The first weekend of the 2005 season didn't get off to the best of starts ...

Preparation

The preparation ought to have been very simple ... After all, there was all the time in the world to get the car checked and any necessary bits done, and I started the process about six weeks before Easter.

I asked Rolf Kaul to collect the car from Ring Racing to give it a start-of-season check. He did a complete check of the car, including a long test-drive.

He confirmed that the car was fine and driving well, apart from two issues I knew about from last year, but said that it had obviously been left out in the rain with a leaking sunroof seal and then put into RR's hanger while wet as there was mould in the carpets and helmets. However, a lot of drying and cleaning later, all was well.

The two issues I knew about were the starter motor and the driver-side electric window motor. My Porsche specialist in the UK, Jon Mitchell, was going to organise a rebuilt starter-motor and a spare window motor.

The first thing to go wrong was that Jon fell ill and was in and out of hospital. He was still uncontactable in the week leading up to Easter, so getting the parts there wasn't going to happen. But they weren't dramatic issues - the car-park is on a slope, and I can open the door to insert my card ...

The next item to create havoc was the tyres. In Germany, the paperwork that comes with the car specifies every last detail - including the tyres you are allowed to fit. In the case of the 944, two sizes were permitted, and neither offered much of a choice in sticky-ish rubber. Seeking advice on Ringers, it seemed that 205/55R15 was the size to go for.

This should be fine. The two approved widths are 195 and 215, so 205 is between the two, and the 55% ratio means that the rolling diameter is virtually unchanged, meaning the speedo is still fairly accurate. This is, however, Germany.

Rolf Kaul said that only the sizes specified by Porsche at the time of manufacture can be fitted. So I started making enquiries. A local mechanic, Marc of TTE Technic, said he could arrange for a TUV inspector to sort it out.

A TUV inspector is empowered to authorise changes to a car, provided he is satisfied that the change is safe. The TUV inspector issues new paperwork stating that the new tyre size is legal. Better yet, the cost of this is just €40.

But this is Germany. No matter that the rolling diameter is almost the same, it is not exactly the same, and therefore the speedo must be recalibrated for the new tyre size. <Sigh> Still, this turned out to be reasonably-priced, so I told him to go ahead with this, and to order a set of Yokohama A539s. These have gotten excellent reviews, offering a good balance of grip, life and price - and Marc was able to beat the reifendirect price by a few Euros.

So that should have been the prep complete. But no. I get an email from Marc to say there is an oil leak. I said this was surprising given that Rolf had just done a pre-season check and found everything ok, but please let me know what they had found. As I didn't hear anything more, I assumed it was something minor that he had sorted. Silly me.

Thursday

At about 4.30pm, Matt phoned me from Marc's workshop to ask why my 944 was there.

Marc wasn't there, but Matt could see evidence of some kind of leak. And he told me the car was still wearing the old tyres. :-( When Marc arrived, Matt relayed messages back and forth. Marc was saying the steering hose had gone, and that was what was leaking (not oil). He didn't have the part, and he said the car wasn't driveable, which was why he hadn't had the tyre change paperwork done.

So I called Rolf. Doris called me back while I was en-route to Stansted to say Rolf had spoken to Marc and established what was wrong. He said the car was perfectly driveable on the road with the slight hose leak, and if I brought it to him on Friday morning, he would replace the hose straight away.

We'll gloss over getting halfway to the airport before realising I'd left my driving documents at home, including the all-important piece of plastic. Fortunately my regular taxi driver has a Lexus and is not noted for hanging about, so some enjoyable driving saw us there with time to spare.

I was bringing over a couple of helmets so for once had to hang around for hold luggage, which put us in the Pistenklause just before midnight. Some of the usual suspects were there, along with a couple of new faces.

Ok, I may have been taking my anti-flash policy a bit far ...

Christer was trying to sell a seat in the TT to Euan. There was a Pistenclub training session on the GP circuit the next day, so they had arranged for Euan to go with them to that in order to try the car.

Matt had spent most of the day at Marc's workshop, ensuring that the CCar would be ready for the following day. This would turn out to be a little ironic ...

Somehow it got to be 2am, so we said our goodnights and all headed to bed. Except Euan, of course, who merely moved down the bar a bit ...

Friday

Marc's workshop

Matt drove me to Marc's workshop first thing so that I could find out the story first-hand. Marc pointed to a few drops of fluid on a hose on the low-pressure side of the steering hydraulics, and said that the hose was perished. He didn't have a replacement in stock. He also pointed to apparent signs of leakage in the radiator, and to what he said was a wheel bearing that needed replacing.

When I asked why the new tyres hadn't been fitted he said the car wasn't driveable so he hadn't been able to take it to the TUV inspector.

It all sounded like that would mean no 944 for the weekend, but Rolf had said driving the car to Rheinbach would not be a problem, so at least I could get the car to him. As I didn't expect to be coming back in it, Birgit convoyed there with me in the Merc.

Rolf's workshop

The news at Rolf's workshop was rather different! The leak in the hose was a tiny hole near the end of it. He just cut off the section with the hole, checked that the rest of the hose was fine and then refitted it, shortening the routing at the same time, before refilling the fluid. That took only a few minutes.

We were puzzled by the idea of a coolant leak since the coolant level had not dropped in six months of standing, and putting the car straight onto the ramp after driving it there, with the engine still hot, it was bone-dry.

Straight onto the ramp on arrival at Rolf Kaul's workshop

So no leakage when hot and obviously nothing measurable when cold. Rolf said it was possible that a few drops could leak when cold, but absolutely nothing when the engine is running. He put some radweld into the coolant system to be sure. Another quick job.

The wheel bearing turned out to be new, and simply needed a minor adjustment.

An extremely reasonable bill later, we were on our way back to the Ring in a track-ready 944 - albeit still on agricultural tyres.

Comparing notes with a fellow Ringer who uses Marc, we concluded that Marc's background with Manthey Racing gave him an approach to working on cars where any faulty part, however trivial, is replaced with a brand new one. This is not necessarily the most appropriate approach for a cheap DRT: so long as the car is safe and drives well, I'm happy.

The Ring

Arriving back at the Ring, I ran into Phil Gardiner and Andy on the way to renew my card. Phil was there for the first time since his brother's accident. We chatted for a bit about how long-time Ringers tend to go through a kind of bell-curve with speeds ...

When you first start going to the Ring, you are of course slow. As you get to know the track, you get faster. The more experience you get, the faster you tend to be. No surprise there.

But then you start to see more and more accidents, and you also tend to know some of those involved. So then you conclude that getting faster and faster can only have one ending, and you drop back the pace to a more relaxed level - the other side of the bell-curve. Hence the reason that many of us decide that a modestly-powered DRT is perfectly good enough to have fun.

Card renewed, we jumped into the car, bump-started it down the slope and got as far as the bottom of the car-park before the all-too-familiar 'Achtung!' from the PA system. We parked up again.

Fortunately, the closure was brief and we then got out for a very wet and slippery lap. It was my first lap of the season; there had been several changes to the track since last year; and it was wet. I was absolutely doing wet sighting-lap speeds, and yet the car was sliding around in all sorts of places. A gentle fishtail in Mutkurve while doing an extremely modest speed brought home the fact that a wet track and agricultural tyres is not a great combination. I backed off some more.

Brunnchen had incredible crowds. I didn't know that many people even lived in the area. I drew the obvious conclusion and slowed some more. Yep, it was very slippery, especially the infamous exit of Brunnchen 2. Another slide at Eiskuve and I decided the whole thing was pointless. I cruised back to the car-park and we went for lunch.

I texted Karl to demand passenger laps. He was, as ever, 'valking ze dog'. Birgit decided to go videoing at Bergwerk while I went in search of a passenger lap in a car with real tyres.

The crash

I spotted Matt about to head out so asked him to wait past the barrier while I grabbed my lid.

Amazingly, there was now a dry line the whole way round. I decided to do one more paxlap with him and then head out in the 944. This was not to be ...

I suffered some memory loss after the crash, and am still a little fuzzy on a few details, but comparing notes with Matt, what appeared to happen was this:

The track still had a dry line, but it began raining as we braked for Metzgesfeld (or Mattzgesfeld, as it is now known ...). In a flashback to an interesting Schwedenkreuz moment I once had, the track seemingly went from dry to wet in a matter of moments. Matt lost the back shortly before the apex, and we began slowly rotating as we slid sideways across the track and onto the grass. We were travelling at roughly a 40-degree angle to the armco.

Matt says he braked more than usual, seeing a few spots of rain, so we were probably doing about 60mph as we entered the bend. We lost some speed sliding across the wet track, but once we were on the wet grass we simply didn't slow at all. I'll have to suggest to Nurburgring GmbH that they grow Xbox grass in future.

One slightly puzzling thing is that I have quite a clear memory of looking at the rapidly-approaching armco over my left shoulder but it seems we impacted on the right rear. Perhaps the rear wheels caught very slightly and started turning us the other way.

What I do remember very clearly is the thought 'This is going to be a big impact'. I also remember trying to press my head back against the rest and bringing my hand into my lap away from the door.

I don't remember the actual impact, or the immediate aftermath. Matt tells me that after the car hit at the rear, it then pivoted around and we hit again at the front. However, from the much lesser damage to the front and the lack of any belt bruising, the rear impact must have taken almost all the force, giving only a gentle forward tap afterwards.

The main impact

The secondary impact

We think the first rear-sideways impact meant that my head hit the upper rollcage bar. I hate to think what that might have been like had I not been wearing a helmet - I'm not totally convinced I'd be around to write this trip report. As it is, even through the helmet, it left me quite dazed for a little while.

It didn't feel long to me before a safety car, medical car and ambulance arrived. By that time, I just felt a little dizzy, with a headache and a slightly sore neck, but it didn't feel like anything serious was wrong. Nonetheless, they put me on a stretcher-trolley, fitted a 'stiff neck' collar and me wheeled into the ambulance to be taken to the Adenau Krankenhaus.

Soren kindly offered to call Birgit, but I didn't want her getting a call from someone else telling her I was in an ambulance, so said I would call her myself. I gave her a quick call en-route to the hospital to say that I was fine but had to go in for a few checks.

The hospital

The doctor in charge at the hospital spoke excellent English, and turned out to have spent a year at Basildon hospital - about five miles from my home. Small world. He said that they would need to take xrays of my head and neck, and that they would need to keep me in for observation. When he learned I was on warfarin (to thin my blood, due to a history of DVT), he said that as this increased the risk of bleeding in my brain, they would need to keep me for 48 hours. I decided to leave that argument until later ...

Birgit got to the hospital at about the same time I did. Johannes, who was passengering with Soren, had jumped into the ambulance in case translations were needed, and Soren followed. Matt arrived shortly afterwards, I think?

They took about six or seven xrays of my head and neck. They had problems with a couple of the xrays, and had to retake them. Probably the difficulty of trying to find anything substantial inside the head of a Ringer.

I didn't feel concerned. I had a complete memory of everything up to about a minute prior to the crash, and of everything from what I'm told was about 30 seconds afterwards. The headache was not a bad one, more like a dull pain with occasional spikes, so I didn't feel that there was likely to be anything significantly wrong - it was just a bit frustrating not to remember what happened.

Birgit had fetched my papers, and it turned out my E111 was all they needed, so there was no claim on my travel insurance. They needed to keep it, so I need to remember to pick up another one.

The Ringers grapevine was in full flow, with texts flying back and forth. It brought home what a great community we have, with seemingly half the list checking up on me.

Since Karl had failed to turn up to give me a paxlap, and it was therefore essentially his fault, I demanded that he come to the hospital to help entertain me. He brought Ross with him, which made the diagnosis more difficult - how much of my headache was due to the accident and how much was just the usual effect of being in the same room as Ross?

Karl cheered up Matt by observing that he'd done two laps before Matt and then decided only an idiot would continue driving in those conditions ...

I advised Matt that I wouldn't sue for punting me into the armco, but would have to sue for subjecting me to the boredom of a hospital stay.

Sitting with Birgit after the others had left, the headache was clearly receding. Within another hour or so, I suddenly had a bit more memory of the crash. Not a continuous memory, more flashes of bits and pieces, but it was very encouraging. The doctor had told me that if the memory did return, it would probably do so sooner rather than later, and the earlier it started to return, the more complete it was likely to be.

My hospital dinner arrived. Bread, chesse and pilchards. This was not quite what I'd had in mind for dinner that evening ...

Excuse me? This does not appear to be Steak am Stein

Birgit left me with all mod cons: laptop, iPod, charger and, er, a small bottle of wine. :-) When they came to put a drip in my arm, I was looking at the drip and the wine bottle and trying to figure out how to interface the two.

Both Karl and Ross kindly texted me later to tell me the beer was good.

I was getting more memory back all the time, still coming in little flashes rather than a continuous scene, but still a very good sign.

The night nurse came to introduce herself and to apologise for the fact that she did not speak much English. This is something all Germans claim, and was patently untrue. I assured her that her English was much better than my German. She said she wasn't sure about that. I demonstrated my German, and that appeared to settle matters.

Technically, I was supposed to stay in bed and call for a nurse if I needed to get up, but I make a lousy patient. They'd put a drip in my arm, hung from a non-mobile stand, but I have prior experience of such things. The bathroom was all of four steps, and there were towel hooks next to the sink ...

Did I mention that I make a terrible patient?

Saturday

I woke up suddenly just after 3am with an almost total memory of the crash. I still didn't recall the actual impact, and a few details are still a bit fuzzy, but I could pretty much remember the whole thing up to bracing for impact. I was very happy to get back my little bit of lost memory, and I found it hard to get back to sleep. I did eventually manage it.

When I woke again at 7am, there was no pain and the only missing memory is the actual impact plus a very short time afterwards. I didn't see any reason to occupy a hospital bed any longer, especially when the weather was dry:

I got washed, dressed and packed so that I could present the doctor with a fait accompli when he arrived at around 8.30am. I left someone in bed in my place:

Sitting on the bed writing my trip report, I was told off by the nurse, who said I shouldn't be working. I figured there was no short explanation of what I was actually doing.

I was planning on breakfast at my B&B, but the morning nurse was rather fierce and insisted I eat the hospital breakfast. I dutifully ate my cheese and bread - breakfast being pretty much identical to last night's dinner.

Kees texted me to find out how I was. When I told him I was planning my escape, he suggested it might be an idea not to tell the doctor I was headed straight for the Ring. Good point. I decided it was pretty much true that I was planning on taking a gentle stroll through the woods - having no desire for more hospital food, I fully intended to spend the rest of the weekend just cruising round gently.

The doctor hadn't arrived by 9am, so I asked the nurse if she could expediate things. This was all part of a cunning plan: if you can convince the nurses you'll be trouble if they hang onto you, this makes it more likely they will endorse a decision to release you ... The reason for my desire for an immediate escape was this:

The doctor duly arrived, said he recommended I stay for 48 hours but didn't think there was a problem if I discharged myself this morning, so long as I signed a 'Don't blame us' letter and promised to come straight back if I had any further symptoms.

While waiting for one final blood-test and my discharge letter, I discovered that this at the end of the corridor - can you imagine it in a UK hospital?

One final reminder to return imediately if anything happened, and we were off. Breakfast for Birgit first, then off to the Ring.

I did a couple of laps, but the grip from the tractor tyres on the cold and damp track was really poor, so I decided to expediate the tyre-changing process. New tyres first, paperwork later. Marc already had the tyres, so we drove there to get them fitted.

While there, we saw a very ex-Elise. Although the windscreen looked very scary, there were no marks on the top of the rollbar, so I think it didn't actually roll - I suspect the windscreen and door were cut to get people out after the doors jammed.

It's a legal requirement in Germany for every workshop to have a large dog for the customers to stroke, and Marc's workshop is fully compliant:

Marc suggested that we start with cold temps 0.2 bar lower than recommended, do a lap and see how it felt. So we headed back to the Ring to try them out.

Strangely, I felt more nervous than if I'd crashed myself. The 944 is very balanced, but is setup for slight oversteer. Normally, this feels great, but every time the back moved out a little, I felt like it was about to go completely, so wasn't enjoying it.

I decided to reduce the rear pressures a bit to give the rear more grip, so we pulled off at Breidscheid after 1.5 laps. The pressure gauge seemed to have vanished from the car, so I went to the local Aral. I let 0.2 bar out of the rears and then were just turning back into the Breidscheif entrance when a fire-engine came up with lights and siren and headed onto the track. That will be a closure, then.

The reason for the fire-engine turned out to have been a Golf catching fire at the Karussell. JW was perfectly positioned to capture the action - including what must be the photo of the weekend:

Photo: JW

I also rather liked this one:

Photo: JW

JW has a whole sequence of photos of the sad end to the Golf's days - I'll link to his trip report when it's online.

Since the track was likely to be closed for some time, we decided to go take a look at the CCar at Ring Racing. Unfortunately, even someone with my famed mechanical aptitude could see that the car was definitely a write-off.

The main impact was the right-rear of the car. You can already see from this shot just how far the crumpling went - all the way to the passenger door:

Close-up views shows the depth of the crumpling:

The first sign that the chassis is bent is the passenger door gap. Or, rather, the lack of one:

Inside the boot, you can see the floor is badly bent:

And the passenger door-sill makes the story complete:

The secondary impact at the front is quite minor in comparison:

Birgit used her digital camcorder to recreate the armco-eye view of the crash:

Click here for 06-armcoeyeview.mpg (1.7Mb, 8 seconds)

Given the obvious severity of the impact, I reckon the car did a good job of absorbing the forces. Matt was completely unhurt, and I think it was only bad luck that I was - the sideways component of the impact knocking my head against the upper bar of the rollcage. Had it not been for that bump, there would have been no harm done at all to us.

I wanted Matt to know that I didn't have any concerns about his driving, so I suggested I go for a paxlap in his BMW 1er rental car. I ensured that I had a look of supreme confidence on my face as we headed out:

Photo: Niek

I don't think Matt has ever been so slow around Metzgesfeld. :-)

The track was greasy, and rain spotted on and off throughout the day. For some mysterious reason, I wasn't keen on driving in mixed wet and dry conditions ... I decided to stick to socialising in the car-park, with a few passenger laps.

A large group of us were chatting during a closure. Niek was taking piss out of someone's crash record, until I think it was Job who asked 'You are talking?'. I then asked if anyone in our group of a dozen or so people had not crashed. Silence.

We went to Lindenhof for dinner, just by way of a change:

Of course, no Ringers dinner is complete without a gadget or two - in this case, JW with the outputs from his datalogger:

He followed this with a slide-show of his photos of the day - excellent as always. Which is more than can be said for the photo of the photo ...

Job was showing the new team slogan, on the sleeve of his polo shirt:

Euan and Jocke demonstrated their dancing skills, while Matt looked on admiringly:

Then disaster struck! You might imagine that the dangers of the day would be over once safely seated in a restaurant, but no. Never before had Nurburg witnessed such a serious accident: the Lindenhof had run out of weissbier!!! I don't usually include photos of serious accidents, but I am making an exception in this case:

Fortunately they managed to get some more about 10 minutes later. If anyone hears of a break-in that night to the beer warehouse round the corner, that'll be the reason.

We watched a few of Birgy's videos on the camcorder:

I left at 2.30am.

Sunday

Thick fog and the track firmly closed. Since there was nothing else to do, I decided to transfer some pics to my laptop and write a bit more of the trip-report, while Birgy looked at some of her videos on her laptop. JW arrived with his laptop, then Matt went to get his so that they could transfer some mp3 files. Euan decided that he should join in. This soon turned into a full-on gadget-fest:

I forget exactly why we decided to establish a wifi network between four of the laptops. It was something to do with some mp3 files going from Matt's iPod via firewire to Birgit's laptop, by wifi to JW's laptop and then via USB2 to JW's X-Drive. Or something.

During the setting up of this network, Matt asked JW "Can you ping Birgit?". I suggested it would be polite to ask first ...

Matt had arranged for Ed to call us when the track opened. Birgit said she was surprised the track still hadn't opened, as the fog was clearing, but Matt assured her that Ed would call, and I said that as Euan was there too now, he would also call.

Birgit was somehow sceptical about them remembering to do so, suggesting that the 'Der Nordschleife ist geöffnet' message would be followed not by phone calls, but by the sound of running feet, engines starting and tyres squealing. I demonstrated the reliability of Ringers by phoning Euan to establish that the track was still closed. "Oh no, it's open."

I invited Niek along for a sighting lap. The track was half-dry, half-greasy, and I really wasn't enjoying it. I decided to wait for it to be fully dry or fully wet.

The lack of starter motor meant strategic parking, both at the guesthouse:

and the track (the gap is where a bike was):

Euan had arranged for lunch in Barweiler, at a restaurant run by one of the waiters in the Pistenklause:

There was a sense of deja-vu when reading the menu:

I did a passenger lap with Ross in the good ship Galaxy, otherwise known as a Ford Galaxy 7-seater people carrier. Ross was showing it as much mercy as you wuld expect, and the ultra-soft suspension meant that you emerged feeling slightly sea-sick.

As the camera ban presumably doesn't apply to the GP track, I took a few on-board shots:

A quick wander around the car-park. There were a bunch of Clios over:

And, er:

The Zakspeed team was getting organised, with a mobile office, including an on-board video lap playing in a side window:

The changeable weather and high accident rate led a lot of people to go home, and many others to stay in the car-park. We decided to take advantage of the quiet track to do a little Ringers convoy lap.

I passengered with Jochen in his Alfa as he followed Kurt who followed Matt who followed Ross. This must have made a very amusing sight for the spectators. As I presumed the camera ban did not apply to the GP track, I took a few on-board shots:

Matt behind Ross

Ditto

Jochen at work

Kurt following Matt

Kurt behind Matt behind Ross

Esther arrived with Cisco and a small blue friend. She told me Cisco had bought her a very romantic xmas present, so I insisted she model it:

As we'd been planning a 7-up lap in the Galaxy, and Esther has about as much sense as any other Ringer, I asked if she would like to join us:

Photo: Niek

The good ship Galaxy was certainly living up to her name on that lap!

The weather was still very indecisive:

But I decided that the time had come to get back into driving the Ring in all her many moods, so I invited Esther along for a couple of laps. These were actually the first laps I'd enjoyed driving since Friday's crash. I was back in the groove, albeit a little more cautiously.

Niek jumed in for my final lap of the day before the track closed. I was telling him that I still had no idea which way the GP track went, and then proceeded to demonstrate this at the first hairpin. Run-off does have its uses.

I decided on the Pistenklause for dinner, so spread the word in the car-park and afterwards via text. We'd bought my laptop with the microdrive from Birgy's camcorder so we could watch the videos and use our resident Ringers car spotting expert, Matt, to identify people. JW then showed us a slide-show of his pics. Both were great:

Niek showed me what I'd missed at Friday's dinner. I borrowed his memory stick as I felt these photos needed to be shared with a wider audience:

Photo: Niek

Photo: Niek

With only five or six definites for dinner, we'd grabbed a table for 12 - but of course, more arrived. By the time JW got there, he had to order a dish that didn't require a knife ...

Steve, who lives about two hours away, was celebrating his 50th birthday - something his wife let slip. So we arranged a kind of birthday cake:

I don't recall who took that photo, but it apparently wasn't me.

Monday

Sorting through keys in the morning, I realised I had one key I wouldn't be needing again:

The CCar key

Out for a sighting lap, we came into the approach to Miss-Hit-Miss (Drei Rechts) to find a Dutch 911 on its roof and a motionless driver on the road with someone next to him.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, we are well-rehearsed at this. I grabbed the first-aid kit and ran to the driver, while Birgit grabbed the flag and ran back up the track.

Things looked very bad at first. The driver was not responsive, had wet himself (often a sign of a broken back) and his pupils were not contracting when I shone a pocket torch into his eyes. His pulse was very weak.

There was nothing I could do for him beyond supporting his head, to keep it in line with his spine, and monitoring his breathing. I checked that someone had called the office, and a German driver confirmed that he had.

Esther arrived in a few minutes. I later learned this was the first time she had come across an accident on the Ring, which you wouldn't have suspected as she was very calm, asking what she could do to help. I asked her to call the office again to ensure that a helicopter had been requested, not just an ambulance, and after doing that she spoke to the driver in Dutch to reassure him in case he could hear her.

Fabian arrived shortly afterwards. He again checked the driver's pupils. It turned out that Fabian knew the driver, Erwin. The three of us did what we could to keep him safe until the professionals arrived.

The paramedic car arrived first, followed shortly by the ambulance. Fabian briefed the paramedics on the story so far. Once they started doing their stuff, there was nothing further for me to do, so I backed off a bit.

A marshall was asking about the owner of a blue Porsche that was apparently parked further down the track where they wanted to land the helicopter. There was no response from anyone there, so I said I would run down and see whether the keys were in the car. It turned out to be the other K-reg blue 968 (driven by another Matt, I think), and the keys were in it, so I moved it a few hundred metres down the track.

As ever, the skill of the helicopter pilot in landing in such a narrow space, with perhaps three feet clearance between the rotor tips and the trees on one side and the bank on the other, was incredibly impressive to watch.

I learned from Fabian that the driver was now in much better condition than first appeared. He was conscious, able to move all his limbs and able to tell the medics his wife's phone number. This was very cheery news given first appearances.

Before he was taken to Koblenz, he was apparently asking Fabian to ensure that someone had photos as he wanted to see the condition of the car. I took this as a good sign. :-) I'd taken a few which I'll email to him via Fabian. The good news was confirmed later - more of that at the end.

The state of the car was a very good advertisement for rollcages. I seriously doubt that a passenger would have survived, and it was only the driver's good fortune that it was the passenger side that was crushed.

The paramedics and doctors spent a fair time working on the driver in the back of the ambulance, so we probably spent another 40 mins or so there with nothing much to do except chat.

Paskal from ring-world.nl came and introduced himself. Apparently he was due to get a paxlap in the 911 on the next lap. Since the roof of the car was very crushed indeed on the passenger side, he was feeling rather lucky. One of the Brit bikers suggested that he should go immediately to buy a lottery ticket!

One of the marshalls at the scene also came to ask how I was - he had apparently been at my crash too. I told him I was fine. He said it looked from the damage like it was a big crash. I said I thought about 80kph. He said "At least, I think". I guess he has seen a fair number of wrecks.

There was a lot of glass on the track. Fabian had grabbed a brush and was helping to sweep. I found another brush and joined in. It's surprisingly hot work! I asked Fabian who we should invoice for our sweeping services.

We'd been trying to reconstruct the accident. The bit that was obvious was that the car had hit the armco hard on the outside of the right-hand bend of the left-right before Miss-Hit-Miss, and then had either rolled or (more likely) slid on its roof to its resting place against the kerb at the first Miss of MHM. However, there was also dirt on the right, just before the armco, so it looked like he'd hit there first.

Once the helicopter took off, the marshalls got everyone moving. I had parked in a good place from a track safety perspective, and a very bad place from a bump-starting perspective. So a few volunteers were enlisted to push me backwards away from the track edge so that I could then run downhill and start the car.

Everyone was driving very sedately as we made our way back around the track.

I learned from Birgit that Bad Dragon had arrived close to where she was flagging, and was making sure that people left a clear route through the cars for the ambulance.

Birgit was feeling a little uncertain about going out for another lap, but decided to do one with Matt in the BMW 1er. I was going to do one in the GCar with Jochen, but the harness straps were too long even when fully-tightened at the front, and we couldn't see how to tighten them at the rear, so I went out for a couple of laps in the 944 instead.

Next up was a paxlap with JW in the 964:

As the tyres were on their last legs anyway, JW decided to take full advantage of the GP track to see them out in style. A little while later, at Eschbach, a not-so-little wiggle confirmed that these were soon to be ex-tyres. A most enjoyable lap.

Returning, I took Ross out for a paxlap in the 944. I was enjoying the GP track by now, though I won't claim to have the faintest idea of any of the lines.

Jochen and Matt had managed to solve the puzzle of the GCar harnesses, so I went out for a couple of paxlaps with Matt. The stock suspension was quite impressive, the rear tyres rather less so! But clearly the car will be fantastic when it has the new suspension and decent tyres, so I think the GCar has become the new CCar and the replacement CCar will become the backup.

Jocke and Kaz had come over two-up in some kind of BMW, but they appeared to have lost a couple of wheels en-route:

Jon Felsted was there as co-driver in a barking-mad Scooby owned by a Brit called Paul. 550bhp.

Paul was letting John drive it, and John asked me if I wanted a paxlap. What a stupid question. A closure delayed us, so by the time we were ready to go out, I was due to leave in 7 minutes. I told John he would simply have to do a 7-minute lap, including the GP track. "Ok."

The acceleration was crazy. You're accelerating like you're in a GT3, but you're sat there in, well, a Scoob. It had me laughing aloud.

John is a very fast and very sensible driver, not always the most common of combinations at the Ring, so it was a hugely enjoyable lap, and a great way to end the weekend.

The final nice ending to the weekend was a text from from Fabian to say that Erwin, the 911 driver, had a broken vertabrae - but was going to make a complete recovery. You feel pretty helpless in those situations. As a first-aider, there's a reasonable amount you can do if someone is bleeding, or has a broken bone, but with a suspected spinal injury, pretty much the only things you can do are monitor their breathing and support their neck to prevent further injury from movement. Sometimes that's enough.