Pilgrimage to the 'Ring (17-18 sept.)!

[stradale]

Allright, here goes. Sorry it took so long to let you guys know how my weekend at the Ring was. I was quite busy, as is the case much these days...

Together with my buddy BJ, who is as addicted to cars as I am, I departed from Groningen around half past seven saturday morning. Which meant I had to get up as early as I normally do when I leave for work. Not surprisingly, it look less effort to get out of bed on this particular morning. We drove BJ's 320i, which we had intended to transport us during this trip. However, a weekend earlier, BJ had driven it across the German border to test its 'autobahnfähigkeit', during which some sort of plastic bit from the frontspoiler fell off and was crushed beneath the wheels. Not exactly confidence inspiring, when you have your foot down and the speedo reads 220. To make matters worse, in the following week an orange warning light lit up, to announce a large service was due. As a result, the idea of travelling by 320 was abandoned; BJ didn't want to stress the car prior to its service and J, one of our other pilgrims, insisted on travelling with a reliable car (i.e. not a car with bits falling off) to make sure he would be back home sunday evening. So we decided to take J's car, a Mitsubishi Galant Wagon 2.5 V6. Therefore, the 320 wasn't to take us any further than Zwolle, about 100 kilometres from Groningen. From there we would travel with our travelling companions: E, BJ's uncle and J, E's neighbour.

The Galant proved itself to be a spacious, comfortable and reasonably nippy, yet not very much capable of causing the adrenaline to flow freely thanks to the rather wallowy ride, vague steering and automatic gearbox.

The A12/A3 lead us into Germany and just before Oberhausen we stopped for fuel, of both the petrol kind and of the caffeine kind. While sipping our cappuccino's in the bright morning sun we noticed the entire region's fire trucks, ambulances, emergency doctors and 'polizei' must be heading in the same direction as we were travelling. While doing so, they also made sure they were being noticed. Clearly they were in a hurry. We failed to find some sort of positive explanation for this and rightly so. After setting off again, we drove for less than two kilometres before we came to a halt. Oh, crap! And we didn't even know what we were in for. We weren't to move an inch forward in the next four (FOUR!!!!) hours. It must have been a huge accident. After I came home, I read on the internet that a man in a 206CC (picture that) caused three crashes on 1.8 kilometre of autobahn. Supposedly, he would have cut cars and lorries off and lost control of his own car during his third (and last) manoeuvre. Five people were injured and the fucking idiot who caused all of that mess was injured so bad his life was hanging in the balance. Well, that's some sort of justice, I guess. Some cars and a lorry were said to have caught fire as well, so you can picture the scene. After three hours yet another ambulance was needed and an emergency helicopter was flown in. Transported on a trailer, the fully burnt truck passed us by going the other direction. We failed to come up with a positive point of view again, except for that we weren't involved in the inferno ourselves. A four hour delay is bad, but it could definitely have been worse.

We did have fun though. We spotted a Quattroporte and some other nice cars going the other way (too bad I was providing the roadside trees with some liquid when a Ferrari screamed by ) To kill time, BJ and I walked forward through the traffic jam to gather some more information. On our way back, we talked to two Dutch girls who were on their way to Oberhausen to go shopping. They were not exactly bright and they weren't hot either, but what else was there to do? Their car was bad news as well: a Corsa 1.0. A little while later, we saw the girls walk by us, heading towards the restaurant to pay a visit to the toilets. Earlier, we had already advised them to ask a busdriver of one of the many coaches in the traffic jam whether they could use the lavatory on his bus. This suggestion of ours however, was rendered useless for no apparent reason. Fine, suit yourselves. Their own idea turned out to be much worse. Not long after they would have reached the restaurant, a police car drove by, urging everyone to return to their cars; the road was said to be free in about ten minutes. Although it took longer in reality, no Corsa girls were seen. When we finally set off, we were already laughing our asses off as we were expecting to see a certain Corsa blocking the fast lane. And we were right. Under the watchful eye of a very very grumpy looking policeman, the Corsa was already being hauled on a recovery truck. My guess is the girls had a terribly expensive day, without much shopping being done! We have a picture of this scene and I will add it later. Never did I regret not asking for a phone number more. We could have had even more fun!

Fortunately, the rest of the trip went smooth and in the late afternoon the gorgeous B257 finally lead us through Adenau. From Adenau, a short, narrow and twisty road connected to the entrance of the Nordschleife. There, we ended up in another traffic jam, but this time we didn't really mind. The roads were littered with fabulous machinery. The track had just been reopened and everyone was eager to get onto it. Soon the traffic disappeared, we parked the car and rushed over to the parkings and the actual entrance to the track. We were prepared to see great cars, but the sheer numbers of them was astonishing. M3's, GT3's, GT2's, Evo's, STi's, Elises; they were everywhere! After a while we wanted to see and hear the cars roar by at speed, so we went a little further down the track, at Antoniusbrücke and Tiergarten, which had a free line of sight all the way up to the Hohenrain chicane. All, I can say is:

With the temperature dropping rapidly and the 'touristenfahrten' coming to an end soon, we decided to head for the hotel, check in and try and find a nice restaurant. The first of the typical Ring restaurants (which can be recognised by the mouthwatering carparks), the Pistenklause, was fully booked. The second one, Lindenhof, looked like a smoke grenade had gone off inside a minute before we set foot across the treshold. As our idea of eating involved actually tasting the food, we tried getting a table elsewhere, which we did. Stupid thing is, I don't remember what the name of the place was where we did have dinner. Anyway, we had a great meal with drinks and everything for less than 100 euros in total. Great value!

More on sunday will follow later...

[Wutputt]

Originally Posted by stradale The pleasure was all mine, Wutputt! Sorry to hear more bad things happened to people in your group. When we got back to Brünnchen around 15.00 hrs, we saw a bunch of guys (didn't see you there) watching someone work on the blue Touring. Did he manage to sort things out in the end? I'll have a look at your topic on last weekend and I'll add my story below.

Well, at that time I was helping the other friend with his engine troubles The green hell took revenge apparently that weekend. The blue touring wasn't fixed that weekend. The owner drove very carefully back home: max 90 km/u, checking tire temperature and tire pressure almost every hour. Since he was tired he didn't drove home in one go, he stayed overnight in Aachen and went to a BMW dealership the next morning to check the car. As we speak the car is back in healthy conditions (expect for the bodywork, that isn't fixed yet) and handles like before. As a matter of fact, he's on holidays with his car right now. So everything worked out in the end.

I'll wait for your Sunday review to post my comments

[gucom]

LOL u mustve laughed your asses off with those girls cant wait to hear and see about hte rest...

[Fleischmann]

HAHAHA...gotta feel sorry for those girls, they probably didnn't do any shopping on that day It's a great feeling seeing so many pissed drivers and being the only person to know what's going on.

[stradale]

Here's the rest of my story. I hope you enjoy reading it.

Sunday

As we had gotten back to the hotel reasonably early because all four of us were quite tired, we were able to rise early the following morning. Since J is planning on selling his Galant any time soon, he didn't want to risk damaging it on the Ring, which meant we wouldn't be going out onto the track when it was as busy as saturday. However, he said that if it wasn't busy at all, he wouldn't mind. Therefore I thought it would be a good idea to get up as early as need be to get to the track at 8. Unfortunately I found myself to be holding the only dissenting opinion. The others looked at me as if I were nuts or masochistic, or perhaps a bit of both. So we got up at 8. By the time everyone had hit the shower, breakfast was dealt with and the hotel room was paid for, we found ourselves at the car park around 10. First stop was the BMW pavillion, to get our names down on the back-up list. Apparently it had not been openened long, because my name and phone number was in fourth place. My initial optimism about this was however effectively crushed when the guy behind the counter stated that he gave me little chance because the list was already quite long. Ten minutes later, when I returned to ask him a question I saw that the list covered the entire A4 sheet of paper... When they do phone you, you have about ten seconds to get over there though. This means you have to stay close to the car park all day, without knowing whether you'll get a ride. No thanks, I'll take my chances.

After a quick stroll through the car park, we went over to Brünnchen. The weather was great and would only get better as the day progressed. The track was closed when we got there, but it was still a great sight. This weekend I saw the Nordschleife for the first time, so I was amazed by how much steeper it is in reality than photos or videos can ever reveal. After a while, we heard cars approaching. Two black E46 M3s howled by. Wow! :shock: They were going a lot faster through the bends than I expected. Then, a short while later the track was reopened and a flood of cars and bikes blasted past. The memory of Sabine Schmitz in the Ringtaxi, drifting through Brünnchen I with smoking rear tyres, steering with one hand while honking the horn with the other, will not fade easily. Lots of spectacular cars were seen and heard. The most impressive sounding cars to me were a Finnish M6 with a not-so-standard exhaust system, the M3 CSLs, the GT3s, an Audi RS6 and a Ferrari 360 spider. Also on track was an orange Evo VI with HKS written on the side which was travelling at a very impressive pace. It was also fun to see very mundane cars such as a Seat Leon, an Opel Vectra, a Merc C class Combi and an Opel Corsa being thrashed, while the EcoContacts they were shod with (by the sound of it) screamed in agony. The locals in their stripped, lowered, roll cage-fitted, Golf mkIIs were lapping pretty fast as well. The Zakspeed Vipers were mighty impressive too.

An unknown (to me at least) small red project in progress, which looked like some kind of crossover between a Renault Alpine A110 and a Mini Marcos, took a wrong line through Brünnchen I. It carried too much speed trying to overtake a car around the outside, which was dusty. It oversteered and slid off the track and then back on. Luckily the other cars and bikes had anticipated this would happen and had already braked. The driver then parked his car in the grass on the other side, facing the wrong way. Because of the armco and the sloping bend in front of him, he couldn't see oncoming traffic until they were already halfway through the bend. He had to depend on luck from the position he was in and fortunately he picked the right moment to turn on the track and get on his way. It could have ended in tears though. IMO it would have been better for him to reverse along the grass all the way up to Brünnchen II and then make his turn. That way, he could have given himself and others more time and distance.

I sent Wutputt a message saying that I was at Brünnchen and I saw a number of his countrymen there, wondering if he was among them. He quickly responded by calling me and we soon saw eachother. We had a small chat about what had happened with his friend's BMW, about the track, the cars and our bad luck with the four hour traffic jam. Wutputt told me that the Cannonballers had paid the Nordschleife a visit on saturday, something we could have seen if it wasn't for that sodding accident. Damn! Wutputt soon had to return to his business of providing his mates with photographic proof that they really had been lapping the Ring and me and my companions were going to spectate elsewhere. So our meet was short but pleasant. Wutputt is the first JW member I have met in real life. Very nice meeting you!

From Brünnchen we walked along the track to the Karussell. We stopped and watched quite a number of times! Eschbach, Wippermann, Hohe Acht, it's all wonderful. Just before you get to the Karussell you can see Steilstreckenkurve lying below. Holy shit, this is steep! Karussell is very interesting as well, but I don't recommend it to people feeling nauseous. Watch the cars go round for a minute or so and I'll guarantee you they would be tasting their breakfast for the second time.

Just before Eschbach we saw a mercilessly driven bog standard Opel Corsa having severe oversteer. The rear wheels were smoking and the slide was at a dramatic angle. We all thought he was either going to be fishtailing into the armco on the left or he was going to lose it and face the wrong way on the right side. The driver had no such plan, he caught the slide with quick reflexes and a complete absence of fishtailing and went on his merry way. Props! This is the man.

On our way back from the Karussell to Brünnchen we stopped at Hohe Acht once more. As we were spectating, a biker on a Suzuki GSX-R (?) 1100 locked up his front wheel on the approach. His back wheel came off the ground and he had to let go of the brakes to get his bike back under control. He did, but then he had lost quite a bit of braking distance. He couldn't make it through the corner and hit the armco right in front of me. He and his bike sort of slid alongside and finally he he was thrown over the armco. Luckily he was able to get up immediately and tried to pick up his bike. As the initial rush of adrenaline faded away, he suddenly wasn't too surefooted anymore. He sat down while someone warned oncoming traffic and another spectator was calling the Nürburgring office. After traffic slowed down in a very disciplined manner (cars signalling with their emergency lights, bikers holding up their left arm), J, who is a cardiologist, went over to see if he could be of any help. The biker wasn't about to go into shock and he had no arterial bleeding. He did have a deep cut from the armco in his left upper leg though; the muscle was peeking out. Ambulance, emergency doctor and police were present soon after. I don't know whether it had to do with him being shaken up because of the crash or that he was just an arse, but the biker seemed more concerned about his leathers, his gloves, sunglasses and where his bike was transported to than with his own health. He insisted his suit wasn't being cut open, as, according to him, it could be fixed. He also removed the neck support on his own authority, which was rather stupid as statistics show that about 90% of people who have an accident like this or worse have some sort of injury to the neck.

There were quite a few closures as a result of accidents. On our way home, when we drove through Adenau, we saw a yellow GT2 and a Peugeot 306 on recovery trucks. Apparently the 306 had run into the back of the GT2, causing great damage to both cars.

When we got back to Brünnchen we had a quick look at an attempt to repair the BMW 3 series Touring of Wutputt's friend. It didn't look very serious, but I read earlier the problem unfortunately couldn't be fixed.

By then it was past three o' clock already, so time had passed as swiftly as the cars on track. Time to head for home, sadly. We had no problems on our trip back to the Netherlands and we arrived in Zwolle around seven. The last stretch, to Groningen, went smooth as well.

Even with the horrible traffic jam on saturday taken into account, we had a blast! It was definitely worthwhile and I think I may have found a new favourite place on earth. The atmosphere is truly unique. True passion for cars is everywhere, the track is really like an enormous rollercoaster (cliché, I know, but like most clichés, it's absolutely true) and the scenery is gorgeous. Next year I'll be back, hoping to do some laps myself and trying to blag my way into the passenger seat of some experienced ringers. In december I will also be trying to book a ride in the Ringtaxi. Can't wait for the spring!

The only thing that worried us was that on both saturday and sunday, the best manoeuvre of the day was executed with an Opel Corsa! I hate Corsas with a passion, and so did my fellow pilgrims, but there was no way denying that in a weekend that was filled with the most exciting cars, the Corsas had been responsible for the two most entertaining moments.

I didn't have a camera with me and I don't have the video footage E shot during the trip yet, so here are some links to sites with pictures and trip reports of the same weekend.

http://www.fastlap.de.vu/

http://www.ringphotos.com

http://www.nurburgring.org.uk/trip_r...p45/index.html

http://www.jwhubbers.nl/ring/trip51/index.php

http://ringbunny.fotopic.net/

http://www.ring-world.nl/Verslagen/2...2005-09-17.htm

http://www.ring-world.nl/Foto's/2005...9-18/index.htm

http://www.ring-world.nl/Foto's/2005...9-19/index.htm