What a ridiculous weekend. Gazzillions of Brits there for the first time meant a chaotic track, even worse car-park and a record number of crashes and closures. A number of Ringers incidents, including my own adventures with a laptop ...
This was a very last-minute affair. Although I knew I'd be at the Ring this weekend, I'd recently done a deal on a DRT but didn't know whether or not it would be ready on time, so didn't know whether I was driving or flying until the night before. As things turned out, the car itself was ready, but I hadn't had the chance to sort the paperwork, nor to insure it, so decided to make this a C-Car weekend and bring my DRT over next month.
The problem with leaving flight bookings to the last minute is that even the no-frills airlines bump the prices up to frightening levels:
That's one-way ... and
the return leg wasn't much better
Plan B was to hitch a lift, but Euan's proposed schedule wasn't entirely to my taste:
Errrr ... I'll get back
to you ...
I was a bit sleep-deprived anyway after a 2-day works outing involving a certain amount of partying.
I checked BA from Heathrow to Frankfurt and that was about £100 cheaper that Germanwings if I opted for a slightly earlier-than-planned flight. Although a bit of a slog at the UK end, Frankfurt is en-route for Birgit. While considering options, I put a message out on Ringers to see who else might be able to give me a lift. While I was doing that, my session timed out and the BA price had gone up by £30! I decided I'd better take what I could get.
At least I had clean clothes and a washbag in Selb, so Birgit was able to bring those, making my luggage a Vaio and a camera. As the C-Car looked to be in heavy demand this weekend, Birgit suggested I bring my digital SLR so that we could see how it coped with Ring pics.
The gadget gremlins were at work. First, I had an early morning call from security at work to say that someone had smashed my office window and stolen my work laptop. So much for those laptop security cables - it seems they just yanked it out. Second, my new Palm Tungsten W (replacement for my Treo) locked up totally. A soft reset didn't work, so I had to use a hard reset. This means that all data is lost, but that's not a problem because it will be restored when I next synch to my work lap- Fsck! Fortunately it could have been worse as I still have my Treo and so can synch that to my replacement laptop (whenever that arrives) and then synch the Palm to that and will then only lose the changes made in the last week or so.
With all my settings lost, as well as all software loaded from the SD card that came with it, I now had no means of accessing email on my pda. I do, though, have a BTopenzone subscription that lets me use my laptop's wifi connection at a range of public places, including Heathrow. As the final straw, the wifi zone extended throughout the noisy public area in departures but not as far as the lounge. Some days you just have to laugh ...
The flight boarded and pushed-back on time but then came to a halt and we were told there was a 35-minute ATC delay. The joys of Heathrow. But it was at least a welcome change to be on a proper BA flight with legroom, allocated seats and a decent-quality snack, rather than 'the Germanwings experience'.
Classic & Sports Car magazine had a 14-page special on the 911, which I started reading on the plane. I loved the story of the 2.7 RS. To get the car homologated for racing, they had to manufacture 1000 cars in the full-on lightweight trim. Only the hardcore minority actually wanted the car in this minimalist trim, so what Porsche did was this. Every one of the 1000 cars was thus built as a lightweight, taken off to the weighing station in Stuttgart to have its weight certified. Once this was achieved, it was driven back to the factory to be turned into the car the customer had ordered. In many cases, this involved removing the special lightweight items (like thinner glass) ... which were duly fitted to the next RS on the production line so that it too could be certified!
Anders, a strong critic of the weight of modern 911s, would appreciate the comment by former F1 driver John Watson: "Something that's light and nimble is always going to be more fun to drive ... The current GT3 weighs 400kg more than [the 2.7 RS], which is ridiculous."
Reading the whole 911 section made me all the more impatient to get my 911SC-993 back. She's currently having the last mechanical work done before the bodywork begins: removing the surface rust, replacing the wings (which have rusted beyond recovery) and respraying the affected parts to blend with the original paintwork.
Flying into Frankfurt at least allowed me to take the missing few pics for my Directions page. We got to Nurburg at around 9pm, in time for a quiet dinner at the Pistenklause.
As we'd both had a long week, we opted for a civilised start. Euan had arrived at 3.30am and was already in the breakfast room by 9.30am, albeit with rather scary hair:
The Euan-mobile
JW is noted for his 8am starts, so we guessed the C-Car would already be at the track. As it turned out, we were wrong so we nipped up to Ring Racing to collect it from the collection of Golfs in the car-park:
By the time we got back to the Ring, the car-park was busier than I'd seen it all year. Busier than Easter, busier than the Oldtimer weekend:
We headed straight out for a sighting lap. Even at sighting-lap speed, the tyres were squealing like crazy and there didn't seem to be much grip. So bad was it, that I decided to pull off at Breidscheid and check the pressures. A check revealed that the warm pressures were 1.5 to 1.6, so that was clearly much too low. Stupidly, I'd failed to make a note of the pressures we'd ended up with last time, so I picked a semi-random pressure of 2.1 and went back on to try that. It was better, though still not great.
By the time we got back from the second half of the lap, the track was closed. This was to prove a recurring theme for the day. Back in the car-park, a group of Brits were carrying out a DIY repair to a bike with a remodelled sub-frame:
It was a fair while before the track re-opened, and getting out of the car-park took some time, so the track was already stupidly busy.
There was even a queue to exit the track.
I think we managed two laps and passed six or seven crashes before the next closure:
I took the opportunity to wander around the car-park to take a few pics:
It's not entirely obvious from the pic, but this is fur rather than paint:
I just had to ask the owner 'why'. "I'm not very good at painting, and well, I was having a few beers with some mates ..."
The closure was a long one, and we jumped in the car quickly when it reopened. We managed one clear-ish lap, then passed lots of crash sites on the next. By the time we got back, it was the familiar story:
I think it was this closure that saw the helicopter ambulance go out and an extremely lengthy wait before it reopened. The chaos in the car-park and road outside was reaching ridiculous proportions:
There was some noise-testing going on, and the usual car-park bodges:
We took the opportunity for a late lunch, and the track re-opened just as were were finishing. Back out there, it was busy again, and the number of totally blind drivers and riders was worse than I have ever known it.
Giving the C-Car time to cool down, I grabbed a couple of paxlaps with Robin Iddon. Elises are always fun, and Robin is an excellent driver, but the number of totally blind drivers and riders out there made it a somewhat start-stop affair. One biker held us up for miles on end, totally oblivious to everything behind him.
Since Robin had put me in an Elise kind of mood, I grabbed a paxlap with Joerg. This was another crowded lap:
We found someone even blinder than the biker described earlier, a driver totally unaware of the growing queue of traffic behind him, even when people were weaving around behind him in an attempt to make an impression in at least one of his mirrors - a silver Audi with a German 'E' plate.
When a red Porsche finally stood on the horn and enabled us all to pass, the idiot overtook on the wrong side on the inside of Kallenhard.
Back out in the C-Car, things were not getting any quieter:
Cars breaking down in the car-park weren't helping, though some had the commonsense to push the cars out of the way:
Gweanel had had the bright idea of a bicycle ride on the track after dinner. Ringers being Ringers, a number of us signed up for this. I'd arranged to hire a couple of bikes from Eddie at Hotel an der Nordschleife, and Jochen kindly offered to pick them up for us and take them to Nurburg:
I'd been all in favour of doing a full lap, as Ringers know all too well, but we discovered a problem with the paperwork. Germany being Germany. naturally everything requires a permit, even bicycles, and it seemed our permit wouldn't allow us to complete the second half of the lap:
With my uncertain plans, I hadn't organised a Ringers dinner, so Euan stepped in to organise a very small one at the Pistenklause. However, word got around, so it grew into a full-scale one:
Lars enjoyed his steak, and decided he could manage a bit more by the time Charles's steak arrived:
Finally it was time for The Great Ringers Bicycle Ride. About eight of us had said we'd do it, and I was surprised when seven actually turned up. We posed for the official team photo:
Then more arrived. Then a few more. We ended up with 13 in all. Trish took a new enlarged team photo which I hope to add to the page soon.
Notably absent was our esteemed bicycle ride organiser, Gwaenel! My theory was that he was sitting in a bar somewhere, sniggering quietly as he downed his 15th beer. However, he turned up at the last minute without most of us realising it.
We went on at the top of Hatzenbach I, and I decided to take an on-track team pic. The self-timer was sleepy, and so the first pic I got was this, when it went off as I picked it up to find out why it wasn't working:
But then it worked the second time, and I think you'll agree that the result was worth the effort:
JW, Trish and others drove ahead to take other pics, so there were flashes and spotlights from the trackside at Hocheichen and Quiddlebacher-Hohe:
Birgit & I (Photo by JW)
The ride was great, although the complete absence of light on my bike did make things interesting. Charles lent me a mini LED torch and Soren provided the gaffa-tape to attach it to the bike, but while it worked well as a close-up spotlight, it did nothing at all as a bike light!
Birgit hadn't ridden for many years, so it wasn't long before the others pulled some way ahead. By riding next to Birgit, I could use her light, but we couldn't see very far ahead.
Even in pitch black, with the edge of the track barely visible, it was still fascinating to see what the slopes were like in different places. For example, I'd always thought of the crest before Schwedenkreuz as essentially leading to a fairly gentle downhill slope before steepening around the turn-in point. In fact, the track runs quite steeply downhill from the crest. It was also a surprise finding just how steep and off-camber Kallenhard is - even more than I had thought.
We did, though, confirm that the downhill theory was correct. Quiddlebacher-Hohe to Flugplatz and the exit of Fuchrohre were the only uphill sections, and it was a very easy ride. Despite my carefully crafted advance excuses, I would have been game for continuing, but Birgit headed very firmly for the exit at Breidscheid, claiming that her bike was homing in on Hotel an der Nordschleife. So a somewhat precarious exit was achieved down a steep, dusty slope, with Trish helping to light the way with her camera flash!
Eddie came out to greet us after we'd returned the bikes to the garage, and we retired inside for a beer. He then refused to take any money for the bikes, as a thank-you for the bookings he'd had via my site. Trish then kindly ferried us back to Nurburg.
Sunday
We briefly contemplated doing the 8am thing, but didn't get any further than contemplating. When we did emerge, the Schmitz's told us that it was good that we didn't as the road outside was nose-to-tail traffic at 8am! It seemed that lots of people had the 8am idea. By the time we got there at 10am, it was already closed and the car-park looked much like yesterday. Not helped by Ferrari-driving twats blocking the exit:
It appeared that Jochen had only just finished the bicycle lap:
Fortunately a couple of BMW drivers decided to provide some entertainment during the closure. First, this driver did about a 54-point manoeuvre to slot into the parking space in front of the C-Car:
Second, a British BMW driver started reversing into a space on a course that was going to take him and his low-skirted car over a high kerb. When I warned him that he was going to go over the kerb he replied in a sarcastic tone 'Noooo!'. Given his attitude, I decided not to bother pointing out that he was going to beach the car plastics on the kerb. Sure enough, a few seconds later there was a horribly expensive-sounding noise as he started tearing up the bottom of the plastics and distorting the panel:
He then got out to inspect the damage, and declared his intention to push the car backwards. Various onlookers pointed out that this was going to do further damage, so finally he enlisted the aid of some of them to lift the side of the car as he pulled off the kerb:
This BMW fest reminded me that I hadn't yet had a chance to look at Christer's new DRT, so we wandered across the road to inspect it. It looked good:
His girlfriend was going to use it as her daily driver, so the carpeting and a few creature comforts had been retained.
Shortly afterwards, a police van and trailer pulled into the car-park, followed by a police car. The trailer contained the wreckage of a bike, and it turned out that this was a safety exhibit. The particular accident didn't happen on the Ring - the biker lost control and hit the driver's door of a Polo. Being no-nonsense and German, this was a double-fatal crash, both rider and driver dying.
I was very pleased to see the attention the exhibit was attracting. I've long argued that the only thing that would really get through to people is to have car and bike wrecks on display in the car-park, including fatal ones where the relatives give their support to the idea. This is a step in the right direction.
Another thing that was pleasing to see was a police car used as a leaflet dispenser:
This will look rather familiar to Ringers who were there last year:
Birgit's old MR2 serving
as dispenser for safety leaflets in August 2002
The track was again busy when it reopened.
I spotted a car I'd at one time considered, a TVR V8. The rollbar didn't look like it would do much good, though, being well below the top of the driver's head.
Niek was there in a hired Smart Roadster. I was curious as to how the car would handle, so decided to follow him round. The verdict from behind was that it looked good. It was holding the road well, and the suspension remained pretty flat. Niek reported that it understeered a fair bit, but was fun to drive.
Jochen wanted to do a few laps in the C-Car before we handed it over to him at 3pm. I came back into a crowded car-park, spent about 20 minutes looking for him, tried to call him and eventually gave up and decided to carry on. Which was fortunate for him as he avoided being at the wheel when the car broke down again ...
Rounding Kallenhard, I lost all drive. Trying other gears made no difference. This was precisely the same symptoms the car had experienced twice before, caused by a failed CV joint.
I coasted the car off the track onto the grass and found through experimentation that we had small intermittent bursts of drive. I decided to use those to get the car behind the armco at the safety car point a hundred metres down the track. I was just positioning the car there when a safety car arrived.
Fortunately this was driven by a marshall we knew fairly well, Birgit having made a point of chatting to him whenever we saw him. I asked him if he would use the safety car with lights to protect us as we coasted down to Breidscheid, and he immediately agreed.
Having cycled down the hill the previous night, I knew it was steep and we could easily coast right off the track. I kept the engine running for power steering and brake servos. The safety car was effective in slowing all the following traffic. Christer appeared and slotted in behind us. A bunch of other cars slotted in behind him. I waved them past, hoping they would go and Christer would stay, but he thought we wanted him to pass also.
We were able to coast right out to the roadside:
Now all we needed was a tow. I didn't have Ring Racing's number, so called Job to see if he had it. Job immediately declared that he would tow us there. He and Niek arrived about 15 minutes later with a tow car but without actual possession of a tow-rope. I'd been chatting to Fred while we were there, and he asked some friends if they had one. They didn't, but we were yards from the Aral petrol station so Job went off to get one. He brushed aside the €20 note I offered him, declaring that he needed one anyway.
We turned the car around, and with excellent traffic management by Birgit and Niek, were soon on our way:
The tow-rope was frighteningly short, and I was having nightmares about rear-ending Job's very pretty Bora. I guess on the plus side I'd get a discount on the bumper ...
I'd texted Jochen to tell him what had happened and that we were on the way to Ring Racing. He slotted in behind us on the 258 and followed us in:
Jochen realising his 14th
September C-Car plans were scuppered
The visit to RR did at least enable us to admire the new C-Car goodies that Job had brought with him:
The tyres were particularly well-timed given the state of the present ones after our weekend:
Job gave us a lift back to our B&B to pick up the Merc. We were planning on leaving within the hour anyway, so decided to nip back to grab a couple of passenger laps and then be on our way. Robin spotted us looking around and asked us what we'd lost. "A car," I told him, and promptly commandeered his passenger seat, first for Birgit and then for me:
While he was taking Birgit round, I saw Euan coming in and tried to thumb a lift round with him, but he was getting tired so sensibly decided to quit while he was ahead:
The lap with Robin was surprisingly clear of four-wheeled traffic, though there were still a fair few bikes.
However, the all-too-familiar red light was visible as we returned along Dottinger-Hohe ...
It appeared that the marshalls wanted to have a little word with someone:
Whatever it was had been behind us. When we saw René as one of the last cars to emerge, we asked him if he had any idea what it was and whether it was worth us waiting. He told us a car had rolled in Schwedenkreuz and gone over the armco. That clearly wasn't going to be a short closure so we said our goodbyes.
On the way back to the Merc, we saw that some people were well-prepared for closures:
It wasn't the greatest of weekends for Ringers. One managed to reverse into the armco at Ex-Muhle, damaging the rear of his car; a second had a spin in Tiergarten while braking heavily, with what was reported as heavy damage; a third crashed at Adenaur-Forst, bending the rear suspension and setting off three airbags; a fourth had someone drive into his door; a fifth lost the back at Eiskurve, with as-yet unknown damage; and the C-Car broke down for the third successive time with identical symptoms! It was just one of those weekends. Fortunately no Ringers were hurt.
On the way to Frankfurt, the traffic news on the radio announced that the 258 'near the Nurburgring' was closed due to an accident! Half an hour later, when the next update came on, it was still closed. It seems the carnage wasn't just restricted to the Ring. We were glad to have made it out before then.
Then the news headlines. After the top story that Schumie had won the Grand Prix, came news of a bomb scare at Dusseldorf. Passengers were being transferred to Koln/Bonn, the airport I normally fly out of. That was likely to result in delays all round, so good news to be flying out of Frankfurt. Made it in good time, said goodbye to Birgit and sat in the lounge to work on the trip report.
Frankfurt airport security seems to work on the principle of 'trust no-one' - including their colleagues. So you go through the main security point, then walk 100 metres and go through a second one to reach the gates at the right-hand side of the terminal. Which would be bad enough without Dusseldorf having apparently put them on maximum alert. I'm always careful to empty my pockets of Ixus batteries, etc, but this wasn't enough: I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that the metal detector was set to such a sensitive level that it picked up the foil label on the top of a pack of TicTacs in my pocket! So mega queues, with most people having to walk through several times, and my technology collection getting close scrutiny (laptop, pda, Ixus, SLR).
Just when I thought nothing else could go wrong, it did. Beginning the descent into Heathrow from Frankfurt, a rather officious cabin attendant said that my laptop had to go in the seat pocket in front of me. Now, my Vaio goes with me on every trip, business or leisure. It must make an average of about one flight a week. It's tiny and light, and apart from an emergency exit row (where it's entirely reasonable to prohibit anything that might block the escape route), nobody has ever objected to it being on my lap. Which of course means that I've never put it in the seat-pocket, and consequently my quick disembarking check is 'laptop bag, passport, mobile'. All three were present and correct and so off I went.
Sitting down on the Heathrow Express, I went to get the laptop out to continue the trip report. *%&$!!! I dashed off the train just before the doors closed and hared up to BA Customer Services. I was terrified that a cleaner would discover it and walk off with it (having had this happen to a camera that fell out of my bag into an overhead locker). The good news was that the aircraft wasn't being cleaned that night and was being towed back to the hanger. So in theory the laptop should be safe. The bad news was that "We can't tell you when engineering will look for it - it won't be a priority."
Asking to speak to a manager brought a rather more helpful response, and they agreed to ask engineering to check when the plane reached the hanger. All I could do now was hope. The BA customer service guy kept me entertained with stories about the various items people had managed to leave on planes.
One of the great things about the Ringers community is that you know help will be at hand when it's needed. For example, when we needed a tow, it wasn't a question of whether someone would provide it, but merely who would be in a position to offer it. If only the rest of the world was like that. Which was when light dawned: Adrian is a BA engineer! The chances of him happening to be on duty at that precise moment on a Sunday evening had to be slim, but I sent him a text to ask. He called me back to say, yes he was. So I explained the sorry tale, he found out where the aircraft was being towed to and jumped into a van to meet it there.
He called me from my seat to say that it wasn't there. It now seemed pretty hopeless, but I went back to Customer Services on the offchance that they had any news. They did: the laptop was safe! The bad news now was that getting it back to me would be a long and bureaucratic process. The airside staff who had it weren't allowed to take it landside, and the lost property staff weren't allowed airside; Customs also apparently take a keen interest in any property which doesn't go with its owner. I called Adrian again to tell him the good news, and to thank him for his help. "I might be able to bring it out to you." A few more exchanges of information, and he'd tracked it down and yes he could. The next call was to tell me that it was safely in his hands! Not long afterwards, he appeared with it. :-D
Hero of the hour
Safely back in my possession - phew!
So promising Adrian yet more beer, I once again made my way back to the Heathrow Express, some two hours later than last time. Surely nothing further could go wrong now? Yes, it could, but fortunately only inconveniences. First, the tube from Paddington round to Liverpool Street wasn't running, so a slight detour was required. Then my train from Liverpool Street stopped one station short and they were offering a replacement bus service and then I'd need a taxi from there. The phrase 'sod that' was uppermost in my thoughts and I grabbed a cab from the earlier station.
And that was my September Ring trip! Next one within a few weeks, to bring over my DRT - the carnage this weekend really underlining the wisdom of the cheap-and-cheerful approach to Ring toys. Watch this space.
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