thankyou and goodnight
Discussion
Blimey you live your life at some pace Nervy
It seems like 5 minutes since you were buying your first 996, then spinning it, asking for advice on why it spun and then (and this is my fav bit) went outside in an attempt to spin it again and succeded
Then on the the GT3 , then conquering France
and now goodbye
Well its been emotional. Good luck with the business. Its 6 years since we started ours and we havn't looked back
It seems like 5 minutes since you were buying your first 996, then spinning it, asking for advice on why it spun and then (and this is my fav bit) went outside in an attempt to spin it again and succeded
Then on the the GT3 , then conquering France
and now goodbye
Well its been emotional. Good luck with the business. Its 6 years since we started ours and we havn't looked back
Nice write up, I was secretly hoping you'd take ages to sell it so I could buy it next year, sounded like an awesome car.nervous said:
ive decide to spend much less than id originally planned. sensible all the way for me now.
well, ish
well, ish
engine in front, drive at rear, water-cooled porsche, cheap as chips, engine in front drive at rear, water-cooled porsche, cheap as chips, engine in front, drive at rear, water-cooled porsche, cheap as chips
go on, you KNOW you want to.....
nervous said:
stuttgartmetal said:
Can't you get hold of Burriana's 3.2 cheap ?
I know its a massive come down from the GT3, but your post struck a chord.....
I know its a massive come down from the GT3, but your post struck a chord.....
too rich for my blood unfortunatley, since ive decide to spend much less than id originally planned. its lovely in every way, but ive managed to get the two vehicles i need for less than the price of burry's.
i would love it, but its not to be. sensible all the way for me now.
well, ish
So, at the risk of exposing my lack of keeping-up-to-date-ness and part time PH surfing...
Whatcha bought as replacement(s) then?
Being a true PetrolHead is all about special moments away from the mundane, and the GT3 is never mundane, at not time, ever. I remember driving back from Monte Carlo, we took a night out at Chateau Crayeres in Reims, sure that was fantastic but I was in Reims for one reason only, I wanted to see that famous start line in all its overgrown glory.
It was early on a Friday morning and the air was crisp and fresh with nothing in the sky. Pulling up outside the pits with nothing on that road and the sun kissing the car was special. Standing up in the stadium looking down on the car was special too, it looks so right all low slung and ready, (why was my camera flat!). Sure we had a look around, enjoyed the history, read the walls and soaked it all up, but when we left there was only one thing truly fitting of such a place.
Nothing about, windows down, slide out onto the road, stop, revs, drop the clutch and away, all the way to that red line. Hearing that banshee wail reverberate off those walls, walls that had heard many great noises was just ‘appropriate’ and was very special. Down to the island at the bottom of the hill then right and wail off around the back lanes, just fantastic stuff and what GT3 ownership should be about. Moments like that are rare, when nothing is around and you have such a place to yourself, but I can think of no better car for such a moment.
I would go as far as to say the most people could not live with a GT3 and many will not appreciate it. I fully understand and respect that, but some of us get it, and I say so what if others miss its point or elevates its flaws, just enjoy it for what it is, special to a few of us. You will be back, of that there is NO doubt!
It was early on a Friday morning and the air was crisp and fresh with nothing in the sky. Pulling up outside the pits with nothing on that road and the sun kissing the car was special. Standing up in the stadium looking down on the car was special too, it looks so right all low slung and ready, (why was my camera flat!). Sure we had a look around, enjoyed the history, read the walls and soaked it all up, but when we left there was only one thing truly fitting of such a place.
Nothing about, windows down, slide out onto the road, stop, revs, drop the clutch and away, all the way to that red line. Hearing that banshee wail reverberate off those walls, walls that had heard many great noises was just ‘appropriate’ and was very special. Down to the island at the bottom of the hill then right and wail off around the back lanes, just fantastic stuff and what GT3 ownership should be about. Moments like that are rare, when nothing is around and you have such a place to yourself, but I can think of no better car for such a moment.
I would go as far as to say the most people could not live with a GT3 and many will not appreciate it. I fully understand and respect that, but some of us get it, and I say so what if others miss its point or elevates its flaws, just enjoy it for what it is, special to a few of us. You will be back, of that there is NO doubt!
IN MEMORIAM
MATT AKA "NERVOUS"
CAME TO US 2006, LEFT US 2006.
REST IN PIECES, BRO.
One more time for luck...
A Slice of Lemon
No. It can’t be. Not my alarm. Not yet. It’s not possible. I’ve only been in bed an hour. Without a doubt this is the worst part of any holiday: the part where you have to get up earlier than you do when you have to go to work; the part that makes you think ‘if I just didn’t go and stayed here, it might not be so bad’. I toy with this idea for a long moment. But then I remember, today is different. Today I get to fulfil a life’s ambition: I’m going to Lemans. And to the Nurburgring. In a GT3. My GT3.
5 minutes later, my body catches up with my brain and realises that this thought must have done the trick, as I find myself eating toast and brushing my teeth simultaneously, whilst in the shower. Let’s just say I’m quite keen.
Before we head out, a little background info on my ‘3 might help paint the picture. For you, dear reader, are sure to take comfort in our discomfort. It’s a ‘clubsport’, and that means all concessions to relaxation have been bullishly discarded. Put another way, it's not all that nice to be in on road surfaces other than crushed velvet. Better yet, my car has had lashings of money spent on it at Parr Motorsport, and even though when I purchased the car I had the suspension altered to what they referred to as the ‘wuss settings’, it's still pretty unforgiving. I have on occasions knocked fillings from my mouth whilst traversing some particularly vicious grass clippings.
More critically, my car is currently running Pirelli Corsas, which grip like a bad habit in the dry, but are potentially murderous if anybody should even spill a pipette of water within a 200-mile radius of us. It’s currently pissing it down.
On the practical side of things, whilst my co-driver and I agree that the roll-cage does look dead sexy, it has meant we have had to post our items of clothing, one at a time, through the gaps in the scaffolding. The sexiness of the roll-cage is therefore slightly offset by what looks like a clearance sale at Mr Byrite.
Lastly, and this is significant, although I own a 380 bhp supercar, it is worth pointing out that I have almost no driving talent, whatsoever. Still, three months into its ownership (and I use the car everyday), I cannot get the hang of pulling out of junctions with the lightened flywheel, meaning I either stall (resulting in the complete cessation of ALL cool points), or have to pull away at a learner-driver 3000 revs. Either eventuality leaves people around me shaking their heads and muttering ‘look at him, he’s got a car like that and he can’t even drive’.
All of the above factors combined mean two things. Firstly, our tour (entitled the ‘Lemon Ring 6000’- weak puns a speciality) really ought to be sponsored by the chiropractic society. And secondly, Bluey, my long-suffering co-driver, is fractionally less keen than I am. Secretly, I'm banking on it being too loud inside the car to be able to hear his complaints.
The plan is as follows: we are to head to Folkestone, meet up with some blokes we met on the internet who apparently also have a car, and then scoot down to Lemans, via the channel tunnel. Once there, we’ll meet up with a further larger group of men, all of whom we acquired from an internet forum and claim to have cars and one of whom purports to have a ‘magic torch’, and spend three days camped out at Houx Annexe, the ‘Dorchester of Le-Mans’.
From there we will (now with the addition of another Porsche, this one with some mystery Ken-Barlow modifications, that the owner only knows make his ‘un-sprung weight lower, and that’ make our way across France, Belgium and Germany, stopping at Rheims and Luxembourg to give our spines a chance to de-compress, hopefully ending up in some dodgy B&B we’ve booked near the Nurburgring.
Although this has been meticulously planned out, it has become increasingly obvious over the past few weeks that there is an unspoken feeling that none of us will make it that far. The smart money sees Bluey and I retiring before Folkestone.
Here we go then.
We saunter down to Folkestone, ever mindful of extra-vigilant police officers keen to quell the oh-so-frequent accidents that take place at 4am on deserted stretches of road, and meet up with fellow Piston-Headers Marc and Riccardo. Riccardo has brought with him his mint condition Dog-Knob-Red 993 RS. I’m pleased to note that for once he’s forgone his obsessive compulsive disorder and plastered his immaculately polished car with the same amount of stupid looking stickers as we have. Side by side, we start to look fractionally less chavvy and slightly more like men with a purpose. Hell, I’ll admit it: I like my car more this way, Ric’s too. Stickers are cool.
Together, we rumble off towards the Chunnel, feeling pretty pleased with ourselves. Once aboard the train, without any clearance issues (little did we know that we would look back on this moment as the golden age of clearance) we settle down to the ever traditional process of pretending our interest in cars isn’t already waning, and making wish lists of all the other exotica on the train.
Problem 1 with going to Le Mans: You’re always going to have your glory usurped by someone else, most likely everyone else, as other people have what my Dad delicately calls ‘proper jobs’. True to form, within 5 minutes of leaving the Chunnel, we clock a pair of Ferraris, an F40 and an F50, and innumerable Astons, Porsches, Loti and a Koenigsegg. However, we aren’t going to let this take the bloom off our rose, oh no: WE have a plan. Our plan is to enjoy our cars to the max, by actually driving them. Properly. But only for short bursts, obviously- M’lud.
With our point and squirt philosophy in mind, we blast off like sailors on shore-leave and with each co-drivers eyes firmly glued to the rear view mirrors for the jolly gendarmes, we enjoy some fairly spirited driving for an hour or so. The suspension seems to be happier, the tyres dig in, even the seats feel comfier, and having the windows down means we get to hear that awesome scream from the engine, the pops and bang on the overrun and the howitzer like sound of us hitting the rev-limiter as we pass trucks. I'll admit it, sometimes we go looking for trucks just so that we could hear that noise. Rics’ having a good time in his car too, despite his co-driver having slept nearly the whole way, only waking momentarily to do the crossword. It’s all coming together, and we’ve already gone further than most thought we might. This. Is. Great.
Moreover, the scenery begins to become beautiful, the air begins to smell sweeter, and the signs start to make almost no sense, other than occasionally containing the odd amusing word. Bluey and I exchange ‘this is the life’ looks more than once. Yep: now we’re doing it. Now having a car like this makes sense. Now it seems realistic, sensible almost.
It’s been an hour since we filled up so I’m on vapours (What? It’s still sensible) so we pull in to the first of many kill-time-get-fuel-et-pomme-frittes-avec-mayonaisse stops. Whilst for any car fanatic this first fill up is an amazing experience, being surrounded as we are by Maseratis, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Astons etc, it is slightly dispiriting to watch the Gendarme cruising by with a long, snaking train of cars following in its wake, its ‘follow me’ sign illuminated. I'm doubtful that paydays come much bigger than this weekend for the local constabulary. We vow to take it easy for the rest of the journey.
We don’t.
We arrive at Le Mans town tired, but elated, and discover a slightly surreal scene. Every car is English. It’s like being at home, but with everyone driving on the wrong side of the road. I start to worry that I’m still in bed dreaming and my alarm will go off in a minute and it’ll be time to drive to Folkestone again. Thoughtfully, Bluey punches me and it transpires we are indeed in Le Mans. However, this notion is solely based on what we can glean from maps, as, ever the good hosts, the residents of Le Mans town have removed all strategic road signs and performed a rather amusing jape with the remaining ones, whereby a sign that points left actually means ‘go straight on’. Well, obviously. This causes a little frustration as we continually hear ourselves say ‘Well, this isn’t it’ and a week long argument ensues as to what you would do if you actually did need to know what was down that left turning. I'm assuming that the locals are issued with some sort of photo-chromatic glasses that allow them to see the real directions on road signs, as we get lost many, many times, along with it would seem, most of England.
Riccardo and Marc are more than comfy in their car, but unfortunately, ours does not like these kinds of conditions at all, becoming even more recalcitrant than usual, slipping the clutch, treating us to that delightful ‘burning wallet’ smell and stalling a number of times and refusing to start again. We're hot, we're tired, our backs ache, it smells bad in here, we're lost and people are looking at us, shaking their heads and thinking ‘look at him, he’s got a car like that….’.
It’s been 12 hours since we left home and although I’m not proud of this I have my first ‘moment’: I start to question the sanity of owning a car like this. I feel fickle, but it’s the truth. I mutter something to Bluey about buying an Audi estate. Bluey says nothing: it later transpires that his neck hurts more if he un-tenses his jaw.
Eventually, we find our way into Houx Annexe, the ‘Dorchester of Le-mans’.
Having never stayed at the Dorchester I can only surmise that I wouldn’t want to. Houx Annexe is like a de-militarised zone, and not too many degrees removed from every part-feral gypsy encampment you’ve ever seen on Look-East (or your regional equivalent), depicting the occupants burning things with a view to showing why they ought to be allowed to stay there. The only thing that appears to differ here is that A) we’ve actually paid for the privilege and B) some of the cars aren’t on fire. Yet.
We are guided into our area that the rest of our fellow Piston-Headers have reserved for us (Problem 2 with staying at Le Mans: simply marking your territory with urine appears not to be enough to guarantee a space, you actually have to erect tents and pretend the occupants have gone to the hyper-marche’ but the ground is so bumpy that we dislodge another piece of under-body fairing (we’d already left the front lip in England after going over some particularly nasty pieces of newspaper). We don’t care though, we're at Le Mans, the fulfilment of a life’s dream, and we're out of the car, the fulfilment of the last 12 hours dream. What a day.
Look, I'm not proud of this, but I'm just going to admit it, ok? Whilst saying hello to the friends we’ll be staying with for the next few days, all of whom have arrived in some pretty tasty Pork too, I find myself casting glances over towards my now bug-splattered and filthy car. Goddamit, I do love this thing. Even though it’s actually trying to kill us, I still really fancy it. I begin to understand how Michael Douglas felt in Basic Instinct. Except without the knitwear. And, on a much nerdier level. Oh- dear. No wonder I get laughed at so often.
The next three days passes in a blur of badly cooked meat and warm beer, and we forget all about the quality of our campsite (that is until one of our friends contacts us and tells us that he’s staying somewhere cheaper that has a private beach, lake and toilet roll - the last thing on the list being the one that cuts the deepest).
Ignoring that though, the atmosphere at Le Mans is just amazing; it has the expectant buzz of that elongated second before a fight breaks out in a pub. But somehow, here, now, that’s a good thing. It’s not scary, it’s just thrilling.
Indeed, a great many things that would be deemed unacceptable at home somehow earn a free pass here. For example, at Houx roundabout on the Friday evening we settle in to watch a display of driving, by drunks, that would make the front page of the Daily Mail back home gyrate with the head-line: ‘Revving Ruins House Prices: Wont Somebody Think of the Children?’. Hell, I live near Great Yarmouth; I could see this sort of thing from my bedroom window. But here, somehow, it's funny, less destructive, and most importantly less about showing off and more about being silly with other silly people.
Among our favourites are the guys doing donuts in a mint green M3, who managed to produce a full MacDonald’s takeaway, seemingly from no-where, the blokes on miniature easy-rider style scooters and the maniac who’d clearly brought a hire car and was intent on testing it to destruction. I think it would be fair to say that he wouldn’t be getting his security deposit back.
But that’s not the bit we like most of all: back home, all you’d been able to hear is the sound of people tutting, here, we go to sleep every night to the sound of people laughing and just being happy. Well, that, and the occasional sound of someone shouting through a traffic cone: we are English, after all. This place is magic, just magic.
Elsewhere, there is, apparently, some form of ‘racing’ going on, so we decide to take a look-see. Le Mans is an amazing circuit and spread over many miles and Bluey and I walk the entire course just to take as much noise, light and dust in as we can. Interestingly, almost immediately after the race gets underway, everyone stops watching, marking those of us who remain by the Armco out as total virgins. It soon becomes obvious why. It’s an easy win for Audi (whose diesel cars sound disconcertingly like express elevators), almost a foregone conclusion in fact, and we quickly learn that watching the racing at Le Mans isn’t at all about watching, but more about waiting.
First, you wait for it to start. Then, you wait for some beers to arrive and the BBQ to get up to temperature. You then wait for night to fall so you can see the brake discs glowing on the corners. You then wait for someone to come back from the shops with more beers. Then you wait for the paracetemol to take effect. After this you wait for it all to end, or at least take on board enough alcohol to enable you to sleep. Upon waking, you then wait for a shower. And, finally, you wait for someone to tell you that Audi has won. It’s amazing. I've never enjoyed waiting for anything so much in my life. Even now, weeks later I find myself queuing up for stuff I don’t need, just for the thrill of it.
It's worth noting that, although Audi seemed to have it sewn up from the start, the real winners for us were those participants who really embraced what everyone was calling the ‘Le Mans spirit’, i.e. those whose cars were so loud it actually physically hurt, and those that had no hope of ever finishing, indeed who possibly weren’t even racing, and may have in fact just been lost (“I told you it didn’t mean left….”. It’s the British condition to love the underdog, but here that feeling is amplified ten-fold, somehow the smaller companies seeming fragility becoming a virtue. God, how I wanted that Lister to win. It was so stupid, so loud, so uncompromising, so edgy, so uncomfortable looking that you couldn’t fail but to love it. If only I could have such a car. Oh, wait....
So, it was time to leave Le Mans, and as we clambered back into our now bright-brown ‘3, Bluey's first wince of the day reminded me to take him through my ‘stupid= good’ theory. I felt sure I could get him on board, once he saw the logic of it all. However, ever the stickler, he gave me a look that came to be known as ‘the face’ and I recognised quickly that I should just shut up and get him to a MacDonald’s, as fast as possible.
As we slowly crept out of Houx Annexe, mindful of the now crater-like potholes, and grimacing every time the engine scraped heavily over something or the front spoiler dug in on something else (I think it may have been a half-eaten croissant) it occurred to me that he might be right. MacDonald’s it is then.
En route we spot an opportunity for a ‘that has to be my desktop’ photograph at the Playstation Curves and all take a moment to revel in the coolness of what we’ve just experienced. Any self-indulgent fantasies of ‘I could do that, easy’ are quietly dispelled when we find a chunk of tyre that has flown off one of the cars that is easily the size of Bluey's head. Even new arrival Gary, the single most competitive man in the world, who is to join us for the rest of the tour with his co-pilot Rich, admits that it looks ‘quite tricky’. And he rides motorbikes, so you’ve got to know that he’s on another level of skill compared to us mere car jockeys.
Faces fed, we start on our cross-country marathon to Rheims, where tonight our hotel promises us such delights as showers and beds. To say were keen to get there is somewhat of an understatement, but we decide on avoiding the peage almost completely for the day and to enjoy some really fast French back roads. After all, the longer we stay on the peage, the higher the likelihood that we’ll get noticed by the gendarme, and none of us can afford one of the terrifying 750 euro fines some of our fellow campers had been awarded on the way down. So, to minimise risk, we allow ourselves an hour on the peage, then a cop-free afternoon of stupidity.
As the Gendarmes pulled us in, what struck me most of all was that none of us were looking at each other. We almost daren't. As if, had we made eye contact, the game would be up, and they would know. The problem is, our plan had gone somewhat awry. And we’d been caught.
Well actually, that’s unfair. The plan was good, the plan was intact. It was us that had gone awry. How can I put this? We’d got >ahem< carried away, and now it looked as if were going to get carried away. The only consolation in our car was that handcuffs were sure to be more comfortable than bucket seats. Bluey actually looked as if he hoped we would be arrested.
We all slunk out of our cars, ashen faced and suitably humble, and let the nice man in blue with the gun do the talking.
“Do you speak French?” (Said in perfect English)
“Erm, No. Sorry. Do you speak English?” (Said in a dreadful French accent)
“Yes I do. Your papers please, Now.”
Merde.
We all handed over our documents and waited that wait you do when you know you’re for it. The paperwork for our car was in order, as was Ricardo’s, but unluckily for us our friendly plod seemed to be up to date with the latest pan-european edition of ‘People from Liverpool: Not to be Trusted’ and things quickly went from bad to worse when it transpired that Gary, our token Scouser, did not have his V5 or an insurance certificate that bore his name. There then followed a very uncomfortable few minutes whilst the policeman asked Gary (in English) to prove that his car was not stolen, and Gary looked like he was on the cusp of saying ‘what are you saying, like?’. Luckily for us, the policeman seemed to quickly tire of Gary saying everything in a bizarre helium induced French accent and returned to addressing us all.
“Do you know what the speed limit is here in France?”
*Gulp* “Yes.”
“And do you know why we have stopped you today?”
*gulp-gulp* “Yes”.
“That is good. Then I need you to go faster then please. Doing ninety on the motorway is for trucks only. The speed you drive is dangerous, speed up please. Can you do that?”
Stifling remarks of ‘is vous taking le piss?’ it dawns on us all simultaneously that he’d only seen us after we’d returned to the peage after a kill-time-break, when we hadn’t had the chance to get back up to full steam yet, as we were probably still all eating ice-creams. Furthermore, we were going to get away with this. This new definition of Irony found, we all make humble remarks, make good on our apologies and set off as if we are auditioning for Driving Miss Daisy. But not too slowly, obviously.
Later that day, a few more sedate miles under our belt we agree that he must have seen us before our rest stop, but had failed to get a fix on us and was planning on getting us as soon as we returned to the motorway and to speeding. Furthermore, we agreed we were very lucky. Invincible, in fact. It was time to get off the road.
The next 8 hours consisted of some of the finest, sweeping, twisty, beautifully smooth roads I have ever encountered. If only our roads at home were a patch on this. Hell, if only our road patches were a patch on this. A car like the ‘3 really seems to transform in this kind of environment: if you can find a piece of road smooth enough to lay down the power, its just unstoppable, it's usable, it makes sense. The suspension was working, the brakes were progressive rather than snatchy and the tyres were finding grip where the others had to back off (despite one of them being a biker, and therefore a better driver). In short, we loved it. We arrived in historic Rheims elated and excited and not ready to get out of the car, all thoughts of Audi ownership banished from my mind.
Except. It won’t go in the car park. Even with the wuss settings. The damn thing is so low that I’m about a foot below the tiny-weeny kerb I need to mount to get it in the entrance space. The next 30 minutes are fun for everyone, except the occupants of my car. Once again, I realise that my clutch hates me as it starts to complain and stink, and it makes the molecular sized movements required next to impossible. When this happened to the little one on Top Gear I laughed heartily. While it was happening to me, I wanted to cry. I was hot, bothered, tired and could almost see my bed and shower, tantalisingly out of reach. Luckily for us, we had our scousers with us, and their uncanny ability to ‘acquire’ stuff proved to be exceptionally useful in building a giant bridge to get me and my stupid non-Audi into the car park.
I don’t speak much French, but im pretty sure that the crowd that had assembled were all shaking their heads and muttering ‘look at him, he’s got a car like that….’.
The next day, we reverse the process with more scouse-found booty and get on our way to Luxembourg. Luxembourg is to be our easy day, with the shortest distance covered and in theory the least to do, so we’ll have little choice but to rest up and take it easy. The route to Luxembourg we chose is outstanding, most especially as you cross the spooky ex-border patrol stations from one country to the next. The only real downer of the day was the roads in Belgium, which badly upset the suspension on our car by being made of lumpy 7-foot sections, seemingly sewn together with rocks. Bluey was being severely punished on his side of the car, and despite using the full harnesses to try and minimise movement and internal bleeding, I could see that he would be really pleased to be getting out of the car. In truth I would be too, but dare not say it for fear of further incurring further outbreaks of "the face".
Luxembourg was utterly beautiful and after a far from restful night, we rise late to get our next stage of the journey underway. We're all trying not to show it, but there’s something different in the air today. Today we are off to the ‘Ring. This is the bit I've been most looking forward to and dreading in equal measures. It transpires that everyone feels the same way too. Even Gary. And he’s a Biker.
The ruthlessly efficient German roads quickly dispense with the distance between Luxembourg and Ardenau and before we can believe it, we're standing on one of the corners of the ‘Ring watching insane test drivers shaking down assorted development vehicles. In fact, just in the last thirty miles we’ve seen the new M3, the new Audi R8, a new Mercedes and a new Aston, all in fairly lame development guises (unless you’re flummoxed by electrical tape over the badge, its not much of a guessing game really). Everything about this place is amazing; it’s like some kind of mad drug-addled car-related theme park, where every road is a ride and every driver a passenger.
I like it here.
Indeed, it feels like our car likes it here too, straining at the leash on the awesome twisty declines down to the track. We start to draw up a list of things we’d be able to do as jobs to earn enough money to stay here forever. I can’t think this is a good sign: for one, the milk in my fridge is going to stink if I don’t ever go back.
We meet up with ‘Crazy’ Eddie, the landlord of the house where we're staying, and, glossing over the fact that none of us in our near to £200,000 worth of supercar exotica could keep up with his Renault Twingo, arrive at our accommodation for the next three days. It’s simply the biggest house we’ve ever seen and the list of things we can do for a living grows exponentially to include things we’d be prepared to do, just to stay here. Not for the first time, we all agree that this is the life, and that we can never go home. Ever. I phone home and cancel any further milk deliveries.
We wake up bright and early the next day, itching to get on the track. However, the track itself isn’t open to public use until 4:30 and, secretly, I'm really pleased about that. Although I wont deny that I'm stupidly nervous about getting on the World's most demanding track, I was also keen to put some miles under my feet, as I had had a new set of Michelin Pilots fitted at Manthey Motorsport the night before (if Porsches go to Heaven, this is what it will look like), which badly needed the release agent scrubbing off them. Driving on the Corsas had become increasingly like driving an angry, drunken snake in the past few days, so I’d bitten the bullet and invested in a new set whilst here, hopeful that this would give me a better chance of not dying at the first corner of the Nurburgring. This, I felt, was important. Others, understandably, less so.
So, as a compromise, we drove 4 miles up the road and spent the rest of the day in the excellent Renn Sport Museum.
The museum itself is amazing, with some really awesome pieces of auto-exotica, but the thing that I would recommend going for most of all would be to look at the driver's suits they have on display, most specifically, Nick Heidfeld's suit. I'm not passing judgement, but my guess is that Lilliput is a tax haven. After that, we spent as much time and money as we could buying stuff with ‘Nurburgring’ written on it (my favourite being a set of salad servers with a map of the track on them) and then counted the seconds down to when we were allowed onto the track.
By the time this came around, we’d all pretty much whipped ourselves up into a frantic frenzy, and even those of us with the ‘next level’ of helmsmanship were starting to look a touch peaky, irrespective of decreased un-sprung weight. But we could wait no longer, so we purchased our tickets from the ruthlessly efficient attendant and gingerly crawled out onto the track.
The problem with lifetime ambitions is that they have a huge capacity for disappointment. And in this sense, the ‘Ring did not disappoint. Both Bluey and I hated it. It was impossibly busy, it was slow and it was overwhelmingly difficult not to kill suicidal bikers in their ridiculous pvc harlequin outfits. Moreover, I was rubbish, just awful. Jerky, hesitant, misjudging corners, braking too late and too early and never once putting together a decent set of flowing sections. I could feel the car cringing beneath me, and although Bluey had done an outstanding job of calling out both the corners and the homicidal motorcyclists, we both knew that we’d been embarrassingly bad. We’d let the car down. And we’d arrived back shattered, stressed and visibly older.
Without stopping we went straight from the exit to the entrance again and entered our ticket once more. I was damned if it was going to end like this: we’d come all this way, Bluey was a good inch shorter and I was going to have to sell a kidney when I got back home to pay for the petrol we’d used. We HAD to try again.
We drew out onto the straight and gunned it, the tyres still squirming slightly as they excreted their delightful slippy wax (whose idea was this by the way? As I’d like to meet them and say thank-you personally). Nerves, be damned. This was our time. Just hopefully not our time to crash. Please, God: I really can’t afford the excess on my insurance.
And suddenly, albeit piece-by-piece, it came together. We started getting to know the course, we judged a couple of corners well, once we even kissed the racing line momentarily, with only a slight reduction in the number of live bikers beside us. It was ace. Simply the most fun, ever. We did six laps in all and slowly, steadily, we started to become better. Not good, but slightly less bad. Once we even over took a car and a biker. The tyres were keying in, the brakes perfect due to their total resistance to fade, the suspension keeping the whole thing planted and able. We were flying. This could mean only one thing: it was time to stop.
As we jumped back into the car park all I could think was NOW this car made sense, proper sense. Like suddenly getting the punch line to a joke that everyone else laughed at hours ago. I loved it here, the car loved it here. This was what owning a sports car was all about. I cant believe I waited this long. I vowed not to wait very long again.
After that, it was almost time to come home, so, with our back-shelf packed we headed towards good old Nurburgring-less Blighty. The journey back across Germany and France seemed pretty uneventful, indeed, although we were all looking forward to seeing our pets, loved ones and not each other, everything after the ‘Ring seemed pretty tame really. That’s the problem with trying new things; your boundaries of what’s great get shifted. And I know, I really know that nothing else will do now. I’m totally addicted; it’s just that good.
We arrive home 10 hours or so later, utterly exhausted and all journeyed out. Bluey heads off home and I go indoors and don’t get in the car, any car, again for three days. You’d be surprised how comfortable anything can seem if its not attached to a GT3. It’d been an amazing trip; we’d seen some amazing things, met some amazing people and fulfilled several of life’s ambitions. But the car: the car was the really amazing thing. It wasn’t perfect, it was expensive to keep going and it demanded my full attention the whole time, but for those personality traits, I loved every minute of it more.
When I first considered buying a GT3 everyone said it would be completely unusable on a day-to-day basis, and in a way, they’re right. Certainly it can be a real pain, and if you wish to carry much more than a toilet roll and a baguette it’s not very practical either. It’s thirsty too, and has an appetite like Rick Waller for consumables. Who am I kidding? It’s almost ruinous. But you see, I don’t care about any of that stuff. And where those folk who say it cant be used everyday miss the point, is that living with it day today is agony, but its only ever a few degrees away from ecstasy. For any moment, given the right weather or the right stretch of road, it could all come together, and in that moment you forget all the discomfort and expense. And just grin.
Buy one. Today. I promise, you’ll love it. I can think of few pursuits that would be as enjoyable or rewarding. Most especially if you live in the Ardenau region of Germany and you can keep a pair of bridge building Scousers in the glove box. If you're really lucky, the people around you may even mutter ‘look at him he’s got a car like that and he can drive…’.
I cant wait for next year!
Vesuvius 996 said:
IN MEMORIAM
MATT AKA "NERVOUS"
CAME TO US 2006, LEFT US 2006.
REST IN PIECES, BRO.
One more time for luck...
A Slice of Lemon
No. It can’t be. Not my alarm. Not yet. It’s not possible. I’ve only been in bed an hour. Without a doubt this is the worst part of any holiday: the part where you have to get up earlier than you do when you have to go to work; the part that makes you think ‘if I just didn’t go and stayed here, it might not be so bad’. I toy with this idea for a long moment. But then I remember, today is different. Today I get to fulfil a life’s ambition: I’m going to Lemans. And to the Nurburgring. In a GT3. My GT3.
5 minutes later, my body catches up with my brain and realises that this thought must have done the trick, as I find myself eating toast and brushing my teeth simultaneously, whilst in the shower. Let’s just say I’m quite keen.
Before we head out, a little background info on my ‘3 might help paint the picture. For you, dear reader, are sure to take comfort in our discomfort. It’s a ‘clubsport’, and that means all concessions to relaxation have been bullishly discarded. Put another way, it's not all that nice to be in on road surfaces other than crushed velvet. Better yet, my car has had lashings of money spent on it at Parr Motorsport, and even though when I purchased the car I had the suspension altered to what they referred to as the ‘wuss settings’, it's still pretty unforgiving. I have on occasions knocked fillings from my mouth whilst traversing some particularly vicious grass clippings.
More critically, my car is currently running Pirelli Corsas, which grip like a bad habit in the dry, but are potentially murderous if anybody should even spill a pipette of water within a 200-mile radius of us. It’s currently pissing it down.
On the practical side of things, whilst my co-driver and I agree that the roll-cage does look dead sexy, it has meant we have had to post our items of clothing, one at a time, through the gaps in the scaffolding. The sexiness of the roll-cage is therefore slightly offset by what looks like a clearance sale at Mr Byrite.
Lastly, and this is significant, although I own a 380 bhp supercar, it is worth pointing out that I have almost no driving talent, whatsoever. Still, three months into its ownership (and I use the car everyday), I cannot get the hang of pulling out of junctions with the lightened flywheel, meaning I either stall (resulting in the complete cessation of ALL cool points), or have to pull away at a learner-driver 3000 revs. Either eventuality leaves people around me shaking their heads and muttering ‘look at him, he’s got a car like that and he can’t even drive’.
All of the above factors combined mean two things. Firstly, our tour (entitled the ‘Lemon Ring 6000’- weak puns a speciality) really ought to be sponsored by the chiropractic society. And secondly, Bluey, my long-suffering co-driver, is fractionally less keen than I am. Secretly, I'm banking on it being too loud inside the car to be able to hear his complaints.
The plan is as follows: we are to head to Folkestone, meet up with some blokes we met on the internet who apparently also have a car, and then scoot down to Lemans, via the channel tunnel. Once there, we’ll meet up with a further larger group of men, all of whom we acquired from an internet forum and claim to have cars and one of whom purports to have a ‘magic torch’, and spend three days camped out at Houx Annexe, the ‘Dorchester of Le-Mans’.
From there we will (now with the addition of another Porsche, this one with some mystery Ken-Barlow modifications, that the owner only knows make his ‘un-sprung weight lower, and that’ make our way across France, Belgium and Germany, stopping at Rheims and Luxembourg to give our spines a chance to de-compress, hopefully ending up in some dodgy B&B we’ve booked near the Nurburgring.
Although this has been meticulously planned out, it has become increasingly obvious over the past few weeks that there is an unspoken feeling that none of us will make it that far. The smart money sees Bluey and I retiring before Folkestone.
Here we go then.
We saunter down to Folkestone, ever mindful of extra-vigilant police officers keen to quell the oh-so-frequent accidents that take place at 4am on deserted stretches of road, and meet up with fellow Piston-Headers Marc and Riccardo. Riccardo has brought with him his mint condition Dog-Knob-Red 993 RS. I’m pleased to note that for once he’s forgone his obsessive compulsive disorder and plastered his immaculately polished car with the same amount of stupid looking stickers as we have. Side by side, we start to look fractionally less chavvy and slightly more like men with a purpose. Hell, I’ll admit it: I like my car more this way, Ric’s too. Stickers are cool.
Together, we rumble off towards the Chunnel, feeling pretty pleased with ourselves. Once aboard the train, without any clearance issues (little did we know that we would look back on this moment as the golden age of clearance) we settle down to the ever traditional process of pretending our interest in cars isn’t already waning, and making wish lists of all the other exotica on the train.
Problem 1 with going to Le Mans: You’re always going to have your glory usurped by someone else, most likely everyone else, as other people have what my Dad delicately calls ‘proper jobs’. True to form, within 5 minutes of leaving the Chunnel, we clock a pair of Ferraris, an F40 and an F50, and innumerable Astons, Porsches, Loti and a Koenigsegg. However, we aren’t going to let this take the bloom off our rose, oh no: WE have a plan. Our plan is to enjoy our cars to the max, by actually driving them. Properly. But only for short bursts, obviously- M’lud.
With our point and squirt philosophy in mind, we blast off like sailors on shore-leave and with each co-drivers eyes firmly glued to the rear view mirrors for the jolly gendarmes, we enjoy some fairly spirited driving for an hour or so. The suspension seems to be happier, the tyres dig in, even the seats feel comfier, and having the windows down means we get to hear that awesome scream from the engine, the pops and bang on the overrun and the howitzer like sound of us hitting the rev-limiter as we pass trucks. I'll admit it, sometimes we go looking for trucks just so that we could hear that noise. Rics’ having a good time in his car too, despite his co-driver having slept nearly the whole way, only waking momentarily to do the crossword. It’s all coming together, and we’ve already gone further than most thought we might. This. Is. Great.
Moreover, the scenery begins to become beautiful, the air begins to smell sweeter, and the signs start to make almost no sense, other than occasionally containing the odd amusing word. Bluey and I exchange ‘this is the life’ looks more than once. Yep: now we’re doing it. Now having a car like this makes sense. Now it seems realistic, sensible almost.
It’s been an hour since we filled up so I’m on vapours (What? It’s still sensible) so we pull in to the first of many kill-time-get-fuel-et-pomme-frittes-avec-mayonaisse stops. Whilst for any car fanatic this first fill up is an amazing experience, being surrounded as we are by Maseratis, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Astons etc, it is slightly dispiriting to watch the Gendarme cruising by with a long, snaking train of cars following in its wake, its ‘follow me’ sign illuminated. I'm doubtful that paydays come much bigger than this weekend for the local constabulary. We vow to take it easy for the rest of the journey.
We don’t.
We arrive at Le Mans town tired, but elated, and discover a slightly surreal scene. Every car is English. It’s like being at home, but with everyone driving on the wrong side of the road. I start to worry that I’m still in bed dreaming and my alarm will go off in a minute and it’ll be time to drive to Folkestone again. Thoughtfully, Bluey punches me and it transpires we are indeed in Le Mans. However, this notion is solely based on what we can glean from maps, as, ever the good hosts, the residents of Le Mans town have removed all strategic road signs and performed a rather amusing jape with the remaining ones, whereby a sign that points left actually means ‘go straight on’. Well, obviously. This causes a little frustration as we continually hear ourselves say ‘Well, this isn’t it’ and a week long argument ensues as to what you would do if you actually did need to know what was down that left turning. I'm assuming that the locals are issued with some sort of photo-chromatic glasses that allow them to see the real directions on road signs, as we get lost many, many times, along with it would seem, most of England.
Riccardo and Marc are more than comfy in their car, but unfortunately, ours does not like these kinds of conditions at all, becoming even more recalcitrant than usual, slipping the clutch, treating us to that delightful ‘burning wallet’ smell and stalling a number of times and refusing to start again. We're hot, we're tired, our backs ache, it smells bad in here, we're lost and people are looking at us, shaking their heads and thinking ‘look at him, he’s got a car like that….’.
It’s been 12 hours since we left home and although I’m not proud of this I have my first ‘moment’: I start to question the sanity of owning a car like this. I feel fickle, but it’s the truth. I mutter something to Bluey about buying an Audi estate. Bluey says nothing: it later transpires that his neck hurts more if he un-tenses his jaw.
Eventually, we find our way into Houx Annexe, the ‘Dorchester of Le-mans’.
Having never stayed at the Dorchester I can only surmise that I wouldn’t want to. Houx Annexe is like a de-militarised zone, and not too many degrees removed from every part-feral gypsy encampment you’ve ever seen on Look-East (or your regional equivalent), depicting the occupants burning things with a view to showing why they ought to be allowed to stay there. The only thing that appears to differ here is that A) we’ve actually paid for the privilege and B) some of the cars aren’t on fire. Yet.
We are guided into our area that the rest of our fellow Piston-Headers have reserved for us (Problem 2 with staying at Le Mans: simply marking your territory with urine appears not to be enough to guarantee a space, you actually have to erect tents and pretend the occupants have gone to the hyper-marche’ but the ground is so bumpy that we dislodge another piece of under-body fairing (we’d already left the front lip in England after going over some particularly nasty pieces of newspaper). We don’t care though, we're at Le Mans, the fulfilment of a life’s dream, and we're out of the car, the fulfilment of the last 12 hours dream. What a day.
Look, I'm not proud of this, but I'm just going to admit it, ok? Whilst saying hello to the friends we’ll be staying with for the next few days, all of whom have arrived in some pretty tasty Pork too, I find myself casting glances over towards my now bug-splattered and filthy car. Goddamit, I do love this thing. Even though it’s actually trying to kill us, I still really fancy it. I begin to understand how Michael Douglas felt in Basic Instinct. Except without the knitwear. And, on a much nerdier level. Oh- dear. No wonder I get laughed at so often.
The next three days passes in a blur of badly cooked meat and warm beer, and we forget all about the quality of our campsite (that is until one of our friends contacts us and tells us that he’s staying somewhere cheaper that has a private beach, lake and toilet roll - the last thing on the list being the one that cuts the deepest).
Ignoring that though, the atmosphere at Le Mans is just amazing; it has the expectant buzz of that elongated second before a fight breaks out in a pub. But somehow, here, now, that’s a good thing. It’s not scary, it’s just thrilling.
Indeed, a great many things that would be deemed unacceptable at home somehow earn a free pass here. For example, at Houx roundabout on the Friday evening we settle in to watch a display of driving, by drunks, that would make the front page of the Daily Mail back home gyrate with the head-line: ‘Revving Ruins House Prices: Wont Somebody Think of the Children?’. Hell, I live near Great Yarmouth; I could see this sort of thing from my bedroom window. But here, somehow, it's funny, less destructive, and most importantly less about showing off and more about being silly with other silly people.
Among our favourites are the guys doing donuts in a mint green M3, who managed to produce a full MacDonald’s takeaway, seemingly from no-where, the blokes on miniature easy-rider style scooters and the maniac who’d clearly brought a hire car and was intent on testing it to destruction. I think it would be fair to say that he wouldn’t be getting his security deposit back.
But that’s not the bit we like most of all: back home, all you’d been able to hear is the sound of people tutting, here, we go to sleep every night to the sound of people laughing and just being happy. Well, that, and the occasional sound of someone shouting through a traffic cone: we are English, after all. This place is magic, just magic.
Elsewhere, there is, apparently, some form of ‘racing’ going on, so we decide to take a look-see. Le Mans is an amazing circuit and spread over many miles and Bluey and I walk the entire course just to take as much noise, light and dust in as we can. Interestingly, almost immediately after the race gets underway, everyone stops watching, marking those of us who remain by the Armco out as total virgins. It soon becomes obvious why. It’s an easy win for Audi (whose diesel cars sound disconcertingly like express elevators), almost a foregone conclusion in fact, and we quickly learn that watching the racing at Le Mans isn’t at all about watching, but more about waiting.
First, you wait for it to start. Then, you wait for some beers to arrive and the BBQ to get up to temperature. You then wait for night to fall so you can see the brake discs glowing on the corners. You then wait for someone to come back from the shops with more beers. Then you wait for the paracetemol to take effect. After this you wait for it all to end, or at least take on board enough alcohol to enable you to sleep. Upon waking, you then wait for a shower. And, finally, you wait for someone to tell you that Audi has won. It’s amazing. I've never enjoyed waiting for anything so much in my life. Even now, weeks later I find myself queuing up for stuff I don’t need, just for the thrill of it.
It's worth noting that, although Audi seemed to have it sewn up from the start, the real winners for us were those participants who really embraced what everyone was calling the ‘Le Mans spirit’, i.e. those whose cars were so loud it actually physically hurt, and those that had no hope of ever finishing, indeed who possibly weren’t even racing, and may have in fact just been lost (“I told you it didn’t mean left….”. It’s the British condition to love the underdog, but here that feeling is amplified ten-fold, somehow the smaller companies seeming fragility becoming a virtue. God, how I wanted that Lister to win. It was so stupid, so loud, so uncompromising, so edgy, so uncomfortable looking that you couldn’t fail but to love it. If only I could have such a car. Oh, wait....
So, it was time to leave Le Mans, and as we clambered back into our now bright-brown ‘3, Bluey's first wince of the day reminded me to take him through my ‘stupid= good’ theory. I felt sure I could get him on board, once he saw the logic of it all. However, ever the stickler, he gave me a look that came to be known as ‘the face’ and I recognised quickly that I should just shut up and get him to a MacDonald’s, as fast as possible.
As we slowly crept out of Houx Annexe, mindful of the now crater-like potholes, and grimacing every time the engine scraped heavily over something or the front spoiler dug in on something else (I think it may have been a half-eaten croissant) it occurred to me that he might be right. MacDonald’s it is then.
En route we spot an opportunity for a ‘that has to be my desktop’ photograph at the Playstation Curves and all take a moment to revel in the coolness of what we’ve just experienced. Any self-indulgent fantasies of ‘I could do that, easy’ are quietly dispelled when we find a chunk of tyre that has flown off one of the cars that is easily the size of Bluey's head. Even new arrival Gary, the single most competitive man in the world, who is to join us for the rest of the tour with his co-pilot Rich, admits that it looks ‘quite tricky’. And he rides motorbikes, so you’ve got to know that he’s on another level of skill compared to us mere car jockeys.
Faces fed, we start on our cross-country marathon to Rheims, where tonight our hotel promises us such delights as showers and beds. To say were keen to get there is somewhat of an understatement, but we decide on avoiding the peage almost completely for the day and to enjoy some really fast French back roads. After all, the longer we stay on the peage, the higher the likelihood that we’ll get noticed by the gendarme, and none of us can afford one of the terrifying 750 euro fines some of our fellow campers had been awarded on the way down. So, to minimise risk, we allow ourselves an hour on the peage, then a cop-free afternoon of stupidity.
As the Gendarmes pulled us in, what struck me most of all was that none of us were looking at each other. We almost daren't. As if, had we made eye contact, the game would be up, and they would know. The problem is, our plan had gone somewhat awry. And we’d been caught.
Well actually, that’s unfair. The plan was good, the plan was intact. It was us that had gone awry. How can I put this? We’d got >ahem< carried away, and now it looked as if were going to get carried away. The only consolation in our car was that handcuffs were sure to be more comfortable than bucket seats. Bluey actually looked as if he hoped we would be arrested.
We all slunk out of our cars, ashen faced and suitably humble, and let the nice man in blue with the gun do the talking.
“Do you speak French?” (Said in perfect English)
“Erm, No. Sorry. Do you speak English?” (Said in a dreadful French accent)
“Yes I do. Your papers please, Now.”
Merde.
We all handed over our documents and waited that wait you do when you know you’re for it. The paperwork for our car was in order, as was Ricardo’s, but unluckily for us our friendly plod seemed to be up to date with the latest pan-european edition of ‘People from Liverpool: Not to be Trusted’ and things quickly went from bad to worse when it transpired that Gary, our token Scouser, did not have his V5 or an insurance certificate that bore his name. There then followed a very uncomfortable few minutes whilst the policeman asked Gary (in English) to prove that his car was not stolen, and Gary looked like he was on the cusp of saying ‘what are you saying, like?’. Luckily for us, the policeman seemed to quickly tire of Gary saying everything in a bizarre helium induced French accent and returned to addressing us all.
“Do you know what the speed limit is here in France?”
*Gulp* “Yes.”
“And do you know why we have stopped you today?”
*gulp-gulp* “Yes”.
“That is good. Then I need you to go faster then please. Doing ninety on the motorway is for trucks only. The speed you drive is dangerous, speed up please. Can you do that?”
Stifling remarks of ‘is vous taking le piss?’ it dawns on us all simultaneously that he’d only seen us after we’d returned to the peage after a kill-time-break, when we hadn’t had the chance to get back up to full steam yet, as we were probably still all eating ice-creams. Furthermore, we were going to get away with this. This new definition of Irony found, we all make humble remarks, make good on our apologies and set off as if we are auditioning for Driving Miss Daisy. But not too slowly, obviously.
Later that day, a few more sedate miles under our belt we agree that he must have seen us before our rest stop, but had failed to get a fix on us and was planning on getting us as soon as we returned to the motorway and to speeding. Furthermore, we agreed we were very lucky. Invincible, in fact. It was time to get off the road.
The next 8 hours consisted of some of the finest, sweeping, twisty, beautifully smooth roads I have ever encountered. If only our roads at home were a patch on this. Hell, if only our road patches were a patch on this. A car like the ‘3 really seems to transform in this kind of environment: if you can find a piece of road smooth enough to lay down the power, its just unstoppable, it's usable, it makes sense. The suspension was working, the brakes were progressive rather than snatchy and the tyres were finding grip where the others had to back off (despite one of them being a biker, and therefore a better driver). In short, we loved it. We arrived in historic Rheims elated and excited and not ready to get out of the car, all thoughts of Audi ownership banished from my mind.
Except. It won’t go in the car park. Even with the wuss settings. The damn thing is so low that I’m about a foot below the tiny-weeny kerb I need to mount to get it in the entrance space. The next 30 minutes are fun for everyone, except the occupants of my car. Once again, I realise that my clutch hates me as it starts to complain and stink, and it makes the molecular sized movements required next to impossible. When this happened to the little one on Top Gear I laughed heartily. While it was happening to me, I wanted to cry. I was hot, bothered, tired and could almost see my bed and shower, tantalisingly out of reach. Luckily for us, we had our scousers with us, and their uncanny ability to ‘acquire’ stuff proved to be exceptionally useful in building a giant bridge to get me and my stupid non-Audi into the car park.
I don’t speak much French, but im pretty sure that the crowd that had assembled were all shaking their heads and muttering ‘look at him, he’s got a car like that….’.
The next day, we reverse the process with more scouse-found booty and get on our way to Luxembourg. Luxembourg is to be our easy day, with the shortest distance covered and in theory the least to do, so we’ll have little choice but to rest up and take it easy. The route to Luxembourg we chose is outstanding, most especially as you cross the spooky ex-border patrol stations from one country to the next. The only real downer of the day was the roads in Belgium, which badly upset the suspension on our car by being made of lumpy 7-foot sections, seemingly sewn together with rocks. Bluey was being severely punished on his side of the car, and despite using the full harnesses to try and minimise movement and internal bleeding, I could see that he would be really pleased to be getting out of the car. In truth I would be too, but dare not say it for fear of further incurring further outbreaks of "the face".
Luxembourg was utterly beautiful and after a far from restful night, we rise late to get our next stage of the journey underway. We're all trying not to show it, but there’s something different in the air today. Today we are off to the ‘Ring. This is the bit I've been most looking forward to and dreading in equal measures. It transpires that everyone feels the same way too. Even Gary. And he’s a Biker.
The ruthlessly efficient German roads quickly dispense with the distance between Luxembourg and Ardenau and before we can believe it, we're standing on one of the corners of the ‘Ring watching insane test drivers shaking down assorted development vehicles. In fact, just in the last thirty miles we’ve seen the new M3, the new Audi R8, a new Mercedes and a new Aston, all in fairly lame development guises (unless you’re flummoxed by electrical tape over the badge, its not much of a guessing game really). Everything about this place is amazing; it’s like some kind of mad drug-addled car-related theme park, where every road is a ride and every driver a passenger.
I like it here.
Indeed, it feels like our car likes it here too, straining at the leash on the awesome twisty declines down to the track. We start to draw up a list of things we’d be able to do as jobs to earn enough money to stay here forever. I can’t think this is a good sign: for one, the milk in my fridge is going to stink if I don’t ever go back.
We meet up with ‘Crazy’ Eddie, the landlord of the house where we're staying, and, glossing over the fact that none of us in our near to £200,000 worth of supercar exotica could keep up with his Renault Twingo, arrive at our accommodation for the next three days. It’s simply the biggest house we’ve ever seen and the list of things we can do for a living grows exponentially to include things we’d be prepared to do, just to stay here. Not for the first time, we all agree that this is the life, and that we can never go home. Ever. I phone home and cancel any further milk deliveries.
We wake up bright and early the next day, itching to get on the track. However, the track itself isn’t open to public use until 4:30 and, secretly, I'm really pleased about that. Although I wont deny that I'm stupidly nervous about getting on the World's most demanding track, I was also keen to put some miles under my feet, as I had had a new set of Michelin Pilots fitted at Manthey Motorsport the night before (if Porsches go to Heaven, this is what it will look like), which badly needed the release agent scrubbing off them. Driving on the Corsas had become increasingly like driving an angry, drunken snake in the past few days, so I’d bitten the bullet and invested in a new set whilst here, hopeful that this would give me a better chance of not dying at the first corner of the Nurburgring. This, I felt, was important. Others, understandably, less so.
So, as a compromise, we drove 4 miles up the road and spent the rest of the day in the excellent Renn Sport Museum.
The museum itself is amazing, with some really awesome pieces of auto-exotica, but the thing that I would recommend going for most of all would be to look at the driver's suits they have on display, most specifically, Nick Heidfeld's suit. I'm not passing judgement, but my guess is that Lilliput is a tax haven. After that, we spent as much time and money as we could buying stuff with ‘Nurburgring’ written on it (my favourite being a set of salad servers with a map of the track on them) and then counted the seconds down to when we were allowed onto the track.
By the time this came around, we’d all pretty much whipped ourselves up into a frantic frenzy, and even those of us with the ‘next level’ of helmsmanship were starting to look a touch peaky, irrespective of decreased un-sprung weight. But we could wait no longer, so we purchased our tickets from the ruthlessly efficient attendant and gingerly crawled out onto the track.
The problem with lifetime ambitions is that they have a huge capacity for disappointment. And in this sense, the ‘Ring did not disappoint. Both Bluey and I hated it. It was impossibly busy, it was slow and it was overwhelmingly difficult not to kill suicidal bikers in their ridiculous pvc harlequin outfits. Moreover, I was rubbish, just awful. Jerky, hesitant, misjudging corners, braking too late and too early and never once putting together a decent set of flowing sections. I could feel the car cringing beneath me, and although Bluey had done an outstanding job of calling out both the corners and the homicidal motorcyclists, we both knew that we’d been embarrassingly bad. We’d let the car down. And we’d arrived back shattered, stressed and visibly older.
Without stopping we went straight from the exit to the entrance again and entered our ticket once more. I was damned if it was going to end like this: we’d come all this way, Bluey was a good inch shorter and I was going to have to sell a kidney when I got back home to pay for the petrol we’d used. We HAD to try again.
We drew out onto the straight and gunned it, the tyres still squirming slightly as they excreted their delightful slippy wax (whose idea was this by the way? As I’d like to meet them and say thank-you personally). Nerves, be damned. This was our time. Just hopefully not our time to crash. Please, God: I really can’t afford the excess on my insurance.
And suddenly, albeit piece-by-piece, it came together. We started getting to know the course, we judged a couple of corners well, once we even kissed the racing line momentarily, with only a slight reduction in the number of live bikers beside us. It was ace. Simply the most fun, ever. We did six laps in all and slowly, steadily, we started to become better. Not good, but slightly less bad. Once we even over took a car and a biker. The tyres were keying in, the brakes perfect due to their total resistance to fade, the suspension keeping the whole thing planted and able. We were flying. This could mean only one thing: it was time to stop.
As we jumped back into the car park all I could think was NOW this car made sense, proper sense. Like suddenly getting the punch line to a joke that everyone else laughed at hours ago. I loved it here, the car loved it here. This was what owning a sports car was all about. I cant believe I waited this long. I vowed not to wait very long again.
After that, it was almost time to come home, so, with our back-shelf packed we headed towards good old Nurburgring-less Blighty. The journey back across Germany and France seemed pretty uneventful, indeed, although we were all looking forward to seeing our pets, loved ones and not each other, everything after the ‘Ring seemed pretty tame really. That’s the problem with trying new things; your boundaries of what’s great get shifted. And I know, I really know that nothing else will do now. I’m totally addicted; it’s just that good.
We arrive home 10 hours or so later, utterly exhausted and all journeyed out. Bluey heads off home and I go indoors and don’t get in the car, any car, again for three days. You’d be surprised how comfortable anything can seem if its not attached to a GT3. It’d been an amazing trip; we’d seen some amazing things, met some amazing people and fulfilled several of life’s ambitions. But the car: the car was the really amazing thing. It wasn’t perfect, it was expensive to keep going and it demanded my full attention the whole time, but for those personality traits, I loved every minute of it more.
When I first considered buying a GT3 everyone said it would be completely unusable on a day-to-day basis, and in a way, they’re right. Certainly it can be a real pain, and if you wish to carry much more than a toilet roll and a baguette it’s not very practical either. It’s thirsty too, and has an appetite like Rick Waller for consumables. Who am I kidding? It’s almost ruinous. But you see, I don’t care about any of that stuff. And where those folk who say it cant be used everyday miss the point, is that living with it day today is agony, but its only ever a few degrees away from ecstasy. For any moment, given the right weather or the right stretch of road, it could all come together, and in that moment you forget all the discomfort and expense. And just grin.
Buy one. Today. I promise, you’ll love it. I can think of few pursuits that would be as enjoyable or rewarding. Most especially if you live in the Ardenau region of Germany and you can keep a pair of bridge building Scousers in the glove box. If you're really lucky, the people around you may even mutter ‘look at him he’s got a car like that and he can drive…’.
I cant wait for next year!
wait? did i die? if so, i want my money back cos its easily as shite here as it was at home.
thanks tho chaps, nice sentiments indeed,im really touched. unfortunatley my ego insists you only continue this for another eight or nine months, and then well have to wind it back a notch or two.
thanks tho chaps, nice sentiments indeed,im really touched. unfortunatley my ego insists you only continue this for another eight or nine months, and then well have to wind it back a notch or two.
nervous said:
wait? did i die? if so, i want my money back cos its easily as shite here as it was at home.
thanks tho chaps, nice sentiments indeed,im really touched. unfortunatley my ego insists you only continue this for another eight or nine months, and then well have to wind it back a notch or two.
thanks tho chaps, nice sentiments indeed,im really touched. unfortunatley my ego insists you only continue this for another eight or nine months, and then well have to wind it back a notch or two.
I once had a bird who asked me to "take it up a notch..."
Is that the same thing?
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