While I think this should definitely be the norm, and I can almost always spot faster following traffic in time to get over to the right to let it past, there are some occasions when the vehicle being overtaken is already on the left and it makes sense for it to stay there. For example, one lap I was coming down Pflanzgarten II when a fast GT3 appeared over the brow at a high closing speed. To let him pass on the left, I would have had to cross the track in front of him, forcing him to brake, and then enter Pflanzgarten III off-line. It made much more sense for both of us to simply stay where I was, indicate left and let him smoothly past:
Sometimes 'wrong side' overtakes just make sense
Similarly, there was a time when I was following a slow bike into Bergwerk. He indicated left on the final part of the straight leading into the bend, and I was able to easily overtake on the right on a tighter line while he was able to use the full width of the track and take the bend without worrying about something behind him. So I think this policy would need some careful thought.
We wondered whether one Ringer was engaging in strange sexual practices when we saw him bouncing his bike up and down from behind:
It turned out that the newly-fitted Maxton shock had cracked, and they were trying to find some way of getting the oil out:
"I knew I should have bought an Olins"
Fortunately there was no drama when it happened, but it could have been very nasty indeed. Maxton were unable to sort a solution that weekend, but did at least say that if he left it there for a local repair they would also pay for a trip out to collect it.
Possibly my favourite moment of the day was seeing this old Talbot being driven round at a cracking pace. We caught up with it early in the lap and so enjoyed seeing the driver chuck it through the bends, tail out almost every time, that I decided to follow him for the rest of the lap. Coming alongside him at Dottinger-Hohe, I gave him a big thumbs-up. I was going to follow him into the car-park to offer him a copy of the video, but he was straight back out for another lap. :-)
Tail-out big-time round KlostertalKurve ...
And again at Brunnchen II
I'd love to know what this guy thought
as he saw what was overtaking him :-)
I caught up with him after the next lap and went to speak with him afterwards. After congratulating him on a superb drive, he grinned and asked me not to be too enthusiastic in my description as the owner of the car was standing next to us. :-) It turns out that the driver, James, had been driving the Ring forever and had taken part in the most recent 24H race.
The Talbot back in the car-park
It was another morning where I lost track of time, having so much fun lapping, so it was about 14:15 by the time I thought of lunch:
The marshalls were actively noise-testing at the barriers again:
Testing a bike - which passed
As did this RS - amazingly - but the marshalls weren't keen on the high
wing
The Oldtimer weekend is one where even the most special cars just blend in. There were even two Ultima Spyders:
There were a fair number of bikers new to the Ring, but most were watching their mirrors and moving over.
A mass of bikes, with as many different lines, approaching Miss-Hit-Miss
A Brit biker who was out there a lot
There were also some not-so-new bikers:
One group came particularly well-equipped, with a complete workshop and a large collection of tyres in the back of a truck:
There was a long closure towards the end of the day, with crashes in several different sections, so we decided to call it a day rather than hang around in the hope of one last crowded lap. Since Birgit's car would be in the main car-park in Adenau, we opted for a cunning bit of theft-protection:
The Ferrari is not only more tempting
but with Italian electrics, probably easier to break into also :-)
Having held off all day, the rain arrived en-masse just as we set off to the Fuchsrohre for the Ringers dinner:
The dinner was rather smaller than the previous weekend, further depleted by a few last-minute cancellations by Ringers deterred by the weather forecast - as well as those newly lacking in the car ownership dept. But those of us there dutifully tried to keep Sabine's beer takings up:
Christian doing his best to make up for Euan's absence
Of course, there was the obligatory technofest with digital cameras and camcorders floating around. Charles had been to the GP circuit and photographed row upon row of Ferraris. He said there was so many that they had to organise them into rows by model, so there was a loooooong row of 360s, another of Testarossas, etc.
Charles hunting for good pics while Tom looks on
Perhaps the most notable Ferrari photograph was this 360, presumably placed in a special row for Ferrari Owners With Appallingly Bad Taste:
An out-of-focus snap of the LCD screen on Charles's camera
There is much advice which could be offered to those ordering cocktails, of which the simplest and most effective is 'Don't'. But for those who insist on doing so, I would like to offer the further advice: 'Do not order a cocktail by asking for "something blue" ...'
Speaking of strange drinks, Birgit ordered a ColaWeizen. This is, as the name suggests, half Coke and half Weissbier. It sounds absolutely disgusting. It looks pretty dodgy too. But it's very popular in Bavaria and, amazingly, tastes really nice!
A ColaWeizen
There are always a few people who want the obligatory photo with Sabine, and this time is was John, Trish and Tony's son. He'd been busy collecting passenger laps throughout the weekend, and managed ones with most of the Ringers present, I think.
The waitresses seem well aware of who 'Ringers' are:
"I'm not going to be on the Internet, am I?"
Service is, unfortunately, still slow, and it takes an hour to get an ice-cream!
Sunday's weather was unfortunately more in line with the forecast:
As ever with the Ring in the wet, you simply had no idea what to expect from one bend to the next - or even halfway round the same bend. The variability in the wetness of the track was evident even in the exit lane:
Damp tarmac leading onto wet tarmac
Oil was of course an even bigger threat in these conditions, especially after the Oldtimer parade laps first thing:
It wasn't long before the inevitable crashes began:
Hatzenbach armco 1, Alpina 0
But I'm beginning to suspect that there's very little that someone, somewhere in the Ring car-park isn't ready and willing to tackle as a roadside repair. I'm not quite sure what these guys were working on, but step 1 appeared to be to remove a wheel and step 2 to stare into the engine-bay for some considerable time:
Birgit was keen to do some more laps, but not keen on a crowded track, so she decided a wet Sunday morning would be ideal. She did three laps, her technique improving each time (I heard that, Hendry!). She even demonstrated an ability to stay cool, calm and collected with two wheels on the grass. :-)
So confident she can do it with her eyes closed
Birgit then asked for me to take her out in the 968 so I could demonstrate the things I'd been talking about. I decided a slow lap would be ok, but must admit that the variability in the friction gave me no desire to do anything faster.
A lot of the bikers were giving up and calling it a day. As it turned out, they did miss about half an hour of a drying line, but that was it - after that, the rain came down again.
"We're off"
I thought some spectating might be fun for a while, so we set off for Pflanzgarten I. The bottom corner, by the gates, is a brilliant spot, enabling you to see the whole of the approach and most of the way round the bend:
A dry line materialising down Pflanzgarten I
I took a few pics there, and we then walked up to see if we could get access to Eiskurve. The spot we found wasn't exactly an official spectating point, but it gave a great view of the bend, and afforded an excellent opportunity to get close-up snaps. I spent about 20 mins looking for interesting photo-opps with a view to a future weekend with more Ringers present, and practicing the digicam 'pan, anticipate the shutter delay, shoot, wait, click' technique.
A potentially interesting shot
Practicing close-up panning shots
An experiment with not panning
You have to be just as quick on the shutter to get a photo of Birgit smiling, as she goes all camera-shy usually, but I made it with this one:
I soon got the hang of panning and anticipating the shutter delay, so took pics of 30 or 40 vehicles like this one of Rene:
They're not exactly the most interesting of shots, but they do provide a good opportunity for a close-up. If you were on the track on Sunday between about 14:00 and 14:25, there's an excellent chance I have a snap of you. But please DON'T email me asking for it - I'll put them all on the website within a week or so, and link them from here.
I thought this angle, framed by the branches, might make a good shot for a Ringers photo-session in September:
Oh, and it was amusing to note that the safety car has plenty of fun when they think no-one is looking! This one came round Eiskurve with plenty of tail-out action. :-)
I also enjoyed this bit of graffiti:
Since there was a dry line on this stretch at least, we headed back for the car-park and went out for a lap in the 968. It of course started raining as soon as we set off. We got back and had a cuppa with what appeared to be the sole remnants of the Ringers contingent:
Me, Birgit, Trish, Tom, John and Rene
After looking at more rain, we decided to call it a day while both cars were intact:
Enough!
So back to the B&B to carry out the challenging packing procedure, pay the bill and head on out.
It's a small world, though. After stopping for petrol at a random service station somewhere in Belgium, a voice behind me enquired: "Hello, Ben?". It turned out to be a Belgian guy I met at the Ring on a previous trip and who knew I was there this weekend from my website. :-)
Oh, and since my journey did actually include some German autobahn between the two weekends, I can safely say that 968s go pretty well for ten-year-old cars. This is the actual speed from the GPS - the indicated speed was 6mph higher:
And all perfectly legal too :-)
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