As you might have seen I've already finished up a new post in the Rally Notes project and today I just wanted to do a small write up about part of my trip. I was in Europe and one place I made sure to stop at was the Nurburgring. If you don't know about the track here is a piece of the wiki page:

"The Nürburgring is a motorsport complex around the village of Nürburg, Germany. It features a modern Grand Prix race track built in 1984, and a much longer old North loop track which was built in the 1920s around the village and medieval castle of Nürburg in the Eifel mountains. The old track was nicknamed The Green Hell by Jackie Stewart and is widely considered the toughest, most dangerous and most demanding purpose-built race track in the world."

So my girlfriend and I stayed at the Dorint Hotel which is located on the North East side of the Grand Prix track, with our room having a beautiful view of the final turns and the starting line. My goal was not to drive the Grand Prix track but to drive the old loop, the Nordschleife. Obviously I would have to rent a car for that, so the internet search began.

Soon after, a member on a motorsport forum I frequent pointed me to a group called RentRaceCar. I want to take a moment to give them some credit because let me just say, working with Heide and her husband over email and at their office was a great experience. I had dozens of questions and they were always answered in a timely manner. And once I was at the Dorint Hotel, they even came and picked me up to get me to their location. At their shop I met a few others who were also renting cars to take onto the track. After the paperwork and formalities were finished, we got into our cars and headed over to the track entrance.

I had purchased a special "happy hour" package that included all wear and tear on the car and also a four lap ticket (for public driving, the track works like a toll road). But before I got to head out onto the track, the owner took my girlfriend and I for an introductory lap around the course. Driving us around in a VW Minivan with the knowledge to pass performance cars, I was shown the racing line and where to be cautious on the track. Meanwhile, a man who had rented a BMW M3 from another rental group had crashed on the track. Mr. Kleen explained to us how he has a deal with the track to be allowed to do introductory laps while other rental groups just hand over the keys and provide no insight to what you will be up against.

Once the introductory lap was over it was my time to drive, and hopefully not crash and burn! I was a bit worried because the weather was damp and sections of the track had rain falling. I drove a track prepped VW Golf V GTI, FWD with 220 hp and it was a blast! For whatever reason, I didn't feel like being cautious and from my first lap went all out. With my heart pounding I made my way through the course, hours of Forza 3 driving the track completely forgotten. Heading into one of the 70+ turns, a BMW Ring Taxi gets on my bumper and flies past me on the corner exit (it turns out Sabine Schmitz was one of the drivers that day!) And if you watch the video of her driving the track in 10 minutes with a cargo van, imagine her in a BMW 5 Series!

Porsches, Nissan GTRs and BMW M series littered the track (all passing me of course!) as I did my four laps with intermittent rain. I can't remember how many times the car's tracitional control kicked in, keeping my back end in line as I pushed my way through corner after corner. On the third lap I found that I was pushing the car too much, as going through Wehrseifen the traction control couldn't save me and the back end kicked out. So with some counter steer and my foot off the gas I did a small slide until the car was able to bite the track once again. I finished the lap and decided my fourth would be a slow one to take in the scenery. If I had crashed the car, I would have owed 8,000 euros to cover it!

But like I said, it was a blast and I am so glad to have done it. In a perfect world I would be heading back there every six months to rent another car and put in more laps. Who knows if/when I will make it back there but at least now I can say I've experienced it first hand.

Here are a few pictures my girlfriend snapped from that day: