This was the first of what I hope will be my standard-format trips this year. As part of my work can be done from anywhere with a wifi connection, the plan is:
- Fly over the Tue before a full w/e
- Work during the day Wed/Thu/Fri
- Drive the three evening sessions
- Stay on for the weekend

Photo: Bob Foreman

Tuesday

It was a novelty seeing Hahn in the daylight:

Regular readers will know that it is not entirely unknown for me to take the piss out of Ringers who do dumb things. If, to take a random example, some idiot Ringer had managed to crash within two minutes of entering the country and without even getting as far as getting into a car, you might expect my trip report to make some passing mention of the incident.

Ahem. The idiot Ringer in question managed ... wait for it ... to trip over a doorstop on the tarmac at Hahn before even making it into the terminal building! It is singularly the most embarrassing accident I- er, he, has ever had.

I'd managed to get seat 1A, so was first off the plane. I know from experience that there's no point walking faster than the ramp person as they are the only one who knows which door we're entering the terminal by, and they also often need to tap in a door code to unlock it.

But the guy from 1C appeared to know what he was doing, making confidently for a door which duly opened. I followed him in, but the inner door was locked and the ramp guy pointed us to the next door along. Exiting the doorway, I failed to notice a large metal doorstop embedded in the tarmac and went flying. Really flying.

I had my priorities right and managed to protect the laptop I was carrying in my right hand, and thus took most of the impact on my left arm.

The only immediately visible impact was a ripped trouser knee, ripped jacket elbow and a few grazes:

However, my left arm was in some pain. I was desperately hoping I'd simply pulled a muscle and not fractured it. Although some movements hurt a lot, it did seem to be fully functional. I could at least steer with it, and my right arm would be doing the gear-changing, so I decided that I'd get to Nurburg first and worry about the arm later.

My rental for the journey to and from the Ring was a Punto. Is it just me, or do elongated headlight housings like that look good on a sporty car but stupid on a hatchback?

The girl at the desk sounded very proud (or possibly worried) as she told me it was brand new, with 2km on the clock:

It was fortunate that I had no plans to abuse it - it would be travelling no further than TTE.

Mindful of my previous experience of a text-only GPS stuck in Italian, I'd brought my own GPS over this time, pre-loaded with all the Ring routes:

It was interesting to see that the GPS got as confused as me when it comes to finding the exit to Hahn. How can they not have any signs? Anyway, for the benefit of those doing it for the first time: from the car-rental area, drive uphill, then just keep bearing right.

I was fortunate that it was my left arm I'd hurt: steering was just very slightly painful, but I don't think I'd have lasted long trying to change gear with it.

Passing TTE on the way in, I saw they were still open, so popped in for what turned into a long & enjoyable chat with Marc and Brigitte. Brigitte turned out to be quite the nurse, and applied cream to my wounds and bandaged my knee. I didn't mention the arm for fear that she'd have it in plaster before I'd drunk my second cup of coffee.

They hadn't yet seen the 7-second Ringmeister video, so I showed that to them. Poor guy.

Brigitte was in a race team and showed off one of two trophies:

Marc was lamenting the possibility of Brigitte being eligible to race in the 24H before he was.

I left the Punto there and picked up the Golf. We'd been suffering some vibration which turned out to be due to a flatspotted tyre, and also a wheelbearing had been replaced. The car also had a recent new gearbox after the original one finally committed suicide.

In theory, I was in the Ringhaus Striker, but past experience suggested having the Golf on hand would be a good idea. Arriving at the Ringhaus, this was confirmed: the Striker had broken again. Frank was not terribly happy.

The Golf seemed to have a nearly-flat battery (I needed a push-start after filling up with petrol), so I asked Martin if he would put it on charge in the morning.

Over dinner, I couldn't fully bend or fully straighten my arm. It would be tooooo embarrassing to arrive here for five days and be unable to drive. I decided to see how it was in the morning, and go get it x-rayed if it was no better.

A fun chat in the bar with a few visitors, then to bed.

'Fessing-up on Ringers, the grown-ups told me I had to go get it checked, and I promised to do so if nothing had improved by the morning.

Wednesday

My arm was no better in the morning. The gods were mocking me, with perfect conditions (and a charging battery):

Martin kindly gave me a lift down to the Krankenhaus. The visit, of course, began with paperwork. They were suitably astonished when a Brit turned out to have both his EHIC card and passport with him. They confirmed that the EHIC card would cover all the costs and that my travel insurance wouldn't be needed, but I did have to pay an excess ... of €10!

Once the paperwork was done, things happened with Germanic efficiency. I was sent upstairs with a new word to be added to my German vocabulary: Röntgen (x-ray).

The news appeared good! No fracture - they said ...

The doc said it was either muscle or more likely cartilage damage. When I asked if it was ok to drive, the even better news was yes: anything which doesn't hurt won't do it any harm. Since I have pain-free movement between 30 and 90 degrees, steering would be fine. Phew! (A LHD car of course meant there would be no problem changing gear.)

I was given a note to give to my GP back in the UK, but as I suspected he might speak even less German than me, I went through it with the doc to do a bit of strategic translation.

A new pair of trousers and a lift back with Andy and a couple of the guys, and I was sorted.

As things would turn out, they were wrong, and there was in fact a fracture of the radial head (elbow joint). But as they didn't find it at the time, it didn't interfere with driving plans ...

It had not been a good time for 325 DRT rentals. Both the TTE and Ringhaus 325s had been crashed:

Shells are cheap but it's of course a lot of work to transfer everything across from the old to the new.

I did manage to get an afternoon's work done before it was time to head to the car-park ready for the off.

Well, this is an unusual sight: me there before the opening:

Explained by the fact that it is evening not morning:

I was surprised how full the car-park was for an evening session:

Including a surprisingly high proportion of Brits:

I bumped into Justin, who was changing jobs and took advantage of the fact to create a week's gap between the two.

Audi was launching the A5 at the Ring, with about 20 of them lapping just before the TF session.

They also had an R8 there, which looked and sounded great. The prototype was fitted with a Lambo engine, but the production car has an Audi engine.

The track opened early, and I did two very nice introductory laps. There was a small amount of traffic out there.

I don't try to match-up photos to laps, or even days, by the way, I just sprinkle them in to break up the text. This photo, for example, was taken at the weekend.

Photo: Jamie McKeen

Either the battery or starter was duff as the freshly-charged battery was having trouble starting the car, so I parked strategically:

I gave the car 10 minutes to cool down, then headed out again. This lap was very quiet, but there was a crash at Hohe Acht. It looked like it might have been a car/bike incident. Nobody appeared to be seriously hurt, and it was well flagged, so I didn't stop. But the track was closed when I got back in.

One of the bikes involved was this Ducati:

More strategic parking:

We saw the air ambulance flying over, and Andy arrived to say that it was for Dale of Performance Bikes, who had crashed on the road. I heard from Bren that he was basically ok, with a cracked vertabrae and bruising, and expected to be allowed out of hospital in a few days.

One Ringhaus guest wasn't having much luck. Gavin was there with his brother, Lloyd, with a Seat Leon. They attempted to remap the chip, and the laptop crashed halfway through the process. Unfortunately, it appeared the laptop had deleted the original map and not got as far as uploading the new one, so now the car didn't know how to do anything at all - not even start!

The Ringhaus tried to get him out in the Striker, but that blew a cylinder. The BMW was crashed, the Golf TDi was midway through a turbo rebuild and the Polo was rented out already.

I gave him a couple of paxlaps as a consolation prize.

The marshalls were kind and let us back out despite the fact that it was after 7:20.

Photo: David Thornley

Two quiet laps, and then back to the Ringhaus.

The entertainment wasn't quite over. The way the seat is setup in the Golf, it is very difficult to select reverse. I wanted to park right on the edge of the car-park to give me a downhill bump-start opportunity if required. The car-park was full, so there wasn't much room to swing round, and I had to enlist some volunteers for a 'manual reverse gear'.

Steak on the stone and a couple of drinks in the Pistenklause with Justin brought a pleasant end to day one.

Thursday

I was woken at 7am by what sounded like a motorbike in the corridor outside my room. When I woke a little more, I decided it might actually be outside, but it was bloody loud and being revved hard. I then heard a door go, the noise stopped and words were exchanged.

It turned out that someone with a chainsaw had turned up and thought that 7am would be a convenient time to do some tree surgery right outside the guesthouse. I hope that whoever disabused them of this notion found a suitable receptacle for the chainsaw.

Breakfast with Gavin's group plus Martin and Andy was entertaining. Andy was telling us about the shortest Ringhaus test-drive. All new renters are required to have a test-drive to make sure they are safe. Andy went out with one Polo renter who was new to the Ring.

As the driver was accelerating towards the crest before Bastard Bend (alongside the T13 stadium), Andy warned him that there was a tight bend after the crest, thinking this would suffice as a clue that he should be slowing down. No. As they approached the bend, Andy decided on a more direct approach: 'You'll need to brake here'. Nothing. He then tried an abbreviated version: 'Brake!'. The guy came to a halt just short of the armco.

At Spiegelkurve, the driver locked up all four wheels and was sliding downhill directly towards the armco. Andy told him to let off the brakes so he could regain steering. No response. Again. Nothing. A third time, and finally they stopped.

Andy directed the driver off at Breidscheid and that was the end of his rental contract.

I nipped down to TTE to have the starting problem investigated. Tests showed that it was the starter-motor rather than the battery, so they swapped this.



TTE now has a second PC with net connection available for customer use during while-you-wait jobs - very civilised.



Anders Bildt had asked me to check up on his BMW, which had a blown head, and I was able to give him an update.



The car-park was testament to how busy TTE is these days.

The rather battered Golf wasn't the only whoops victim.

Ushi, Marc's 325, had very little visible damage remaining:

But beneath that were bent axles and enough additional damage to make the repair a major job. It is likely that the repaired car will be withdrawn from the open rental market and used only as a courtesy car for regular customers.

I'm trying to eat vaguely healthily at the moment, and regular visitors will know that this is not always easy in German restaurants and bars. Even the salads arrive smothered in million-calorie creams. I thus decided to nip into Adenau and buy a sandwich and some fruit.

How many years have I been coming to the Ring? How much experience do I have of Eiffel weather? And yet, despite this, I somehow thought that because it was a clear blue sky and I was only nipping into the shop for two minutes, it would be ok to leave the sunroof open.

After mopping up the pool of water from the driver's seat, I looked around the car for something to sit on. We try to keep the car clear of junk, so no carrier-bags or similar. Inspiration struck, and I remembered the foil blanket in the first-aid kit.

Then back to the Ringhaus to do some work. Not helped by someone sending me a link to VirtualEarth, the Microsoft version of Google Earth. Amazingly for Microsoft, it has a better user-interface, making it easy to do a virtual lap of the Ring in either direction from any angle:

You can play with it here (you need to download the plug-in for the 3D view).

But I did manage to get the day's work done by 5.30pm, and then it was time to head down to the car-park ready to play. :-)

The weather started out perfect:

There was the usual automotive porn in the car-park:

The Zakspeed Viper was there, doing its usual pace. There was also a roadgoing version being driven very slowly and carefully:

No Ring car-park is complete without a 968:

Achim was there, of course:

And there was also the usual assortment of rentals:

I had a chat with Bren. Apparently the less said about the manner of Dale's crash, the better ... ;) I promised not to tell.

Justin must have been psychic as he was successfully avoiding publicity by removing his helmet just as I took a photo of him and his pristine bike:

For the second day running, they opened the track a little early. My plan of pairs of back-to-back laps with 10-minute rests in between was thwarted yesterday by a long closure, but hopefully today would be more like the evening sessions of old.

The track was pretty empty, and the first two laps were excellent aside from an armco replacement truck in the lovely double-apex right-hander at Hatzenbach.

Out for another couple of laps, it was again a lovely empty track. I let Justin past me on the run-up to the Karussell and just kept him in sight for the rest of the lap.

Photo: www.mw-sportfoto.de

At the same place on the next lap, I saw two or three raindrops land on the windscreen. Knowing what that can mean at the Ring, I slowed right down. On the run-up to Hohe-Acht, I saw a bike down, and saw it was Justin. I parked on the grass a bit further up, checked that Justin was ok (he was) and then ran on down to flag.

Within a few minutes, the heavens had really opened, and guess what ... the sunroof was open. :-) I asked Justin if he could nip up and close it while I flagged.

Once marshalls took over the flagging, I checked that Justin wasn't ticking the 'no publicity' box and he got couple of those souvenier snaps one usually hopes to avoid.

Justin's only injury was a sore thumb. The bike had a holed generator cover and a few broken bits & pieces, but didn't look too bad at first glance. (He and it were later repatriated by his breakdown company.)

With a wet track, I wasn't missing much, so stayed until the bike was loaded and then headed back to the car-park. The rain had stopped, but the track was now in that half-wet half-dry state that I think is much more dangerous than fully-wet. There would only have been time for one more lap anyway, so i decided not to tempt fate.

I was eating at 8.30pm and the Ringhaus crew had an evening off, so they left me in the bar with the keys and asked me to lock up when I left. Sorry, Euan and Ross, I don't think they will be extending the same courtesy to either of you, somehow ...

Dinner at the Pistenklause, and the twin benefits of bikes and mechanical aptitude were clear when Justin said that, having looked over the damage, he reckoned he could fix it all himself for about £400.

I hoped the mad chainsaw man wouldn't be back at 7am tomorrow.

Friday

Steve Gill was due to arrive at lunchtime, and we'd arranged to have lunch. This plan was somewhat delayed when he called to say he'd broken down near Prum. He didn't have European breakdown coverage, so Martin called Ollie to see if he could go out to Steve.

Garmin MapSource software on my PC proved helpful in locating him:

Since he was driving via Prum, and I needed to create a waypoint to locate him, I decided I might as well add that route to the Garmin routes file in my Directions section.

You can see that although it's 27 miles longer, MapSource reckons its eight minutes faster.

A short time later, Steve called back to say the car had started again, so we passed the news on to Ollie. The car subsequently died again and Ollie trailered it to a BMW dealer to be checked-out.

Steve was going to be a bit delayed, so that gave me an excuse to spend a little time browsing ...

A combination of self-employment and my new regime of five days a month at the Ring meant that my UK car needs were now rather different ...

My car needs to be civilised for business use: in my company, I got chauffered home after evening focus groups, but my new boss expects me to drive myself, so it needs to be quiet and comfortable.

As I'm able to get more of my fun driving fix at the Ring, my UK car doesn't need to be out-and-out fun, just enough power and handling to be pleasant to drive.

But it still has to feel nice to drive- and of course, it must be a convertible.

Accordingly, I'd sold the 911 and was now looking around for a replacement to meet these criteria.

I considered a number of options, before deciding that one strong candidate was (don't laugh) an SLK. I spent a bit of time looking around on the web and spotted a likely-looking car at a dealer close to my dad.

Spoke to the dealer who sounded genuine, and then called my dad to ask him to take a look at it, and if both car and dealer looked legit, to arrange for a mechanic to inspect it. However, some sort of sixth sense had me call the dealer back and verify that it was a manual gearbox (most SLKs are auto). Despite the fact that the ad clearly said manual, it was in fact an auto - so narrowly avoided wasting several people's time. More hunting to do.

Steve arrived very late in a car that wasn't his but which looked suspiciously familiar:

We went for a 4pm lunch at Pinnocios. As neither of us had eaten anything since the morning, we both managed to demolish most of the car-park sized pizzas.

The car-park was even more crowded for the evening session:

With every nationality imaginable represented:

Out for two laps, and the Golf was oversteering quite a lot on right-handers. On the second lap, it was getting sufficiently alarming that I pulled off at Breidscheid to check the pressures.

Sure enough, the left rear was lower than the right, so I put it back up to match. It felt a lot better on the second half of the lap.

Returning, the track was closed. Closure-free evening sessions appear to be a thing of the past. :-(

Apparently a Belgian car and British bike had had a coming together. I heard a couple of different versions, one of which is that the bike had been dropping oil for some time.

Whatever the truth, when the track reopened there was a fair bit of oil out there.

I did another two laps when it reopened. On the second of these, I saw a glimpse of orange on the inside of Bergwerk just as I was braking for it. I braked harder and the orange was someone running back down the grass to flag. As I rounded the bend, speed now very low, there was a big trail of oil and two cars on the right-hand side. Many thanks to whoever the running person was!

Photo: www.mw-sportfoto.de

Another closure and I bumped into Darran, who'd booked places at the Pistenklause dinner, and then Ed. Ed was looking on good form.

When the track reopened, he jumped in for two final laps. There were a few drops of rain on the second lap, so I eased off. The session was over when we got back.

My theory of 8-10 laps each evening was not working out too well, but it was still a nice feeling to have done 16 laps before the weekend. :-)

Frank was back, and confirmed that he'd done the deal with Caterham for two track-prepped cars from the Caterham Academy. These were due to arrive in July. They will then need to be TUV'd and German-registered.

And then to the Pistenklause for dinner. My table came equipped with a power socket as usual. :-) A new delicacy was invented:

Saturday

The weather was looking decidedly undecided. Some blue-grey sky. Rain was forecast for the afternoon, for whatever that was worth.

Arriving in the car-park, I just had time to put my helmet on and harness-up before it closed.

Time for a wander round the car-park, then.

Two Brits were there with a Lambo and this Ultima.

As the track reopened and I went out for a couple of wet laps, the Lambo came past at a respectable pace and with good lines. It was great to see one of these being driven properly. I saw him later and asked for a paxlap and he said he'd give me one later. Sadly, I didn't spot him again.

Filling up with petrol, I picked the wrong lane as these guys in a van filled up about ten jerry cans.

Alex took the opportunity to pose.

A Swiss 911 driver called Mark introduced himself, thanked me for the website and very kindly sponsored that evening's B&B stay.

I saw him following me round the track a couple of times, and later he asked if I would passenger with him to give him some feedback. As his driving looked safe, I said yes.

His driving was safe and mostly good lines, just a few places where he needed later entry and where more use of slow-in, fast-out would be effective.

The weather could best be described as something like this:

I may have missed one or two changes. Suffice it to say everytime it looked like the track would be dry on the next lap, it started to rain again.

The very unpredictable conditions were having the expected effect, with two or three crashes on most laps, though thankfully all damage-only and no closures.

A group of Brits from Kent had joined us for dinner at the Pistenklause last night, and I gave a couple of them paxlaps, one on a dry lap and the other on a mixed-surface lap.

Thorlief had regained ownership of his car from Steve.

As mixed conditions are not much fun (you have to enter every bend assuming that the exit may be wet), I decided to nip back to the Forsthaus for a coffee and to update the trip report, such as it was.

The sun came out half an hour later, but when I wandered out to have a look, it was raining again. I did a bit more car-hunting on the web. Forty minutes later, the sun was back.

Got two dry laps, then it started raining again. I think they must have announced some kind of silly expression competition to keep people amused in the rain:

With the track in that horrible half-wet, half-dry state, I decided it was time to find someone foolish enough to go out. Hmmm, let me check that expression again ... Ok, sorted.

He did have an excuse for that expression: wondering what the bike ahead of us was up to.

Steve had finally solved the mystery vibration problem: new engine mounts. Very special engine mounts. Please don't ask him what they cost: it's not nice to see a grown man cry.

Now here's an unusual sight: Bren without leathers. You'll be reassured to know he was still complaining about car drivers.

It was still raining, and a bunch of us were having a chat in the car-park when I decided it was not quite yet fully-wet, so another foolhardy Ringer was required. Aha, here's one who's just got his car back - he'll be desperate enough to drive in any conditions.

I think this Steve too was wondering what a biker was up to.

A blue hatchback of some kind had hit both ends in Wippermann. Someone I presume was the driver's other half was not looking terribly amused.

Kevin was trying to keep his 50th birthday quiet. Gill wasn't helping:

Went out for three paxlaps with him, on a gradually drying track. The final lap was totally dry.

I then headed out for a couple of laps in the Golf. The first lap was totally dry, the second was completely wet.

Photo: www.mw-sportfoto.de

On the first lap, a 911 crashed in front of me at Brunnchen, and I had to steer around the spoiler he left on the track. I figured there were enough spectators to flag, and it didn't look like it hit hard enough for injuries, so I kept going.

On the next lap, there was a bike down at Galgenkopf, being well-flagged by Andy among others. Everyone was up & about.

Another 911 had some interesting graphics:

And then it was home-time.

Dinner at the Pistenklause, and Gill was still helping Kevin keep a low profile:

I decided to help out:

Apparently we should just eat this and not enquire too closely about its history:

Steve G and I were being geeky by having a quick Skype catch-up with Rob about forum stuff. What would a Ringers dinner be without boys and their toys? Andrew Mulholland was also geeking on his two mobiles.

Kevin did try to create a map of the Ring using the 50 stickers, but got this far and gave up:

Better do a refresher tomorrow.

Sunday

The weather looked promising:

Sunday opening was 10.15am, so I was actually there at opening time on a Sunday morning!

Which was a good thing, as there was time for exactly two laps before the first closure. This was, strangely, two apparently-unrelated accidents, one at the entry to Galgenkopf and the other at the exit. My first assumption was oil, but there was no sign of any.

Unfortunately, both accidents were bad ones. Both were airlifted, and the initial reports were that one had been killed, but it seems this wasn't the case. The police report (badly translated by babelfish and slightly unmangled by me) says:

Two bikers were badly injured at Galgenkopf on the Nordschleife. A 35-year-old British biker probably lost control due to not reducing speed for a right-hand bend, and crashed heavily. He sustained life-threatening injuries and was flown to hospital. Witnesses are asked to contact the police in Adenau.

A 28-year-old German rider also crashed at nearly the same time on the same bend, again due to speed too fast for the corner. He hit the left-side armco and was also flown to hospital.

(Original German version here.)

The closure lasted about two hours. I chatted to various Ringers during that time, including Al, a Brit biker who'd had a slight whoops moment at Bastard Bend the previous evening.

All crashes are lotteries to some extent, but when you compare a crash like Justin's or Al's with the Galgenkopf ones, it really emphasises just how much you place your life in the lap of the gods when you take to two wheels here. The difference between a damage-only bike crash and a fatal one is down to luck in the end, and the gap between the two can be small.

I'd encourage all bikers to get a paxlap or two in a properly setup DRT to see how much fun you can have on four wheels. If you've only ever experienced shopping cars, you probably think cars are boring; a paxlap in a DRT usually demonstrates otherwise. I'll happily provide one - just ask.

A DRT can be run almost as cheaply as a bike, especially if you go the syndicate route, and a cage, harness and crumple-zones between you and the armco makes a massive difference to the likely outcome. Do think about it.

The car-park was crowded before the closure:

And even more so during it:

Harjap came and introduced himself as the owner of the 'Challenged Stradale' (Volvo 340) featured in a previous trip report. He'd now got something more conventional: a 325. He couldn't quite bring himself to be completely conventional, though: he'd bought the Touring version, complete with tow-hook.

A car-park wander, with the usual sprinkling of exotica:

I found the Lambo, but sadly not with the driver present.

Here seen on-track:

Photo: www.moto-pics.de

There were two Vipers:

A few OldTimers were dotted about the car-park:

Sadly, this one was refused admission for some reason (I couldn't see any oil leaks, which is the usual reason). It may have been a child in a car without seat-belts?

There was of course lots of the usual Ring fare:

Including the cuddly toys:

And the less usual:

Well, you'd expect a Laverda owner to be an eccentric chap. :-)

Also in the unusual stakes was this:

Quite what the connection is between religion and motorsports, I have no idea - although people driving the Ring probably do utter the phrases 'Jesus Christ!', 'Oh my god' and 'Please, god, no' more often than most.

I do love Caterhams in the sheet-metal look:

I have a feeling, though, that it would be a pain when the sun is low in the sky ahead of you?

Keeping adults amused during closures is relatively straightforward: talk bollocks and admire machinery. But how to entertain children? One family had it sussed, with a complete play-centre in the back of the car:

Speaking of machinery, this apparently had a supercharger taking it to 230bhp:

Finally the track reopened. I managed to be one of the first cars out, so it was pretty empty. I'd spotted Harjap at the barriers and invited him to jump in.

Photo: www.mw-sportfoto.de

The second lap, unfortunately, was a mess. It was just a solid procession of slow cars & bikes without mirrors, with the occasional organ donor candidate darting between the traffic. One Italian biker almost got wiped out twice in a single suicidal overtaking manouevre - which gained him all of ten feet.

Photo: www.moto-pics.de

It was utterly pointless being out there, so I decided to grab some lunch and let things calm down.

An hour later, I headed back out. It was a bit saner, though there were several minor crashes. Fortunately, all were being flagged.

Heading out for a second lap, Harjap ran over. He'd lost his phone and car keys and suspected they had fallen out of his pockets during his paxlap. This was easily cured by jumping in for another one so he could check the car afterwards.

The lap was busier, and there was some stupidly aggressive driving and riding going on. Some of the people out there need to spend a serious amount of time looking at the wreckage of the sorts of accidents they were risking.

Coming round Steilstrecke, a biker had just gone down on the outside right at the exit. I stopped on the grass on the inside. He was getting up, and seemed ok, but was in a rather vulnerable position on the outside of the bend out of sight, so I ran back to flag. Grabbing the flag didn't take any time: it had looked like one of those weekends from the start, so I'd put it in a handy position:

I flagged at the entrance to the bend, which was visible from the right-45 prior to Steilsrtrecke. A bike marshall also stopped. He went a bit further down, but this seemed to be causing confusion, with his bike parked up at the outside of the entrance, people thought that was the reason for the flagging so speeded up as they rounded the bend. I suggested he move back to the bend.

I gave him my flag and went back to check on the rider. He was all ok, so I resumed flagging.

Flagging was hot work, and I was glad when the safety car arrived. On the way round, Jon Reeves' RX7 was being loaded onto a recovery truck in Wippermann - after seemingly running out of fuel.

By the time we got back, the track was closed again - apparently for another serious bike crash. The CCar spent a lot of time parked.

Dave and Bob had timed their arrival well, arriving shortly after the end of the first closure. An arty snap of Bob:

There was a disguised car being tested, but I only saw it on the roundabout:

I knew a Ringer would quickly identify it, and sure enough Colin Turrall identified it as an Alfa Romeo 8C:

Jon Meyer emailed me with some details: 4.2 litre V8, 400 hp. 500-car production run. Around £100k/€150k.

When the track reopened, it was again carnage. Utterly stupid driving and riding, and crashes everywhere.

The track was really hot, and the Golf's road tyres were suffering - when I tried two back-to-back laps, the second lap was really slidey. I tried reducing the pressures, which made things worse. I tried increasing them, which improved things a little but not much, so switched to single laps.

Photo: www.mw-sportfoto.de

I gave a couple of paxlaps, one to Darran and the second to Al. Both were crowded laps.

Al got a little entertainment. Coming round Eschbach, there was a marshall flagging (the same one as at Steilstrecke earlier). I'd seen this but wanted to wait until the car was straight before braking. Al looked worried for a moment.

I told him the story of the blocked Galgenkopf moment when I didn't want to brake while sliding, nor did I want to be stopped at the back of traffic round a fast blind bend, so I'd picked a gap and driven through it. There was time to formulate & execute this plan, but not to fill Birgit in on the details. She was of the rather loud opinion that I should be braking and couldn't figure out why I wasn't. :-)

I decided to stay off the track for an hour and hope it would calm down later for a final couple of laps.

I had two laps left because we have a logbook system designed to ensure that the CCar is safe, and also that we maximise the safe life of the tyres. One part of this is that the tyres and rotated after 40 laps, and a full brake inspection is carried out at the same time.

The first part of the plan worked out: the car-park thinned out nicely:

Some were making more stylish exits than others. The neatness of this Mercedes Sprinter, with four bikes, sets of leathers, ramp and assorted kit, was amazing:

While others were making less stylish exits:

Unfortunately, the second part of the thinning-out plan wasn't working: there was yet another lengthy closure.

I'd been asked if I'd take a British biker, Sue, out for a paxlap. When the track finally reopened, we went out for a pretty scrappy lap with a lot of traffic and still a lot of aggressive and impatient driving.

I opted for one final lap right at the end of the day. I waited until 7.15pm before getting into the car. I drove slowly down to the barrier and went through about a minute before it closed. That was a great plan: the track was pretty empty ahead of me, and nothing came past from behind.

Photo: www.mw-sportfoto.de

I dropped back to the Ringhaus to pack and settle-up, leaving my helmet, shoes and gloves. Then dropped the Golf at TTE and picked up my rental car for an uneventful drive back to the airport.

Stopping off to refuel the car, I marvelled at the fact that only Germans could require seven different flavours of Fisherman's Friend:

Dinner at the airport, and plenty of time to transfer the photos and finish the trip report as my flight was delayed by 1.5 hours. To top it off, UK passport control seemed to have some kind of alert on, so they were checking every passport thoroughly - I was second off the plane (the shame of it!) and it still took half an hour to get through. It was 3.30am by the time I got home.

And that was the first of my 5-day trips. The evening sessions were much busier than I was used to from days of old, but overall the format works well. I got a decent amount of work done, and got a lot more driving done than would have been the case had I just been there for the weekend. I think my one modification will be to switch to 1.5-day weekends in the hope that those will be quieter.

One penultimate postscript: I got a text message the next day from Steve Gill to say 'A plane has just landed on the Nordschleife'. I naturally had to phone him for details. A German TV programme had decided to arrange a race between Sabine driving a Mercedes SLR and an aerobatic plane. The plane was, er, flying quite low:

Photo: Sam Wyatt

Photo: Sam Wyatt

For example, it flew under the gantry! Finally, it landed on Dottinger-Hohe:

Photo: Sam Wyatt

I'm sure the footage will be making its way to YouTube shortly after the programme is broadcast.

And the final postscript: two weeks later, my arm still hurt and I still couldn't straighten it, so went to my local A&E. The triage nurse took a look and said it wouldn't be broken but they would x-ray it to be sure. But the x-ray showed that it was. They did say that the fact that I didn't seem to be in agony would have fooled them, and that it can be a hard fracture to spot. I shall have to wait for the fracture clinic next week to see how long they reckon until it's back in working order.