My last trip of the year (probably), and one in which I had a little mission: to act as judge for participants in the Cannonball 8000 run - which included a lap of the Ring. (And no relationship to the Cannonball Run in the above banner ...)

Unless otherwise credited, all on-track photos are by Birgit. If you're looking for on-track photos of your car or bike, try here from Thursday on:
www.ringphotos.com

Preparation

Ho hum. I don't seem to have been having a great deal of luck with cars lately. After the 944 suffered a suspected big-end failure, the GCar (G60) was stolen. As it is pretty distinctive, it seems a foregone conclusion that it was broken down into parts the night it was stolen. Although it was insured, the insurance value seems unlikely to make a claim economic.

This left one DRT available, the trusty CCar. Or the trusty CCar replacement, anyway - sometimes known as the MCCar after the initials of the culprit who crashed the original.

This too had been giving us some entertainment, but fortunately all was ready for my visit.

Friday

As I keep clothes, toiletries, etc, at Birgit's place, she brings those, so packing is generally just a case of throwing a few gadgets and batteries into a laptop bag. In this case, however, I had a couple of odd additions:

A front light for a bicycle (one of these new super-bright LED ones):

And a copy of the Radio Times:

The bicycle light was because a group of us planned another midnight bike ride on Saturday night. Regular readers may recall that at the last attempt, several factors conspired to mean that Birgit and I only made it as far as Breidscheid. These factors were a lack of front light, meaning I couldn't see a thing; the fact that I was only able to obtain a bicycle permit for cycling downhill, the permit specifically prohibiting cycling uphill; and being abducted by aliens and beamed directly into Eddy's bar at the Hotel an der Nordschleife.

This time, I would at least have the bicycle light.

The Radio Times was at Karl's request. He hadn't explained why he wanted it, but a quick flick through revealed the reason for his reticence: it was clearly one of the ads that interested him:

In the Stansted lounge, I was 'entertained' by someone having a very loud and prolonged argument with his girlfriend/wife on his mobile. It seems his partner had been looking for some papers while he was away and had found some old love letters from an old-flame. She seemingly didn't think he should be keeping them.

He clearly didn't know much about women, as he repeatedly used the phrase 'You're not being rational' as if (a) rationality was something to be expected in this situation and (b) telling her this was going to help matters. Oh well, it passed the time.

It had been raining earlier, but was dry by the time we landed. The roads were, however, wet in Nurburg.

The usual post-midnight arrival at the Pistenklause, but no problem getting fed. Our dinner was very generously sponsored by Jason Mayer. :-)

Alex wandered over to chat, along with Another Ross ('One careful owner 944 Turbo with recently removed Ring sticker' Ross), as did someone I hadn't seen for a long time, Robin Iddon:

If you're wondering what he's doing here, he's taking off his shoes. To show us his toe-nails. He'd added to his Lotus collection, supplementing his Elise with an Exige. As the Exige was bright orange, he thought he ought to celebrate this in some way. The particular way he chose was to ask his wife to paint his toenails a matching colour. As you do.

It appears she didn't have any orange nail-varnish, so this was as close as they could get:

(I feel no guilt at showing this photo to the world after the piss-taking I got from Robin about my German linguistic abilities ...)

It appeared that most Ringers were taking advantage of the late opening on Saturday (13:15) to enjoy Friday night. Rather more alcohol than usual was consumed.

And the usual 2am-ish to bed.

Saturday

9am, and dry roads. :-) Grey skies, which didn't look altogether promising:

The plus side about a half-day opening is a nice relaxed morning. A leisurely breakfast, a visit to the Altes Forsthaus. (The more observant of you will have noticed that the grey sky is now blue. This is because I didn't remember to take the photo until the following day. It's not easy remembering to photograph everything you do, you know.)

As a result of my Where to Stay page, I've got to know a number of the local guesthouse owners, including Frank at the Forsthaus. We dropped in to see how plans were progressing for his DRT rentals, to find that insurance was still the stumbling block.

We dropped in at the Ring car-park to meet Damon, one of the Cannonball organisers. We then told him we'd be back in time to do the driver's briefing at 12:30.

Next visit was to Eddy at Hotel an der Nordschleife to arrange to borrow some mountainbikes for Matt, new CCar syndicate member Jon Meyer and myself. On the way there, we saw they were doing some major work on the back road between Nurburg and Adenau:

We asked Eddy about this, and he said they were putting in a hard verge and armco, as there had been a lot of accidents on this road. I said I was pleased to see that kind of money being invested, as it suggested that the future of the TouristFahren (TF) sessions was safe for a while.

Eddy said that he had a contact in the regional government who was adamant that the TF will remain due to the tourist income. According to this contact, the only two Nordschleife events that bring real money into the area are the 24H and the Rock am Ring. Otherwise, they are totally dependent on the TF and the industry testing, and it is the tourists who spend more.

Eddy was telling us about his plans to build some apartments with garages next to the hotel:

More info on these when available.

He also showed me some of his historic photos of the Ring:

And some of the trophies his father earned in the 24H:

Heading back to the car-park, we had the feeling it was going to be one of those weekends: we witnessed a very close call when an oncoming car overtook a car that was turning right at the junction between the Ring and the petrol station. This is exactly the same accident that killed a biker at the same junction.

Even by Ring standards, all the Cannonball machinery made an impressive sight:

We bumped into Job, who was there with a customer and the customer's new toy:

Speaking of Job, there were some ... interesting ... vehicles in the Cannonball group. Job confessed that hs company was responsible, so we made him go and stand between two of them and look suitably contrite:

Then it was time for my driver's briefing. The executive summary was: 'There are many deceptive bends, there is no run-off, armco is hard.' I also explained the importance of only overtaking on the left, and indicating right and moving right to let faster traffic past, noting that faster traffic was likely to include local Golfs. I explained the need for very low speeds past yellow flags. Finally, I reminded everyone that the tarmac was road-quality, not racetrack-grippy, and that although the sun had shown itself, the track was cold, their tyres were cold and there may be wet sections.

The Cannonball tradition is that the fastest driver on each section leads the next section. As one of the sections was a lap of the Ring, doing it by fastest lap would have been likely to end in tears, so it was decided instead to pick a winner according to the best line through a particular section. The section was not known to the participants.

There are a few places on the Ring where you can see how someone strings together a few bends, but Hatzenbach 2 seemed to me the best of these, given how many bends you can see.

En-route to Hatzenbach, we had the radio on. The traffic news included a warning that a Cannonball run would be on the A3 later that day, and traffic would be advised to move right ... Someone later cruelly suggested this was so that the convoy would be at maximum speed when they hit a police speed-trap further on!

From what I saw, everyone had taken my briefing very much to heart and was being very sensible. None of them crashed. The two cars with the best lines were a Jag convertible that Birgy didn't manage a photo of, and this car, which she did:

And yes, those trucks did go out:

Of course, Karl couldn't resist going out to play with all those Ferraris:

Jon Myers was also out in the MCCar:

As was Robin, in the very noticeable Exige:

Although doing the judging meant losing some early track-time, I didn't feel we were missing too much, given how horrendously crowded it was:

While there, I bumped into another D70 owner, Johan.

He let me have a play with one of the lenses I lust after, the amazing Nikkor 70-200mm VR f/2.8. Gorgeous!

When the last Cannonball car was through, and we returned to the car-park, we saw that things were equally crowded there:

Unfortunately, with predictable results:

This unfortunately rather set the tone for the day. The car-park marshalls were well-prepared:

The closure at least allowed time for socialising. I asked Ross to pose for the 'Before' photograph. "Before what," he asked. "Before the splints and crutches," I explained.

One of the odd things about the Ringers list is that you can end up co-owning a car with someone you've never met. So this trip gave me the chance to meet our newest syndicate member, Jon Myer (seen here, left):

Some visitors decided to take a nap:

Others weren't letting standards slip just because they were wearing bike leathers:

But eventually the track reopened and I headed out for a sighting lap in the Golf.

I had a rather unwelcome adventure on this lap. As I set off, a few drops of rain started falling. Lovely. The track, however, remained dry until I was approaching Mutkurve (Angstkurve).

You know those times when you are looking at a shiney-looking road surface trying to work out whether it is simply reflections of the sun on worn tarmac or a wet track? I was having that debate with myself. I decided to play safe, and backed off.

A black Italian 911 was gaining on me, so I indicated right. He overtook me and entered Mutkurve just ahead of me. As I got close to the bend, I saw that it was indeed wet. As I rounded the bend, I could see the 911 sliding sideways up the track at a fairly high rate of knots. Although his speed along the track was high, his spin was very slow.

I didn't want to brake in the wet bend, so was trying to figure out which side of him to go. I picked the outside. As I came alongside him, he was facing towards me, having completed 180 degrees of his spin. I got past and, convinced he was going to hit the armco, braked as soon as I had the car in a straight line.

But no, he didn't hit anything. I saw in my mirrors that his 180-degree spin was now a 360-degree spin and he was still on the black stuff. As I was watching, he gathered the car back together and promptly overtook me ...

And this is my sighting lap! The rest of the lap was wet:

Most of the bikers out there looked like they were wishing they hadn't bothered:

Waving to Birgit, Jochen and JW at the Karussell, I completed the lap and decided to go looking for a paxlap while my heart-rate recovered. Robin was soon persuaded.

I have to use a little poetic licence with the photo illustrations, depending on what I have available to me. The above is Robin's car, but not from that lap, and not Robin driving. But this is:

We didn't have any adventures of our own, but there was a rather dented-looking car nose-in on the inside of Steilstrecke, and a 3D jigsaw puzzle that I think was once a Calibra in the armco in Wippermann. No prizes for guessing who was flagging that one - yes, Fabian once again! My advice is never go out on the track ahead of this man ...

I was in no particular hurry to drive in such conditions, so invited myself for a paxlap with Robert, the Peace Corp guy. He first showed me what being a volunteer means in terms of income for meals at the Ring:

I hoped he could afford brake-pads. And off we went for an enjoyably smooth lap in drying conditions:

I spotted Jon going out in the Golf and jumped in to passenger with him. I then offered to drive a commentary lap, so we swapped seats in the queue on Dottinger-Hohe.

Things were still damp, so it was no surprise to find the track closed when we got back to clear up apparently several different accidents, including this one:

The police helicopter was very pointedly making low, slow passes over the car-park in a 'Hey, we're watching you - behave!' kind of way:

Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be doing much good.

Birgy meantime was doing her usual photographer duty, deciding this time to spend a fair bit of time on panning shots. At around 1/80th of a second at 300mm, they are riskier, but at least half worked, and the results clearly justify those kind of stats:

Alex was complaining last time that Birgit always managed to get the other car: the R-reg one. So he should be pleased by this:

Some cars looked immaculate:

Others less so:

This one is apparently one of the rivals in Anders' & Kees' championship:

All of Birgit's photos will of course be online at www.ringphotos.com on Thursday.

Matt had already fetched one mountain bike, but the second one was in a different place, so we jumped in his rental to drive to Adenau. The quick way, naturally. We just failed to make it back on at Breidscheid when returning with the bike in the back. We put it in the guesthouse garage and wandered over to the Pistenklause.

It was the usual chaos. I'd tried to block off four seats for Marc & Brigitte from TTE to join us, along with a couple of other customers, but while I was engaged in conversation it seemed someone took those spots, which was a pain.

Dinner was fun as usual:

My steak was very kindly sponsored by Tom Rush :-)

When we discussed on-list the rebirth of the bicycle ride, we had about 20 enthusiastic participants lined up. So at 22:30 on a rather chilly Saturday night, four of us set off from T13 ...

It was a full moon, and my bike-light was superb. This was bad news, removing one of the excuses I used last time.

T13 to Breidscheid is, of course, mostly downhill. With good visibility, I could get enough speed down Fuchsrohre that I could freewheel the whole way up the other side. :-)

When we reached Breidscheid, we stopped for a rest before tackling the uphill section. Some Germans camping there asked me to turn out my light as it was so bright and they were trying to take a piss.

I cheerfully remarked to my fellow cyclists that we were already about halfway round. Jochen, who had cycled the lap before, said "Not in time." I agreed, said that in distance at least. "More like a third." Cheerful chap, isn't he?

Then we could put it off no longer, and we tackled Ex-Muhle. I'd fully expected to walk up this, knowing how steep it is from having walked up it before, and was very pleased to be able to cycle up.

Then we had a bit of downhill to Bergwerk before Kesselchen. Jochen 'Just call me Mr Encouragement' van Cauwenberge had advised that Kesselchen was merely the warm-up for Hohe-Acht. Thanks, Jochen.

You know how Kesselchen has a steep bit at the bottom, then flattens off into a gentler slope the rest of the way up? No. It doesn't. It has an unbelievably steep bit at the bottom, then it gets gradually steeper. The crawl up to our next rest-point, Mutkurve, was agonising.

But once I'd got my breath back, it was just magical being out there at night. No sound except the babbling of the brook, the stars in the sky, the moonlit scenery, the rest of the bastard climb-

Well, it was magical for a few minutes, anyway.

Mutkurve is of course uphill, and so is the climb to Klostertal. But thankfully it's then briefly downhill to the Steilstrecke hairpin, right? Wrong. It's still uphill. And so is Steilstrecke.

Then there is a short downhill bit on the exit. It lasts about three metres.

The climb to the Karussell is tough. I'd told the others we needed a photo there, otherwise no-one would believe us. This was a genuine photo-call, and not just an excuse for a rest, honest. I balanced the camera on the inside kerb:

While cycling, I got a text from Fabian. I replied saying what I was doing. He asked 'Aren't you tired yet? I'm home in 5 minutes' and saying he was off to Zantvoort tomorrow. I decided to confuse him, and had Jochen dictate a reply in Dutch:

"I don't think so. And everyone knows Zantvoort is for pussies"

It was time for Jochen to cheer us up again: "This next bit is the worst." Thanks for that. "It's really, really steep." Cheers, Jochen. "I don't think you'll make it up without putting a foot down." This, of course, had to be treated as a personal challenge.

He was right. That climb is an absolute bastard. It is not just "really, really steep", it is really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really steep.

But I was determined not to put a foot down. As you reach the left-hander on the entry to Hohe-Acht, it gets steeper. MUCH steeper. I was zig-zagging across the slope in 1st gear. Each horizontal zig or zag included a vertical component of about two centimetres. Every now and then, it was tempting to zig or zag downhill a bit just to get a rest.

But finally we were at the top! No foot down! And another rest - phew!

Jochen opened his mouth. More 'encouragement'? "That's the hardest bit done." Wow!

Wippermann was fun, and again able to get enough speed to freewheel up the brow before Eschbach. Brunnchen was fun. Well, Brunnchen 1 was. Brunnchen 2 was where the chain came off. Five minutes of cursing and fiddling got it back on. The climb to Eiskurve could not deter me as I could feel Pflanzgarten beckoning.

Pflanzgarten 1 was excellent. The exit is uphill, but again enough speed to freewheel up. Pflanzgarten 2 was scary! Very fast, and not wanting to brake as I had a feeling it was uphill on the approach to Schwalbenschwanz. It was, but my momentum took me a long way there. We regrouped at the corner before the Kleiner Karussell.

I told everyone we needed a photo at Galgenkopf, to prove we hadn't turned around at the Karussell. The run there was uphill but felt easy now we were on the home stretch. I balanced the camera on a bike saddle:

And then the first pleasant surprise! I thought it was downhill to the gantry, then uphill from there. In fact, it's gently downhill about halfway towards the ticket office.

We could see a blue flashing light on the road, about halfway up. Were they waiting for us? I switched off my light and tried to cycle quietly. But as I got closer, I could see they'd pulled over a car. They looked over. I waved. They waved back and shouted something. I didn't hear what it was, but one suspects it was a comment on our sanity.

The stretch to the bridge is uphill. From the bridge, it was pretty much downhill all the way to T13 - hurrah!

Er, no. The schicane before T13 is very steeply uphill. It must have taken three or four minutes to climb that hill. But then we really were done! We had cycled a lap of the Ring! Time for one last team photo. I put the camera on a handy wheely-bin by the office there:

We decided to have a celebratory drink at the Pistenklause. Matt and I had taken quite different approaches to clothing: I was wearing full-length trousers and a fleece jacket; he was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I think I made the right choice: he announced himself freezing and dreaming of a hot shower, but settled for a hot coffee.

We made it round in 1h 45m, an average speed of 7.5mph We may not win any lap records, but we felt suitably proud of ourselves as we bade each other goodnight and headed to bed.

Sunday

I was astonished on Sunday morning to discover that I could still walk. The weather looked rather more promising, too

My fuel for the weekend was generously sponsored by Malcolm Rowlatt. :-)

I had arranged with Jon that he would have the car first thing, then I'd take it from 11:00-13:00. At around 10.30, it became clear this plan wasn't going to work when he phoned me to report a problem with the car. I asked him to call Marc and said I'd be there shortly.

The car was squealing horribly when the steering-wheel was turned, and stalling when you attempted to start it. Matt reckoned the power steering pump had failed. I said I'd call ADAC, and Matt said he'd seen an ADAC truck dropping someone off over the road, so Jon and I wandered over.

This was looking good. One ADAC card, one idle ADAC truck. Apply one to the other, and get your car fixed:

We had a word with the driver. But no, this is Germany. We must first phone the helpline. Ok. Jon speaks good German, having worked here in the past, so he did that:

After about 10 minutes of call-queuing, he got through. He explained where we were, and that we had an ADAC truck on-site. Could they assign that truck to us? Yes, no problem.

Great, let's go. Er no, this is Germany. Next, the ADAC man must phone his base:

So now he can look at our car, right? No. They haven't finished entering it into the computer, so he must wait to be called.

There is a long queue out of that car-park:

So perhaps the driver could at least start driving over while he waits to be called to be officially assigned to our task, as it is likely to take 10 minutes or more? No. He must wait for the call, then he can move the truck.

But eventually he arrives. Ready to load the car onto the truck. Er, can't he look at it first? No. But we persuade him:

Ok, he's looked. Now we will load the car on the recovery truck:

Jon will go in the recovery truck, so I decide to grab some passenger laps. Um, no. I am the ADAC card-holder, so I must go in the truck.

And so to Marc:

Marc quickly confirmed Matt's diagnosis: a seized power-steering pump. I asked if he could disconnect it, so we can carry on driving. Marc asked if we were ok driving it without power-steering? I said sure. He cut the belt, removed it and off we went back to the track.

I stopped off at an empty car-park to get a feel for the steering. It was very heavy, but driveable. Good enough. I'd stupidly left the first-aid kit and flag from the 944 in the Merc, so called Birgy to ask if she'd mind dropping them back to the car-park to put into the Golf. As I was speaking to her, there was a loud noise: "Someone has just crashed in front of me." A bike had slid into the armco.

I head straight out for a lap. Even at speed, steering is physically hard work, and you would certainly have trouble recovering from oversteer, but otherwise it was fine - in fact, the road-feel was great.

There was a looooong queue to get off the track, explained by the fact that the track was once again closed. I called Birgit and asked if she fancied lunch. She was already in the car-park, so we shared a chilli in the GH.

The track re-opened, so I walked outside towards the car, and the track was closed again before I reached it!

I started chatting with Kees. I told him we needed an official photo of him and the race 944. "Should I try to look sexy?" Er, go on then. Anytime you want to start. Any time at all ...

Another Anders, the one of 911S fame, came to say hello. I asked whether he was there in the 911. The following conversation then ensued:
Anders: "No, I'm in a Passat diesel"
Kees: "You still overtook me in the wet"
Anders: "I switched the traction control on"
Kees: "But that's cheating!"

The closure was apparently for a big crash in Fuchsrohre. A yellow German GT2 and blue British 306 came together. I've only heard one side of the story so far, which was that the GT2 tried a wrong-side overtake. The 306 was written-off, but nobody was seriously hurt.

There was a lot of sweeping-up to do, because they brought in a special sweeping-up machine to do it:

The clear-up clearly took a long time, and the car-park was jammed:

I'd not seen a Ducati in grey before - that really looks nice!

By the time the track reopened just after 3pm, I decided this was just all too silly: I'd do two final laps and then call it a weekend. Jon jumped in the paxseat.

Birgit was at Hocheichen. I texted her to say the track was open and I was doing two final laps. She got set, and some other spectators wandered past and said she might have a long wait. She said "I don't think so," and of course about two minutes later the first cars appear. :-)

She waited for me to come past the second time before setting off for the car-park.

Both laps were great. We got held up by slow bikes in a few places, and on the second lap there was a heavy crash at Wehrseifen and a light one at exit Karussell, but the track was bone dry and traffic was nothing like as bad as it had been at other times.

It was a lovely way to end the weekend and, for me, the season.

The CCar's adventures weren't over, however, as new syndicate member Jon Myers took over the car when I left. He had a bit of a Hatzenbach moment when he took avoiding action when he feared a car behind him was going to rear-end him, and ended up making fairly gentle contact with the armco at the front-right.

The wheel hit, which deflated the tyre and broke the steering. His one piece of good news, aside from the damage to the car not being too expensive, was the safety car attended and announced that there was no damage to the armco.

The car has been repaired over the winter.