I don't usually do driving across Belgium, but Circuit Days asked me if I would join them for an organised trip, Nurburgring 700.

Since somebody else would be doing the driving across Belgium bit while I relaxed in the passenger seat, I made an exception ...

All uncredited trackside pics are by Birgit. If you are looking for photos of yourself on the Ring, try her site from Thursday:
www.ringphotos.com

Preparation

The beauty of an organised trip is that there was very little for me to organise myself.

We were booked into a hotel in Koln, on the basis that many of the participants were likely to be as interested in the nightlife as the track. This did mean an hour's drive each way on the Saturday and Sunday, but Koln is a pleasant city to visit. (Wish I could find the .. accent on this keyboard ...)

I'd again booked the Forsthaus Striker:

Birgit decided to join me (we remain good friends and still spend the occasional weekend together), and as we weren't going to want an hour's drive after dinner, she booked a table at the Mongolian BBQ in Koln. That was pretty much the prep. :-)

Thursday

The trip was leaving from Brands Hatch on Friday morning, and as I didn't want to leave my car there for the weekend and getting from Essex to Kent by public transport was going to be a bit of a trial, I'd opted to head straight down there from work and stay overnight at the on-site Thistle hotel.

As things turned out, it wasn't quite straight from work as a bunch of us from the Technology team went to a local bar after work, and a few glasses of Pimms were consumed. I'd also had to make a detour along the way, so it was about 10pm by the time I got to the hotel.

I met up with Chris and some of the trip guys in the hotel bar, and the usual petrol-head conversation flowed until the early hours.

Friday

There was a pounding noise when I woke, but I couldn't really complain to the hotel as this turned out to be entirely inside my head. Memo to self: Pimms followed by red wine is not a good mix. I was glad I didn't have to drive that day.

There was a trip briefing in the paddock, just letting people know about the drive over, but we'd decided that the briefing on the Ring would have more impact done in the car-park, so we scheduled that for 10am on Saturday.

With 65 cars in the group, wandering round the paddock was almost like being in the Ring car-park:

And even at the Ring, GT2s are not an everyday sight:

The team transport was less glamorous but probably the most comfortable way to cross Belgium of all the vehicles there:

Circuit Days had also arranged backup in the form of a Trackside Motorsport van equipped with brake-pads and other essentials for virtually every car taking part. They were trailering a road-legal track Clio across, which could if necessary be driven back to free up the trailer in the event that anyone ended up with an undriveable car. This was to prove the case.

There was a single-seater practice session on the circuit to keep us entertained. Two cars had a coming together in Paddock Bend, with one of them hitting the tyre-wall pretty hard. Fortunately both drivers were ok.

Following the briefing, we all headed off down to Dover, and Norfolk Lines allocated two lanes to our group:

The first crash of the weekend took place here, as a driver from Luxembourg realised he was in the wrong queue and reversed back into one of the Nurburgring 700 cars:

The first repair of the weekend also took place in the ferry queue, with some work to an oil-cooler:

It was Hot with a capital H, and a Caterham driver was avoiding over-heating issues by employing a low-powered secondary motor to keep him moving forward in the queue:

The ferry was brand new and rather pleasant, but lost points for not offering an all-day breakfast.

Flying may be quicker, cheaper and less effort, and the Channel may be a very narrow strip of sea, but there is still something romantic about a sea-crossing.

And time for a quick Circuit Days team photo:

Scott, Michael, Chris

The mandatory t-shirt pic:

Birgit was waiting for me at the hotel, and we wandered next door to the hotel-owned restaurant. Chris had arranged for them to stay open late, promising them lots of hungry Brits, which they did - albeit with a rather brief special menu. But we got there just in time to order from the full menu.

We decided to try one of the house specialties. Being German, it was of course low-calorie ...

Our wine was kindly sponsored by Adam Langeveld:

And so to bed.

Saturday

I was due to give a briefing at 10am, so we left the hotel at 8.30am. The first closure was apparently at 9am - we got there in time to see it reopening as the recovery truck returned.

The group was trickling in slowly from Koln, so we postponed the briefing slightly, which gave me time to pick up the Striker.

Admittedly it wasn't the most glamorous yellow car there:

I did my now-standard 20-minute briefing, warning people of the dangers, explaining how to overtake and be overtaken, detailing the accident procedures and generally trying to ensure people treated the place with the necessary respect.

That done, it was time to play. I have size 11 feet, so the first challenge was that I couldn't use the very close-set pedals! This was easily solved by removing my shoes and putting them in the passenger footwell.

I always hate the first couple of laps in an unfamiliar car, so took things very gently, but by the end of the second lap was really enjoying the fantastic grip the car offers.

The car usually runs quite hot, and Olly told me that 115C was nothing to worry about, but by the time we reached Galgenkopf the temp was up to 120C. I coasted back down the straight and decided to assist the cooling back in the car-park:

After 20 minutes for it to cool, it was back out. The car is rather underpowered in some sections, but the handling is brilliant. You also can't beat the feeling of a completely open car. I was having a lot of fun.

The weather was baking hot (we'd seen temps of 37C the previous day, and this felt the same). This meant that the temp was getting close to 120 by the end of a single lap. I didn't think it likely that it would survive two back-to-back laps, so switched to single laps.

This did leave time for the usual car-park wander. The Westfield guys were rewarded for the slog across Belgium, the car running well.

It also left time for passenger laps. I'd spotted Dave Maling's 944 Turbo, so invited myself out for a couple of Dave's usual fast and beautifully smooth laps.

We passed a huge covered truck heading up towards the Karussell, which looked an odd sight even by Ring standards.

The mystery was solved when we reached Brunnchen 2: the Viper had broken down. They obviously didn't want the embarrassment of it being photographed coming off on the back of a recovery truck.

On the second lap, there was a lot of vigorous flagging at Brunnchen, followed by the safety car, so we assumed it was a crash. It turned out to all be for the Viper.

Approaching Aremberg on the second lap, it started to rain - just a few drops at first, but we all know what those can mean. Dave backed right off, but found that the grip still seemed to be there.

Rounding Schwalbenschwanz, there was an incredibly bright lightning-bolt that was quite some way off but so bright it almost seemed to be across the track.

By the time we got back to the car-park, it was raining hard.

We sheltered in the car for a few minutes, before making a run for the Grunne Hoelle. I swear the rain was warm.

We met up with Bren for a cold drink. Well, Dave and I, in t-shirts, had a cold drink. Bren, in leathers in 30+ degree temperatures, opted for a warming coffee ...

Someone told me Ed had crashed, which turned out to be almost correct ...

Ed arrived shortly afterwards so we could get the story. He'd actually been instructing in an FTO from the group. The car was owned by a guy called Trevor, there with his son Michael. Trevor decided to book his son in for some instruction. Ed had driven one lap, and Michael had then driven the second lap.

It seemed the car ran wide exiting the compression in the Fuchsrohre, put two wheels on the grass on the right which caused it to hit the armco front right then spin across the track and hit hard at the rear. It was clearly a write-off:

Circuit Day's support arrangements meant that it could be trailered home with the group. The Clio that arrived on the trailer was driven home.

Ed said Michael wasn't going too fast, and didn't know what had caused him to run wide.

The whole incident demonstrated that sometimes things can go wrong despite everything. Trevor had drummed it into Michael to be careful; they'd both listened to my briefing; Trevor had booked instruction; and Michael was driving a gentle pace - none of which prevented the crash.

With armco bill, safety car and lengthy closure, the bill from Nurburgring GmbH totalled €5,500.

As the laps were gentle ones, Ed had decided not to wear a helmet, a mistake he was determined not to repeat. I told him he was going to be the new Ringers poster boy for wearing a helmet every lap, gentle or not:

Ed realised he'd left some things in the car. He remembered checking that he'd taken his transponder with him when he got out of the crashed car, which indeed he had. You get some idea of Ringer priorities when you learn that he'd remembered his transponder but forgotten his wallet, phone and keys. Fortunately he was able to retrieve these later.

With the heavy rain, it was no great surprise that there was a closure.

Despite the rain, it was still far too hot for coffee, so more water was consumed. I met Fudge and Janine. They had been the advance party, greeting people at the hotel on arrival and getting them checked in. While chatting with them, Darren from ringweekends.co.uk came and introduced himself - we'd corresponded a fair bit by email but never met.

Fudge, me, Darren, Janine

There was a PA announcement telling us that the Ring would remain closed for a further 30 minutes "due to the weather". This was a polite way of saying "Because too many people are driving like idiots in the wet". As the Striker was only managing one lap at a time, I decided this was a good opportunity to fetch the CCar. I texted Marc who confirmed that it was ready for collection, then Birgit gave me a lift to pick it up.

The sun was back, and the track was drying fast. Darren was there with his brothers Adam and Jody, who had an ex-race Roadsport A Caterham 7. This has a 1.6-litre 135bhp engine, 6-speed gearbox, LSD, wide track and was wearing super-grippy CR500 tyres.

Adam offered me a paxlap, and as they seemed like sensible chaps I accepted. The track was drying very quickly, and he treated me to a fast and very smooth lap.

I slotted into a routine of doing one lap in the Striker followed by one or two laps in the Golf. It was quite odd switching immediately between RWD and FWD, and between loads of grip and less grip. Commenting on this to Birgit, she said it must also have been strange switching between RHD and LHD. It must say something about the amount of Ring driving I do that this hadn't even impinged on my consciousness until she mentioned it: both hands know how to change gear.

It felt quite decadent hopping between cars like this, and must have looked even more decadent to anyone who didn't know that one car wasn't mine at all and the other was only 1/8th mine.

The Striker has a small fuel tank, so it wasn't long before I needed to fuel-up. It also runs on leaded fuel, so you have to put a measured amount of lead additive into the tank before putting in the petrol. After my embarrassment with the TDI last time, I was very careful with the fuelling! My tank of petrol was again very kindly sponsored by Ronan McGrath.

Ronan used my site to help plan a trip to do a factory collection of his new M6 in May. After a bit of settling in, and having the car delimited and tuned, he took the car to its spiritual home. Suffice it to say that he demonstrated the true Ringers spirit whilst there.

Dave Malings had taken Bren out for a paxlap in the wet. It seemed Dave had had a little spinning moment at Bergwerk. Bren re-enacted events:

I had a little incident of my own getting out of the Striker, catching my trousers on something sharp:

Ooops. It is now Saturday afternoon and the shops are closed. My spare trousers are in Koln. Inspiration struck, and I drove to the museum shop. I was able to buy a very tasteless pair of Ring shorts. Fortunately I don't think anyone got a photo of me wearing them ... Birgit later did an emergency repair of the trousers.

It was too hot for a proper lunch, so I settled for lots of cold drinks and an ice-cream. This was kindly sponsored by Paul Coates. Then back out to play.

I dropped the Striker back at the Forsthaus for the night, and it seemed rude not to have a quick drink while we were there. Ed joined us.

We'd had several Ringers meets at the Mongolian BBQ in Covent Garden, and there was a copycat chain in Germany, including one in Koln. Birgit had booked us a table, so we nipped back to the hotel to shower and change and then got a taxi to the restaurant.

Or rather, we got a taxi to some random part of Koln when it turned out the driver had dropped us at some spot nowhere near the restaurant. But it was a nice evening for a walk:

A 20-minute walk later, we were there.

Our wine was kindly sponsored by Jonathan Randall:

Food & wine were both good, and the restaurant gave us a schnapps on the house to make up for the rather slow service, so we decided a lazy start was in order the following day.

Sunday

We left Koln at 10am, getting to the Ring an hour later. The weather was again blue skies and baking temperatures.

I'd just jumped into the Striker ready to head out when a guy from Perth who'd emailed me came to introduce himself. He'd asked if I could take his son out for a lap. There isn't a great deal of room in a Striker:

So I had to leave my bag with his dad. This turned out not to be a great idea ...

There was a biker down at Wehrseifen, but someone was already running to flag and the three cars had already stopped, so I decided there were enough people on-scene to deal with it and Wehrseifen is not a place where you want too many stopped cars. I left them to it.

The Striker really didn't have the power to cope with a passenger as well, and the heat was also sapping power, so it was a very slow lap. Reaching Klostertal, there was a yellow flag and a bike in the armco and a rider being tended to by the ambulance.

There was another flag at the Karussell for another crash. The safety car was there and nobody seemed to be hurt, so we again carried on. It turned out a green Golf had dropped oil and caused both crashes. The marshalls had given the driver the news of the expensive day he was having ...

Birgit was on her way there to photograph, and arrived shortly after it happened:

Laying down cement dust on the oil line:

Approaching Schwalbenschwanz, the temp guage jumped right to max and I pulled onto the grass. As I did so, there was a great cloud of steam, which appeared to indicate the demise of another head-gasket.

That was when I realised my bag was back in the car-park. This is the bag containing my phone. Ah. I flagged down a German car and asked them to let the office know we needed an ADAC truck. I asked them to stress that I was an ADAC member.

A few more people came past, and then the track went quiet. After about 20 minutes, a safety car arrived and radioed the office. It appeared the message hadn't got through the first time, so they called for the truck. I again stressed an ADAC one, but they said four trucks were out on the circuit already so they couldn't guarantee it.

I asked about the biker at Klostertal and they said he was injured but nothing critical. But the air ambulance had been called, hence the closure.

Damn: a Bongard truck. Returning cars to Frank this way was beginning to feel like a habit ...

Frank said he was fed up with the engine, so they would replace it with a better one - and something with more power. One possibility he was considering was a 1.6 Zetec, which really would make that a fantastic car. I gave my full encouragement.

The existing 1.3 engine

Frank paid the truck driver and I took the receipt to attempt to claim it back from ADAC.

Oh well: that's what the CCar is there for. I headed out in that. The CCar was struggling a little for grip in the very hot temperatures, but was behaving itself perfectly.

I met Christian, and he took me for a couple of paxlaps in his 968. We realised that although he'd given me paxlaps in the 355 and GT3, I'd never actually had one in the 968.

I always feel at home in a 968, and the laps were fast and smooth.

The Kaul family were there, and Christian soon put them to work changing the pads:

Sabine stopped for a chat, commenting on the effectiveness of my diet (I've lost two stone since I last saw her). I explained that it was the cheapest power-to-weight upgrade.

I took first Darren and then Adam for paxlaps in the Golf - a bit of a different experience to the Caterham:

There was a closure:

So time for a car-park wander:

Closures aren't too bad for drivers as we can socialise in the car-park, but they are a real pain for photographers. Birgit managed to find some other things to photograph:

I met up with Karl:

His 944 was still in the workshop for a €3000 engine rebuild. I know the feeling. :-(

I bummed a paxlap in the Mondeo, and pointed Karl to my real motivation:

Karl has been known to delay his overtakes of 911s until he has an audience, but on this lap he didn't need to try: we came up on a GT3 in Wippermann, and promptly overtook it at Brunnchen - or what Sabine refers to as 'the Promenade'. Karl was happy.

Speaking of 911s, this almost looked someone had gate-crashed a private party:

There was a bike down at Kallenhard, which emerged later:

Thorlief was checking the tyres of his M3 CSL:

The front:

The rear:

Adam and Darren had a little surprise for me: as I'd been deprived of the Striker, they offered me the keys of the Caterham! I do get quite a lot of offers, and almost always decline due to the financial risk inherent in 'Big Boy's rules', but that was a fantastic car ... Hmmm! Ok, then. :-)

Heading out ...

Photo: Darren Langeveld

I again had to drive in my socks, and the race-clutch was going to give me a sore foot, but aside from that everything felt familiar from the Striker. Well, aside from the 6-speed short-throw gearbox that had me selecting 4th instead of 6th a couple of times ... but I am always cautious in an unfamiliar car when changing into 5th or 6th, so I feed the clutch in gently and wait until I hear what the revs are doing before bringing it in fully. I waved an apology to Adam who gave me a thumbs-up back.

I was driving in Someone Else's Car mode, but it felt fabulous. Just incredible amounts of grip, and amazing acceleration.

Photo: Andre from http://myalbum.miyoo.de/Andre/photo-album/my-images

I was keeping plenty in reserve, but even so hardly anything overtook us. The one bend I decided would be safe for a play was AF, so I dropped it into 2nd, turned in hard, got ready to catch it and booted the throttle hard to stick the back out. The car simply shrugged and gripped. It didn't slide a single millimetre. I knew it was grippy, but it was way grippier than I was giving it credit for.

And back in no time ...

Photo: Darren Langeveld

Very, very nice:

Photo: Darren Langeveld

The weather was still hot, hot, hot.

I did a couple more Golf laps, then time for another cold drink, this time with Jody and Adam:

I'd spotted Bob a couple of times while both in our cars, but with me in an unfamiliar car and unfamiliar helmet, he hadn't recognised me. We caught up with each other later. His Elise was looking in fine fettle as ever.

I also found James there:

He'd had some fun the previous day with 'a fast black Elise with Dutch plates'. Not much doubt who that was, so I was able to introduce him to Dave at the end of the day.

I'd also spotted a 928 with one or two modifications and an extremely loud paint-job:

The owner introduced himself as Nick, assured me he was sensible and invited me out for a paxlap. I was curious to see how a 928 fared as a track car, so hopped in. It actually didn't feel too much out of its element. The lap was, as promised, a smooth and sensible one.

I asked him whether the car had been that colour when he bought it, or whether he was responsible for it. He confessed, and didn't take offense when I asked him whether he was colour-blind. :-) Apparently it had been an awful pastel green colour when he bought it, and since it needed a respray and the mods made the car less than subtle anyway, he thought he might as well finish the job.

I guess if I total up the number of people who introduce themselves to me in a typical Ring weekend, it must be in the 50-100 range, which is my excuse for being hopeless with names and faces. I could hardly forget Ben Lovering's name, but that's my excuse for forgetting his face. He took me out for an enjoyable paxlap in his VX220:

Ben also introduced me to Jaco, a guy who was trying to get a training programme off the ground. Details to follow.

Having already spun his 944 once this weekend, it seemed Dave had felt the need to have another go. Here he re-enacts it for us:

The weather remained hot and dry all day. It was so hot that I gave up on back-to-back laps and settled for doing one at a time, with a cold drink between each.

Marc from TTE texted me to ask if I was interested in selling the 944. He'd earlier told me someone was interested in the seats, and now might want the complete car.

I'd been ambivalent about the whole 944 project. On the one hand, it had been a real money-pit, with just one thing after another. On the other hand, so many things had been replaced, there was barely anything left of the original car, so it ought now to be good.

But the emerging DRT rental phenomenon in the area was having me wonder whether it made any sense to have capital tied-up in a car used a few times a year. Granted you can't guarantee availability, but the CCar always gives me an alternative.

So Marc's text really proved the final decider: I would sell the car. I told Marc I'd need to do some ebay research to find out how much the various bits would be worth. Aside from the shell, there was a good (turbo) top-end, a hardly-used H&R Nurburgring suspension, the leather Recaro seats, roll-cage, 6-point harnesses and various other bits & pieces. (I may end up parting the car, so if any of this - or other 944 parts - are of interest to you, just drop me a line.)

The Circuit Days group had a presentation back at the hotel at 7pm, followed by dinner at 8pm, but I wanted to make the most of the day. I figured I knew enough people that I'd be able to find someone heading back to Koln that evening, so kept lapping until the end of the day.

Dave-can't-drive volunteered to be designated taxi driver, as it wasn't too big a detour for his trip back to the Netherlands.

But first there was the small matter of packing all his gear in the Elise. This took a little longer than usual, first because he couldn't find his GPS. Taking everything out of the car and eventually concluding it must have been stolen, we then found it in the most obvious place and, in fact, the place he had first looked.

Second, after very neatly packing the car a second time, he then realised that he had packed one thing he shouldn't have: his car keys. That's what non-stop lapping does to your brain. Ringing is more addictive than crack cocaine and seems to have much the same effects on our brains.

We both needed fuel, so stopped at the petrol station, then we dropped off the CCar and I hopped into the Elise for the ride to Koln.

Since Dave quite often stops to eat on the way home, I thought it only fair to thank him for his taxi service by treating him to dinner at my hotel. Which first required us to find the hotel. Tom Tom took us to an entirely different hotel, and by a rather circuitous route, but it was at least a Best Western, so we were able to get the correct details from there.

An enjoyable chat, a drink and a steak after a good day's Ringing - what else could a man ask?

With Dave on his way home, I wandered up to my room to transfer all the photos to my laptop before some much-needed sleep.

Monday

We were due to leave at 8am, and managed something reasonably close to this. However, our map-reading proved as incompetent on the way out of Koln as it did on the way in. Scott declared that he was only the tea-boy and deputy assistant under-navigator and therefore deserved only a small proportion of the blame.

In fairness to us, we had only a small-scale map and German signs are famous for pointing to the next village down the autobahn without mentioning major places like Aachen. However, after a holiday tour of the Rhine Valley, we eventually ended up pointing in the right direction.

The rest of the journey was uneventful and we reached the ferry terminal in plenty of time.

Trevor came to thank me for the helmet advice in my briefing as he reckoned Michael might not have fared so well without one. He observed that Ed wasn't wearing one and I assured him that he would be having the piss taken out of him for that for some time yet.

Trevor was being sanguine about the incident by now, and was already working on plans for the replacement. A Scoob seemed to be topping the list.

There were a few other interesting cars in the ferry queue:

Fudge and Janine were approached by a Norfolk Lines rep who asked if they might be able to take a couple of passengers. It seems their car had broken down, and they'd been given a rental car to get them to the ferry terminal with no-one realising that Norfolk Lines doesn't take foot passengers.

This was quickly agreed, and it turned out the broken-down car was a 355, so clearly there was some common ground. :-) I explained that the lift was not entirely free of charge, as they were now part of the story of the trip and would thus be required to pose for a photo:

The Circuit Day guys kindly offered to detour via my place on their way to the M11.

And that was the end of a cracking weekend. Eight Striker laps, 16 Golf laps, a whole bunch of paxlaps and a lot of socialising.

The overheating Striker was a disappointment, of course, but I still got to drive it, and it seems likely that it will prove a positive thing in the end as the Striker gets the engine the chassis clearly deserves.

The beauty of having a backup car is that such things don't spoil your weekend, making it a worthwhile financial investment. Golfs are cheap to buy, cheap to modify and cheap to run, so as a syndicate car it really makes a huge amount of sense to anyone coming to the Ring on a regular basis.

Three weeks to go before the next trip of the year: a 9-day trip comprising two full weekends, a 3-day BMW Club course and two evening sessions. :-D This is currently scheduled to be my final trip of the year, but it's possible that I'll sneak in 'one more wafer-thin' trip in October.