Preparation
I guess buying
a car counts as prep
...
The C-Car
experiment proved that the DRT[1] approach was the
right one,
and my Porsche specialist found this candidate. She needed a major service,
new brakes, etc, and had a couple of minor dents, but Jon offered to sort
out the mechanicals for an agreed all-in price, and the cosmetics weren't
important to me.
[1]
Dedicated Ring Toy - a car (or bike) that is used exclusively
for the Ring. Although it still needs to be road-legal, there need be
no concessions to road use in terms of setup or comfort. But the main
advantage is that it can be garaged locally, so you can fly in and out,
which is far less tiring than driving back-and-forth across Belgium all
the time.
She's
a 1985 Porsche 944. Being the base-model 944, she's more like
a 'Golf Plus' than a '968 Minus' in terms of power, but she's RWD, has
decent handling and is fast enough to have fun. She's originally from
Germany, and even had the most recent German registration plates in the
back, so re-registering her as a German car should be relatively straightforward.
My gorgeous
leather Recaros were fitted to her,
more or less doubling the value of the car. :-) The original 968 leather
seats are about to be turned into living-room seats, with alloy wheels
as the base. The electrics will be hooked up, so that the electric recline
and heating still works ...
She was originally
delivered to me a week before my trip, but she hadn't been driven
for a while and Murphy's Law kicked in big-time: a CV joint and the torque
tube failed en-route! So Jon took her back to the workshop and decided
to play safe by replacing the gearbox at the same time, as well as checking
the clutch and a few other things. I was on a business trip to Hamburg
and Vienna while this was happening, so there were some anxious text messages
zipping back and forth for a few days!
It became
something of a 'Just In Time' project
, with Jon expected to deliver her at 1am. However, dense fog turned this
into a 2.30am delivery as poor Jon and his chase-driver had to do most
of the journey at about 40mph.
Friday
Granted that
I managed to carry a Porsche roof as hold luggage[1],
I suspected that Germanwings might get object if I tried to check-in an
entire car. I thus had to drive across Belgium one last time ...
[1]
The Targa roof on my 911SC-993 was in rather tatty condition, so I found
a company in the States who did a fibreglass replacement. The roof was
$500, but having it shipped to the UK was getting close to doubling the
cost. I thus took advantage of a business trip to NY to have the roof
surface-shipped to my hotel and brought it back with me as hold luggage.
BA charged me the grand sum of $4 to top up the Warsaw Convention coverage
to the full replacement value (in case it was lost or damaged), and the
very nice Customs & Excise man in the red channel at Heathrow told
me that there would be nothing to pay for importing it. :-)
Often, one-way
ferry tickets are very expensive,
but SeaCat had a good deal on. I got there just in time for the 2pm crossing,
and took a quick photo of what I expect to be her last time in the UK:
Much
as I dislike driving across Belgium,
it did feel good to be back behind the wheel of a car again after a fair
break. I only had my 911 for a day before she went off to Jon for fettling,
and then on to a paintshop for rust-removal and a full respray, so this
was my first time driving since my last Ring trip.
Although
I was rather less keen when I hit the Brussels rush-hour:
En-route
I had various text messages from Euan. First he was feeling ill
so was going to bed. Then Karl was going to kill him if he didn't go to
Sabine's. Then Sabine's was closed so they were in the Lindenhof.
Birgit
called to say that she had checked us in to the Dorint
and the room was excellent. And indeed it was, with a balcony overlooking
the GP circuit.
After
eating, Euan called Sabine
and found that she was in a club next door to the Dorint. Coincidentally,
he wanted us to go there immediately. On arrival, we found that they had
a weird German system of buying a card for your drinks in advance, which
required you to guess how much you might want to spend and then get a
refund on any unused part of it:
The
club itself had live music,
but aside from that looked exactly like a 1970s school disco, right down
to the average age of the clientele and the fact that everyone was standing
around looking at each other rather than dancing ...
Saturday
We
had a 'Deluxe' room,
which turned out to mean a balcony over the track:
The
view was excellent:
The
TV channels also included several CCTV camera views of the track:
I
wanted to call room service to order a Grand Prix, but Birgit
thought they probably didn't keep them in stock. The rest of the hotel
was also suitably motorsport-themed:
Including
this moving model of an engine
that I need in my living-room - anyone got a glass-cutter on them?
Between
11am and 1pm, there was a rally stage on the Nordschleife
- running backwards. Despite the fact that the Dorint is totally motorsport
themed, and right at the trackside, nobody could tell us whether the rally
stage included the GP track. I also texted Karl to see if he knew - he
eventually replied eight and a half hours later. As we could see lots
of cars arriving, we decided to wait until 11am to see.
We
were treated to a little entertainment on the GP track when a
car came on, headed for the pit-lane then changed his mind and found himself
on the starting-grid, wondering what he was doing there:
To
add to the fun, over 400 people could watch him
on the Dorint's track-cam:
When
we saw the first rally cars appear on the Nordschleife, we made
our way round to Brunnchen to spectate:
Click
here for a video-clip (WMV, 10 seconds, 331k)
(The
video clips are shot with my little digital
camcorder. The quality is best described as basic, but it at
least gives a general idea. The big advantage for me is that I can load
the video directly from the SD card onto my laptop and thus include digitised
video in trip reports as easily as still pics.)
It
was fun seeing cars going the 'wrong' way around, but it was
***ing freezing standing out there, so we retired to the warmth of the
944:
After
that, it was off to treat my DRT
to what would turn out to be her first and last car-wash in my ownership:
The
reason this would be the last car-wash
is that the removeable targa sun-roof turned out to be about as water-tight
as a Ringer's excuse for upgrading their car. We spent several minutes
mopping up all the water from the interior.
We
also had to buy her one essential upgrade,
fitted just beneath the rear spoiler:
Johan
was also there in a DRT, though his was acquired only for the
weekend:
Finally,
at around 2.30pm, the Ring opened. We headed straight out onto
a moderately-crowded track which seemed to mainly comprise genuine tourists.
I think the rally stage attracted spectators to the area who then then
decided to do a lap themselves.
Everyone
else was also taking it easy,
perhaps mindful of a marshall's warning that too many people were expecting
their tyres to behave like they did in the summer, forgetting that the
track temperature - and thus tyre heat - is rather cooler in November!
First
impressions of the 944 were extremely good.
Although closer in power to the Golf than the 968, it had the stability
and solidity of the 968. She also didn't have the degree of rattles and
squeaks I'd grown used to in the Golf.
On
the downside, the brakes didn't have great feel
(though they would lock the wheels readily enough - no ABS, of course),
and the rear shocks were clearly in need of replacement. The rear end
got very worrying indeed over the Quiddlebacher-Hohe crest. That didn't
particularly concern me as I planned to ask Ring-Racing to fit their 944
Nordshleife suspension anyway.
Of
course, turning an old car into a DRT is likely to involve some teething
problems. Tor-Helge told us there was something leaking from
the car, so I pulled over beyond the cones to take a look. There was nothing
visible, so I figured it was probably just more water from the car-wash
making its way out.
However,
stopping to check things after the 3rd lap revealed a coolant
leak. We thus made our pilgramage to Ring-Racing. Can there be any DRT
that hasn't been seen here?
Meino
topped up the coolant and ran the engine to enable us to see
where the leak was, and it turned out the be the overflow pipe. But as
it was overflowing regardless of water-level, this was disagnosed as a
blown head-gasket. He didn't have one in stock, couldn't get one until
Monday and couldn't have the work done before Wednesday, so that was the
end of our 944 fun for this weekend.
We
told him he needn't rush to have it done by Weds
as I would next be back at Easter ...
I
wasn't too surprised.
An older car, which has probably not been driven properly for years, is
bound to get a bit of a shock when she is introduced to the Ring. I felt
it was more a question of when and what would break, rather than if. The
only disappointment was that it wasn't something that could be fixed right
away.
I
can't remember a visit to RR when we don't spot at least one familiar
car,
and this visit it was Bren's Westfield:
It's
times like these that you feel very grateful indeed
that you have a Plan B. Or, in our case, a Plan C: the C-Car. Meino retrieved
it, we transferred our things and headed back to the track in the trusty
Golf. Meino urged me to try not to break that one, and I assured him that
I have a strict policy of never breaking more than one car a day.
This
was my first time in the C-Car since the new suspension was installed.
All I can say is 'Wow!'. In fact, I'll say it again: wow! I couldn't believe
how much it had transformed the car.
Keith
had been experimenting with the settings, and had put them almost
to the most extreme, and those worked very well indeed. The understeer
had been dramatically reduced, the body-roll likewise, and I even had
the rear of the car nudging slightly out in a few bends. All-in-all, it
was hard to believe this was a FWD car.
The
marshalls were in a good mood.
We got back to the barrier just after the track should have closed, and
saw the red light was on. I decided to drive up to the barriers in an
optimistic fashion, and the red light went off again! We thus got in one
last lap of the day. :-)
Finally
it was time to park the C-Car.
We'd put the 944 in the Dorint's underground garage, but figured the C-Car
should be safe enough in the very scenic outdoor car-park across the road:
As
the track closes early at this time of year,
we had some time to spare before dinner. We thus took advantage of the
Dorint's swimming-pool, complete with waterfall and jaccuzi:
A
stay here would be wasted in the summer,
when all we do is have a quick wash between track and dinner, but I could
definitely see us going for this option again in the winter!
Oh,
and there was a trackday on the GP circuit,
so we got to put our trackside view to some good:
Click
here for a video-clip (WMV, 14 seconds, 416k)
With
the freezing temperatures outside,
we thought a real fire would be just the thing in our room. Fortunately
we didn't have to set fire to the bathrobes as Birgit had bought a DVD
with a choice of three real fires. With the radiators turned up and the
DVD playing, it was quite a convincing illusion.
Then
it was time to head to the Pistenklause for dinner. I'd texted
Euan earlier, and left it to him to pass the word.
Euan
had previously texted Guido to declare his love.
He had no memory of doing so, which fact may be in some small way related
to the fact that the declaration coincided with a Ringers beer and peanut
evening. Somehow he managed it again, and shortly afterwards Guido arrived.
We told Euan to let him down gently:
Tor-Helge
had also been declaring his love via text,
this time to Euan regarding a baker in Adenau:
Karl
had been to a festival earlier
so was having a night in. Euan decided to save himself £20 by making
the call before midnight:
While
Guido was there, plans for Sylvester
(New Year's Eve) at the Ring were firmed-up. Guido told Euan that he was
being held responsible for people turning up otherwise he would be speaking
with a high-pitched voice next year.
Sabine
was apparently at a beer festival in the Nurburg community hall,
so Euan naturally had to go investigate. We knew that 'just one beer'
wouldn't be, so took our leave.
Sunday
Sunday
morning was sunny but extremely cold:
Heading
down for breakfast, we saw the ultimate in antique bikes:
We
decided to wait in the warmth of the hotel until we started seeing
cars out on the track. At about 11am, we saw four buses go out! One had
apparantly already frightened himself by T13 as he pulled over to let
the others past before continuing on behind them!
JW
texted us to say the track was still closed
and to tell us about the buses. I said we'd just watched them and asked
whether he had heard anything about when the track might open. He hadn't,
but said he'd let us know.
As
it was Birgit's father's birthday,
we took a rather shadowy pic of ourselves on the balcony so we could turn
it into an emailed birthday card:
The
track eventually opened at around noon. The marshalls were warning
each driver at the barriers that there was still ice on the track, it
was extremely slippery and we were to be very careful. We thus set off
on an extremely slow-paced sighting lap.
The
marshall wasn't exaggerating!
It was ridiculously slippery, with patches of ice as advertised and many
more wet sections. Despite going round at a snail's pace, only one car
overtook us in the whole lap. It seemed people were listening to the marshalls.
Conditions
were so treacherous
that I decided to wait for at least the ice to melt, and for the track
to dry somewhat. Karl had done half a lap and reached exactly the same
conclusion. He said he'd been out walking the dog earlier and had seen
the marshalls shovelling salt onto the track at Kallenhard! The three
of us decided to hang around in the car-park chatting.
We
also went for a quick walk around, and spotted this lovely M1
- later spotted navigating the track at a very respectable pace.
We
then decided to do some spectating at Brunnchen:
I
fully expected the track to close at any minute
given the conditions, but even at Brunnchen 2, which was especially slippery,
we only saw a couple of minor slides. The standard of driving was extremely
mature.
Birgit
decided to try her hand at my much-neglected digital SLR:
Karl
was the only car we recognised
so we didn't keep the rest - they were really just camera practice.
Euan
called, but it was hard to hear him over the engine-noise. I
was about to explain that it was difficult to hear him as I was at Brunnchen
2 when I made out the phrase '20 yards to your right'. I looked up and
there he was! It seemed that several Ringers had decided discretion was
the better part of valour on such a morning.
I
again shot a few video clips.
The solid-state camcorder was perfect for the task, enabling me to shoot
lots of footage and then immediately delete anything we didn't want to
keep. One clip included Karl, who'd apparently decided conditions were
good enough to venture out again:
Click
here for a video-clip (WMV, 18 seconds, 550k)
I
got a text from Keith telling me his clutch had gone
on a trackday at Dijon and could he call me for a chat about it? I replied
saying sure, and we then compared notes on the symptoms as I'd had a couple
of clutch problems with my 968. It did sound like it was the clutch itself
rather than the hydraulics, but as it was noisy and rough rather than
totally failed he decided to try to nurse it back home. Having attempted
the same thing from the Ring, I advised him to change gear as little as
possible.
We
then walked a little further up to Eiskurve.
Birgit took more pics on the SLR while I shot more video:
Click
here for a video-clip (WMV, 10 seconds, 435k)
I
texted Karl to tell him to come out if he wanted pics and vid
at Eiskurve, but he didn't come past until we left about 20 minutes later.
He eventually replied to the text at 7.20pm to ask whether we were still
there waiting.
As
things seemed to have dried out pretty well, we headed back to
the track to do some more laps. Things were now pretty dry, with only
a few remaining slippery patches.
A
black Polo tooted us at the barriers
and we saw it was Christer! He was just dropping in for one lap in his
hire car. We followed him round, which was most amusing. A 1.2-litre engine
and the skinniest tyres you ever saw made for a very slow lap ...
Someone
asked me if I would take him for a passenger lap.
He'd only done about 20 laps, and last time he was here he'd written off
his car. However, we'd just got him buckled in and were pulling out of
the car-park when Birgit gestured for us to pull over. "I think you
should take a look at this tyre." I was puzzled as I'd had a quick
look earlier and they seemed ok.
The
tyre in question also looked ok now.
We rolled the car forward a bit. It still looked ok. Then we rolled it
forward a bit more. Ah:
Another
trip to Ring Racing.
Our replacement street tyres hadn't yet arrived, and the other set looked
decidedly worn. I didn't think they would last two days, and the lack
of tread wasn't going to be ideal in possibly wet conditions. We thus
put on the new R-tyres.
Thus
it was now the C-Car's turn
for that all-too-familiar sight:
(The
purple colour actually shows up in this light - usually the car just looks
black.)
We
optimistically headed back to the track
at 4.24pm, but it was closed. We thus consoled ourselves with another
trip to the pool and the jacuzzi ...
Keith
texted to say he'd made it back to Germany and was heading to
Kaul & Will to swap the car for their Diesel Smart loaner.
A
bit more lazing, dinner at the Dorint:
En-route
to the lift back to our room,
we could see that we wouldn't have far to go to the RMA trackday briefing
in the morning:
Monday
I noticed
for the first time that the safe had a power socket
inside the door. This is excellent - although some people apparently use
hotel safes to store strange things like passports, plane tickets, jewellery
and cash, everyone knows that their real purpose is to protect gadgets.
This way you can charge them while you store them.
Despite the
8.45am 'you will not be late or you will not drive' briefing,
it was a civilised business. Take the nearest lift directly to the conference
centre. Room to briefing room time, approximately 54 seconds.
The briefing
was pretty well done,
with some stuff to scare people at the start, a plea to be sensible as
future RMA bookings were dependent on a lack of crashes and a few brief
words about the track. The latter could use a little work, but did a good
job at making the point that this is a track where care is required.
What was especially
impressive was
the emphasis given to the 'overtake only on the left' rule. We were advised
that overtaking on the right would mean an immediate ban. They also had
a sensible system for black-flagging drivers: anyone reported for lairy
driving would be given a warning. Three reports about the same driver
was an instant ban.
The briefing
also explained the excellent marshalling system:
there were five safety cars circulating at all times, doing around a 15-minute
lap pace. That meant that on average a safety car was going to arrive
at any incident within three minutes. The first safety car to arrive would
flag the incident, while the second would deal with it. Where a tow was
required, the second safety car would provide the tow while the first
would drive a little way behind with a flag hanging out of the window.
The system
worked very well indeed.
On the two occasions I saw broken-down vehicles, it was under tow on the
next lap and off the circuit by the following one.
RMA had also
arranged for a full recovery truck to be present,
as well as the usual ambulances and doctor.
The checkpoint
at the start was thorough,
with marshalls checking that both driver and passenger had a wristband,
and that all car stickers were present:
Cars were
labelled according to the driver's experience.
Novices were those with less than 20 laps; intermediates with 20-50 laps
and the embarrassingly-labelled 'Ringmeister' stickers for those with
more than 50 laps experience. One or two hundred laps might have been
a bit more realistic for the experienced category, but the principle was
a good one, and the novice and intermediate stickers gave useful warning
that the driver might do something unexpected.
We had to
get a bit creative with our stickers
as it depended whether Birgit or I was driving:
None of the
stickers stuck very well to our filthy car. One of the marshalls
suggested that we wash it, and I had to explain that this would worry
the car as it was only washed when being bought or put up for sale. We
later swapped the arrow for some RR-supplied tape to cross out the sticker
not in use. The number stickers were ok as they went over the top of the
race stickers:
The first
two laps were 'no overtaking'.
This was a good idea, enabling newbies to see what they were facing, and
forcing everyone to do a couple of sighting laps. The only drawback was
being forced to go so slow that there was no opportunity to get a sense
of the level of grip available - with so many cars bunching up, holding
back to create a bit of space ahead wasn't a very practical option.
Disappointingly,
there were no flying laps.
The normal tourist entrance was used, and cars had to pull in to pass
through the checkpoint each lap. The reason given was that this was the
only opportunity to communicate with drivers in the event of problems,
but I felt that red and black flags could have been used instead.
The track
was noticeably drier than yesterday, though there were still
some very damp sections, and the S-bend between Kallenhard and Miss-Hit-Miss
remained soaking wet all day. Mostly, though, the track dried well as
the day went on.
The track
was very empty all day. There were only 90 cars registered, and
I would say that only about a third of them were out on the track at any
one time. A few of us were doing non-stop laps, most were doing a few
laps and then taking a break, and many looked like they were doing only
the occasional lap between long stints in the car-park. We were doing
lap after lap with scarcely a glimpse of another car. :-)
Birgit took
full advantage of this to get in some laps.
In fact I had trouble prising her from the driver's seat:
Cars on private
trackdays don't have to be road-legal, and RMA days can usually
be counted on for some tasty machinery.
The only thing
I didn't see was any single-seater race cars - RMA had even agreed
with the police that cars could go to the petrol station and back on slicks.
When RR changed
the tyres the previous day,
they told us the front pads were almost finished and we should come back
at Monday lunchtime to change them. We thus headed up to do that. They
didn't have any suitable race pads in stock, so we had to fit street ones.
You could really feel the difference!
We had spotted
some old slicks on Saturday, and thought that a pile of three
of them with a glass sheet on top would make a good table to go with our
968 chairs. We asked if they were being thrown away. Yes they were. Could
we have some? Sure - they had to pay to dispose of them, so we could have
as many as we wanted. Which only left the problem of getting them back
to the UK as I was flying home.
I texted Euan
and asked whether he could take them.
This turned out the be perfectly timed as he was just leaving for home,
so two minutes later he arrived to collect them. He asked what they were
from, and Meino said they were from a DTM BMW.
We needed
petrol towards the end of the day. Euan had earlier mentioned
that Mike Oliver's Lotus book was on sale at the petrol station. I took
a pic of the shelf and his book as we thought he'd be pleased to see it
there:
Keith texted
us to say he was there, and when we got back from the petrol
station we saw his loan Smart Diesel from Kaul & Will:
Unfortunately
the sun was so low in the sky by that time, it was almost impossible
to see on many parts of the track. At Pflanzgarten 3 especially, you were
almost reduced to driving on memory. I thus decided against any further
laps, and there were no obvious candidates for other pax laps as most
people seemed to have reached the same conclusion.
RMA had laid
on a professional photographer
with a Nikon digital SLR, so we went to see if he'd got any of Birgit
driving. He had, so we bought a print and - for €5 extra - got him
to copy it onto my Compact Flash card from the Ixus:
Keith then
headed off to Brunnchen to see if there was anything left to
spectate, while we called it a a day and headed for the pool. There was
a lovely sky to end the day:
Finally an
early dinner and early night ready for the final day of our four-day
Ring extravaganza.
Tuesday
Ah well -
after being so lucky with the weather for three days,
we couldn't really expect a fourth. At 9am the view from our room looked
like this:
When the view
looked identical at 10am and 11am,
we were pretty much resigned to the track staying closed all day. However,
I decided that I wouldn't mind a couple of farewell laps, even at 30mph,
so rang the clerk of the course to ask if they would open at all if the
fog didn't lift. He told me he was out in a safety car at the moment doing
a lap, and that it was too icy at the moment but the track temp had increased
two degrees in the last hour. If the ice melted, they would open.
About half
an hour later,
we heard the sound of an engine through the fog. I called him again to
ask whether that was an open track I could hear. He confirmed that it
was, and asked me to pass on the news to anyone else hanging around the
hotel. However, the lounge had cleared and we saw two 911s hurrying out
of the garage, so it seemed word had spread!
We quickly
packed the Merc and checked out,
then headed to the track. Hardly anyone was there, and I wasn't expecting
to get more than a few slow laps in, but large sections of the track were
clear of fog and - amazingly - it was bone dry!
Visibility
ranged from this:
to this:
But look how
dry even Fuchsrohre is!
The original
plan was for me to do a sighting lap or two,
to check the grip and let Birgit see what visibility was like, then to
hand over to her to do some slow laps. But with conditions this good,
I negotiated clearance for four laps and - apart from the cold track causing
the R-tyres to slide around a little - these were truly perfect laps.
About 85% of summer speeds, and hardly another soul out there. Fantastic.
Four laps
later, we swapped drivers so Birgit could play.
On previous trips, her learning curve had been badly affected by not wanting
to do many laps watching her mirrors every second, and a tendency to dive
out of the way at the first sign of even a distant speck behind her. But
out here, with perhaps 10-12 cars on the entire track, she could really
concentrate on her driving.
Ok, I'm biased,
but she did great!
She pretty much had the line down pat anyway from passengering, but was
able to put it into practise effectively. We thus concentrated on learning
to adjust her entry speed to a comfortable level so that she could apply
positive power through the bends.
For the first
lap, I was talking her through gears, braking points and turn-in points,
as well as reminding her to be on the gas through the bends. By the 4th
lap, I had so little to say I could spend the time taking photographs
instead.
Visibility
was deteriorating somewhat,
but was still good enough for R-tyres on cold tarmac, and there was something
quite magical about the way the Ring emerged from the fog:
By 3pm, we
decided it was time to be on our way
as we had to stop off at Ring Racing to return the C-Car, do the logsheet
and then go through the work needed on the 944. This included replacing
the head gasket, fixing the non-functioning electric windows, replacing
a stuck tyre-valve, installing a cage, fitting 6-point harnesses and at
least quoting for an H&R 'Nordschleife' suspension. We left Birgit's
number so that he could raise any queries in German!
We also discovered
one other benefit to a DRT:
we didn't have to keep transporting our helmets back and forth in the
Merc.
Birgit delivered
me to Köln/Bonn airport,
and one advantage of a weekday journey is that the lounge is still open,
giving me a comfortable place to finish the trip report:
And that ended
our final Ring trip of the year. Well,
actually, our final driving trip of the year: we thought Tor-Helge's
idea of Sylvester (New Year's Eve) in Fuchsrohre was too good to miss,
so we are changing our plans so that we can make this. So trip 311/2
will be on 31st December. :-)
Hope to see
some of you there!
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