My last scheduled weekend of the year (note the careful phrasing there ...) and excellent fun despite utter madness on Saturday.

Preparation

At the end of the previous trip, I’d cut short my lapping slightly due to a worrying-sounding noise emanating from the rear of the car, and seeming to focus on the right rear wheel. I suspected this might be a CV joint on the way out or a wheel-bearing. I asked Rolf Kaul to pick it up from Ring Racing and take a look.

Ok course, with the car luck I’ve had this year, it should come as no surprise to discover that it was the wheel bearing … and the clutch. Ho hum.

I asked Rolf to take care of it and drop it back to Ring Racing by Friday. It was a great relief not to have to worry about whether or not this would be done.

A couple of further issues can wait until the winter. The starter motor needs to be replaced as it overheats and won't work when the engine is hot. This was overcome by carefully parking and grabbing a few volunteer push-starters on occasion. :-)

The driver side electric window motor has also gone, but the marshalls were generally in attendance at the barriers to insert my card. Another winter job.

Friday

My week was long and busy, so I wasn’t too disappointed with the prospect of a lay-in on Saturday due to a CHC race in the morning. I decided a lazy start followed by a bit of photography was in order, so I took the D70 with me.

I never can resist a quick peek into Dixons at the airport. Look at this projector!

Drool

We quite often skip dinner on Friday nights as we arrive so late, but with no need to get up in the morning we headed for the Pistenklause to find things in full swing.

I don't quite recall what was going on here, but from the photographic evidence I would conclude that Jeppe was singing the Danish entry for the Eurovision Song Contest to an admiring audience:

I'd phoned Matt a few minutes out to ask him to order two steaks on the stone and a bottle of our usual wine. Trying to relay an order in a noisy Ringers crowd wasn't too successful, so we had to wait at least two minutes before it arrived:

Saturday

With the track scheduled to open at around 2pm, we had a leisurely start to the day. I've just started a diet, and the Schmitz's seemed to have trouble with the concept of me wanting anything other than bacon & eggs for breakfast ...

Given that the Ring car-park was likely to be difficult to get into later, we decided to start by nipping up to Ring Racing to pick up the 944 to drop it into the car-park before doing a spot of CHC spectating.

We found the Kleene brothers working on some tatty old 318. The battle scars from a slight straight-on moment were still visible:

Speaking of which, the C-Car was starting to resemble a car once more, at least at the front:

You may notice a caravan in the background. Jeppe suggested that perhaps some RR customer waiting for their work to be completed has decided to move in and raise kids while they wait.

We had also finally got around to buying the replacement seats. These were locked inside the C-Car in a bid to prevent RR from selling them to someone:

The 944 was sitting outside waiting for us. Birgit wanted to know about the ominous-looking envelope sitting on the transmission tunnel:

So I let her open the bill for a new clutch and wheel bearing:

The old clutch was in the footwell. I figured it was a souvenier I could manage without:

We haven't yet had much done to the G60, but Ring Racing had done a very neat installation on the oil-cooler:

A cage is on order, and hopefully she'll be fully kitted out with cage, seats, harnesses and Koni adjustable suspension by Easter.

As there was still an hour to go before the track opened, we thought some lunch would be sensible, so we gathered a few Ringers together at the Grunne Hoelle.

Birgit's Treo has given up the ghost, so she is on the lookout for a replacement. Jeppe was getting a P900 from his company, so would be selling his P800. Birgit had a play:

Jeppe wasn't sure how much he wanted for it. I pointed out that it was now hopelessly out-dated and offered him 2 Euros for it. He said he needed it at the weekend, so I offered to hire it to him for 10 Euros.

2pm came and went with no sign of the track opening, and I guess you could say that people were quite anxious to begin their Ringing:

These guys had been sat on their bikes in full leathers in the blazing sun for half an hour or more:

Birgy suggested it would be funny if they announced that it was cars only for the first half an hour ...

When the track opened, it took several minutes of queueing to reach the barriers. I had visions of it closing even before we got that far.

Heading out for the first lap of the day, we were impressed to see no crashes despite the crowded track, and everyone seemingly being very sensible.

All this was to change by the second lap! We passed the scenes of no less than five crashes. Everyone seemed to be up and about, and were already being flagged, so I didn't stop at any of them.

One of the crashes was a coming together of a car and bike in Fuchsrohre. I thought the biker was incredibly lucky to be unhurt after that, all the more so when Jeppe told me what happened. He was directly behind it when the biker attempted a very optimistic overtake and went cartwheeling down the side of the track.

The closure was clearly going to take a while.

I did the usual wander aound the car-park, but of course the more times you go, the fewer new things there are to photograph. Still, there are some thing one can never tire of ...

My 944 doesn't quite cut it in the eye-candy stakes against such competition, but hey, she has a kind of purposeful look:

A lot of Brit bikers fit small number plates. It seems this hasn't yet caught on in Germany:

It wasn't fun driving in those conditions, so Birgit decided to go off videoing and I decided to get passenger laps until things had calmed down somewhat.

After Birgit's close encounter of the Evo kind, she decided to put herself a safe distance away from the cars this time:

My first paxlaps were with Matt in the G-Car. The difference between the standard Golf suspension and the Konis we have on the C-Car was pretty dramatic - the car felt very soft indeed. The extra power wasn't as dramatic as you might have expected, but she still pulls well. We did two or three laps and then the track was closed again. It was clearly going to be one of those days.

Photo: Anthony Soete of www.soete.com/ring/

Michael felt he should do what some of the BMW and Scooby drivers seem to do: have the bonnet open to show off the awesome power of his A-Class:

When the track reopened, I decided I might as well take advantage of whatever track time was available, so headed back out in the 944. Matt came along for a paxlap, clearly enjoying the entertainment of the tractor tyres. Al was waiting at the exit when we got back, so we did a quick passenger swap and I went back out for another lap.

The track was still very crowded, and there were quite a few stretches of just having to sit behind a bike until they woke up, but I was still managing to enjoy myself. Despite the tyres, the car felt great.

Photo: Andy Eccles

Kurt had had to return his Smart Coupe to the rental company after they decided to stop offering them. (I wonder if this has anything to do with the unexpectedly high running costs of the models in the Eiffel region?) He had been given a replacement:

There had been some discussion on the Ringers list about what to put in the dashboard vase. Birgit came up with the answer:

The lap was hilarious. The car has no power at all, and wallows around like a ship at sea. It was, though, pleasant to be back in a convertible on such a lovely day.

Photo: JW of www.ringbunny.nl

Approaching AF, I decided that we were obligated to entertain the crowds. I pulled a map of Germany out of the glove compartment and opened it up. As we entered AF, I turned the map upside down and then helpfully pointed right so Kurt knew where he was going. I repeated this performance at Brunnchen. Hopefully someone got a photo.

I had arranged with a 355 Spider driver from Monaco to get a paxlap after the Beetle lap, but it took so long to get back into the car-park that he had already gone.

I was about to get back into the 944 when another closure was announced.

A group of us stood around chatting, waiting for it to reopen, and hoping we might get another 2-3 laps in by the end of the day. This was not to be: half an hour later, they announced that the track would not re-open. I heard later that a Civic had overturned in Fuchsrohre.

As we were sent home early, and the whole town was packed, I decided to see what could be done about booking a table at the Pistenklause. They'd originally said that they were completely full, but abject pleading worked this time and they agreed to find us a table for 12.

Adrian had blagged the B&B garage space for his Seven. It was a bit sad seeing another car where my 968 used to spend its Ring nights:

And then it was time for dinner. Birgit wasn't the only one in the market for a new mobile, so Adrian asked to have a look at my Treo:

It is now mandatory for JW & I to take photos of each other taking photos of each other:

JW also got this shot of me taking a look at Birgit's video footage on my little web-quality solid-state camcorder:

It wasn't long before things started to get a bit blurry:

And after another glass of wine:

Jochen had spent the day photographing, and bought a laptop along so we could see some of his shots. They looked excellent.

He can be seen here pondering whether he would swap a Golf for this:

Jon Myers was pleased to see a shot of his rental 996:

For reasons best known to himself, Matt frequently wears a Scoobynet shirt but is embarrassed to be seen in it. He does his best to avoid it being photographed:

JW managed a shot first:

And then I did too:

Jeppe, Soren and a few others had decided that they were hungry enough for Grillhaxen, so had gone for dinner at the Lindenhof. They joined us later.

As with Friday night, I have no recollection of what this conversation was about (can you spot any kind of pattern here?). But again piecing it together from the photographic evidence, I would guess that JW had just suggested to Soren, Jeppe and Kurt that Coke is better than beer:

I sent Ross a text asking why he wasn't there:

As it was Anders' birthday, I felt we should assemble a choir and go and sing happy birthday to him. Most people knew the song, and those who didn't said they would wander down and make noise. Anders gave a little speech in return, saying that he was old enough to remember when the Ringers list had about a dozen members and had a few messages a day ...

Photo: JW of www.ringbunny.nl

I assured everyone that I would be at the track at 08:30am precisely. Bizarrely, this assertion was met with some scepticism.

Sunday

I only ever reset my watch when travelling, as it's too much hassle to reset every device containing a clock. And every time I get caught out when setting an alarm on my Treo. Still, I woke up anyway at 08:10.

It was wet, so I decided to stretch the 08:30 thing a little, but was still at the track pretty early.

We went straight out for two laps, and it was great! There was a dry line all the way round, and not much traffic until the queue to get back into the car-park.

Photo: JW of www.ringbunny.nl

In the Dottinger-Hohe queue, I texted Karl to ask for my paxlaps. Among other things, I wanted to see what it was like taking the entry to Flugplatz completely flat, as I always did a comfort lift there.

I was again careful to park the 944 up the slope!

The first Karl lap, we had a lot of blind people on the approach, but the second lap demonstrated the point perfectly. Not only was he genuinely flat from Hocheichen, but it felt very undramatic. According to Karl's digital speedo, his speed was variously 9kph, 255kph and zero.

They were two very enjoyable laps. Karl is now very fast indeed, but smooth and safe throughout. On the second, we overtook the ambulance up Kesselchen and then got puzzled as there lights at Karussell weren't on and there was no sign of an accident anywhere.

The mystery was solved as we were flagged down approaching Galgenkopf. A biker was motionless on the grass on the outside of the bend. Although there were plenty of people there, including a safety car, it looked serious enough to stop and see whether we could help.

However, we saw someone had a drip in the rider. I can only assume that the safety car took a doctor or paramedic out. Since my first-aid skills were unlikely to be much use with a medic on scene and plenty of helpers around, we set off again. The track was of course closed as we exited.

Karl and Ed kept us amused with tales of their morning entertainment. The Top Gear crew were there to do a piece on a Jag. Sabine gave Jeremy Clarkson some Ring tuition, and then JC took the wheel. Karl and Ed were waiting at the barriers. As they waved JC past, he might have imagined they were being friendly ...

Karl tells the story best, but the highlight is that, having overtaken him once, they pull off and Breidscheid and wait for him to come past. They then rejoin the track to overtake him again. Karl explained to JC afterwards that he was the guy in the red Golf. JC asked "Which one? There were two." At which point, Karl explained ...

The closure lasted quite a while. The ambulance emerged without lights and in no hurry, with no sign of a helicopter. I'd like to hope that was good news rather than bad ...

Another Birgit had asked for a paxlap, and we finally managed it when the track reopened. The track was now blazing and my tyres felt over-inflated for these temperatures as the back was moving around a lot. However, as it felt controllable (have I mentioned how much I love the new suspension?), I just adjusted the pace to suit and carried on.

I was a bit concerned that it might not be as entertaining from the passenger seat at those speeds, but the other Birgit assured me afterwards that the lap was 'cool as hell'.

A brief return to the car-park to swap Birgits and let some air out of the tyres, and back out we went.

While I was out with Karl, Birgit had gone out for a four-up lap in the Beetle:

Photo: Andy Eccles

That sounded fun, so we jumped in for another:

Jochen had texted to say he was at the Kleiner Karussell, so we made sure we were ready for the photo-opp:

Photo: Jochen of www.nurburgring.be

Another closure, and some brief car-park entertainment with a very rapid pad-change:

Also opposite us, same idea, different implementations ...

We just had time for two last laps, so Michael had the first and Bren was lined up for the second. Unfortunately the red light was on when we got back from the first, so that was that.

Apologies to anyone I didn't say goodbye to, but we didn't want to get caught in the car-park mess just as we had to leave, so I drove straight to RR and Birgit met me there in the Merc.

Arriving back at Stansted, my cab driver was Dave, a biker I first met at the Ring. He'd been very impressed with the C-Car, and four of them formed a syndicate to buy their own Golf GTi. He spent the journey bringing me up to speed.

He'd phoned Safety Devices (the main UK supplier of roll-cages) and told them he wanted a cage for a Golf track car. "No problem, we usually recommend a half-cage for the Golf." They chatted a bit more and Dave said they were taking it to the Ring. The recommendation instantly changed to a full cage with twin diagonals and side-impact bars ...

I normally write most of my trip reports at the airport, but on this occasion was without my Vaio. A crack had appeared in the screen in exactly the same place as last time. Sony took literally weeks to inspect it, and eventually categorised it as impact damage, despite the fact that there had been no impact.

Asked to explain how a crack had appeared in what even they admitted was the identical place as last time, their answer was 'Coincidence'. They refused to allow me to speak to the 'senior engineer' who they claimed had made this diagnosis, and were also unable to explain why a repair costing £272 last time was now costing over £500.

The call-centre staff don't read the notes their colleagues make in the so-called eSupport tool (one of them claiming they couldn't even access it), and the eSupport staff apparently have no access to notes made by the call-centre people. I ended up having quite literally the same conversation four or five times.

Vaios are very cute, and I love having a laptop that small and light, but after suffering such appalling after-sales service, I will look around very carefully next time to see what alternatives exist. I shall also be updating my Vaio webpage ...

Anyway, this is a long-winded way of saying that I couldn't write up this report until I got home and had downloaded some free HTML editing software onto my spare laptop, hence it appearing a little later than usual and with a bit less detail.

I don't have any more Ring weekends booked this year, and really ought to let my finances recover after this season, but we shall see ...