Nurburgring May 2009 - The FULL Story (EDINBURGHCRUISE) PT1
Discussion
Two years ago, pretty much to the week, three EC cars, double manned, went to the Nurburgring. I closed that story by commenting on how the experience of the trip was so immense that, for fear of a repeat visit not living up to the expectations raised, I almost didn't want to go back, but had to return.
Sadly I haven't managed to go on the two smaller trips since, that a couple of the gang have made, but unless you've been living in a cave, or a hotel’s overspill “guest house” in Germany, which also doesn't have net access, then you'll know that there has just been another large scale trip, one that in the planning, looked set to match the thrills and spills of the last run you read about. So did it live up to those high expectations?
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYzLbXFQ8NA"]YouTube - Nurburring - Ring Taxis Pass By[/url]
Well, no it didn't meet them, it didn’t even come close to them, but not in a bad way. It took those expectations and blew them out the water like the lava from an underwater volcano at full eruption, or Deek at the point when he realised his car had been hidden for the second time, both are proven seismic events!
Six cars this time, a new EC based trip record. Doubled manned again, though I use the manned term loosely as one co-pilot was 11 years old, one of the drivers has an un-manly fetish for pink slippers & another likes to sit in their underwear at the foot of my bed at 1.30 in the morning in a particularly un-manly pose, which unsettled me slightly since his own room was three doors along the corridor from mine.
The plan was a bold one, about 800 miles there, same back and near as makes no difference and two and a half days of potential ring time in between. It went a bit like this;
Day One – Thursday
The objective for day one was clear, get to Ashford Travel Lodge, M20 Junction 9 in time to have dinner and a couple of beers. The objective became foggy about Abingdon, much like the A702 en route to Abingdon had became foggy behind a certain maroon Skyline that decided it’d give Ross “I need a fag” Brown, a run for his money in the smoking stakes.
The aforementioned smokey Skyline driver announced he had promised to pick up a spoiler from someone near Derby and deliver it to an Austrian man who would be at our hotel before we left. All we had to do was find a man with a large package in a car park somewhere in Derbyshire, without getting arrested for dogging, then get to the Lodge.
This in itself wasn’t unclear but with our plan to have five cars and a van travelling, the agreed departure time came and went with the van conspicuous not by its decked on dished rims appearance for once, but by its absence. While the rest of us had packed bags, spares & tools over the course of the morning thus far then headed to the meeting point, some of us (Billy) were still at work!
As the days objective slipped off in to the mists of 2-way radio distribution, map checking (no one was entirely sure where the M6 & Derby lay in relation to each other) and phone calls to the Shotts based contingent, Billy appeared at speed, dished out the side stickers and with little further delay bar Ross’ attempt at taping a Germany flag to his Puma’s aerial, which failed before we were even out the car park, all participants were finally together on the same bit of road at last, a mere 3 months after the planning had started.
One of the unknowns of the trip, new boy Nick with his Audi RS4 quickly answered one of the questions that had been on my mind since his presence on the trip had been confirmed. Just how quick is a 420bhp RS4 on the road? Simple answer, hugely. No laws however were broken in the proving of this. Honest.
Silver Golf’s driven by ladies became a bit of a theme of the trip from about this early stage and a topic of conversation for much longer than we thought possible - the bulk of that later on though.
After the initial round of photo taking on the M74 had become boring and the serious business of actually getting the miles covered had commenced, a rather nice silver Golf GTi steamed past us. After a couple of miles of playing catch up, both myself and co-pilot/photographer Graeme, were surprised to find the female driver (I swear we only chased to get a decent picture of the car) wasn’t only doing a steady 72mph, but was driving with one hand on the phone also. If you ever read this KS**L*F, nice car and hope you don’t get clocked at that speed while on your phone anytime soon, points don’t always make prizes.
Skip forward a good few hours and after much radio banter and more pick’n’mix than my teeth thanked me for, we’re on the M6 toll but with a better idea of where we’ll be dogging soon. The meet up point off the toll road to find this dude with a Skyline spoiler was to be Tamworth services on the A5.
Unlikely as it is, should you ever find yourself in such a position as we found ourselves in, I can recommend bumping the spoiler carrier of the group and remaining on the M6 beyond Birmingham and carrying on that to the M1 as required. We didn’t do that.
With the spoiler collected after a ten minute off motorways detour and another ten minute hanging about in the services, we took the most direct road we could see to get to the M1, the A5 east past Hinckley. For a group of motoring enthusiasts heading to the shrine of motorsport, neigh, the holy grail of motorsport, Leicestershire’s A5 is possibly the dullest strip of asphalt on earth and we were on it for well over 20 miles at less than 50 the whole time, all because of that bloody spoiler, or as we thought about it more, because of Deek.
With the late departure, the multiple fuel/pee stops and spoiler collecting detour on the way down, dinner time saw us at Potters Bar services on the M25 north of London, rather than at our overnight stop in Kent. None the less we munched on a Burger King and eyed up some chick in the queue for KFC. I was too far away to see but I’m told she was hotter than the BK fries, though that’s not always too difficult.
Roll on another hour and a half or so and we’re in Ashford, joining a car park full of old Jensen cars, whose owners were also in the same lodge. I’m too young to know what they were but Billy & “Old” Jamie (we had two on the trip) kept me right on what they were!
It was right about then that the sunshine we had seen all the way down in our journey left us and was replaced, in the time it took to check in, with a torrential downpour which lasted most of the night.
We managed some beer, but only for an hour or two at the local Frankie and Benny’s. The 480 miles we’d just covered had taken its toll on everyone and the gravity of what still lay ahead over the next four days began to sink in. I could see the eyes glaze over and the shoulders sink as we spoke about the plan for starting day two - Meet in the car park at half six, to get to the tunnel check in 20 miles away well before check in close at 7.20am. We sat under patio heaters in the beer garden, listening to the rain run off the canopy above our heads, each and every one of us absolutely spent.
Day Two – Friday
Graham, my co-pilot, doesn’t snore. He shouts a loud grunting noise about every second and a half or so, in time with his breathing. I’d experienced it before on the last trip but I’d either erased it from my memory or it has somehow gotten even worse. Either way, I managed four hours broken sleep before seeing the car park at half six in the morning, well most of the car park anyway, the far side was out of sight. The weather had taken a turn, fog had joined the rain. As a result we didn’t see much of the road down to the tunnel, just mist and spray.
The train station, port, or whatever it should be referred to as, looked a bleak miserable grey place as we were loaded on to the train which in itself looked like it had just dropped out a Mad Max film. Some of us however had actually slept and most of us had never experienced Euro Tunnel before so the mood had lifted and spirits were high on board as we prepped the cars for European roads with beam benders and euro flag stickers for the plates.
There were also “I love gay porn” & “I heart my butt plug” stickers being placed on some of our cars without the owner’s knowledge, courtesy of Deek. A couple of us knew what he was up to, but let him get on with it, for me, it was merely him setting himself up for what he had coming later. The clocks were put forwards an hour somewhere under the English channel and we awaited the arrival announcements.
Calais, or sunny Calais as I’ll call it from now, was a surprise. The sun for one, as you may have gathered, was out. Unlike the French passport control people who, like Billy the day before, were conspicuous by their absence. We were off the train and in the first petrol station we could find (again) before you say viva la France.
Having never set foot on French soil before, or even in a school French lesson for that matter, our trip to the petrol station just outside the Calais tunnel port suddenly became a bit of an unanticipated problem. Whether the counter chick could speak English or not is debatable, maybe the accent threw her, but she had to be told the pump I was on by a combination of gesturing and pointing until the right amount flashed up on the till.
I was not alone with my petrol pump problems though, while identifying the pump number in French was proving problematic for me, navigating the pumps was proving a problem for Nick in the RS4. Having filled up and paid, he then proceeded to drive off the pump by dragging his rear near side alloy along, then up and over the concrete island housing the pump and obligatory litter bin, etc.
I've heard mixed reports in the past about P-Zero tyres but rest assured, the rim protector lip works a treat, a three inch long section of it was ripped clean off the rest of the tyre during this little indiscretion, but there was barely a scuff on the wheel itself when it was all over.
Fuelled up once more, we were off and running on the right side, which is the wrong side, right. Deek did his bit to blend in with the majority of “British” cars leaving the port and heading on to French soil proper, sporting a magnetic England flag on the tailgate of his liner. He didn't know much about it, but having stickered up Ross' Puma with those gay porn stickers on the sly when we were under the channel, it was only fair and the best bit, his own little cousin/co-pilot was responsible, top work Dean!
History was never a strong point but I’d guess that the Romans, or at least their descendents, built the main Belgian Auto-Routes since they are straighter than a straight edged ruler, that’s been straightened with GHD straightners. Even the slip roads in to services barely have any curves let alone the motorways themselves. Boredom crept in once more and the chatter on the 2-ways dried up once more. That was until, Tiffany.
The flow of traffic through Belgium found us keeping pace with another silver golf, again with a chick driving, this one with a British plate still but a cherished transfer that pretty much gave the name Tiffany. The radios crackled in to life again as we discussed whether she was hot or not and with most of the other drivers being happy in monogamous relationships, it was Deek that put some effort in to having a proper look, making contact in a Top Gun Goose & Maverick kind of way.
Ok so he didn’t do a 3G inverted dive at a range of a metre and a half whilst flipping her the bird, but he did smile and wave enough to get her attention and after a few miles he’d held his mobile number up against his window until she took the bait and text him.
She was indeed hot, the rest of us saw that much ourselves in the miles that passed, but what came to light in the hours and days after this crossing of paths, well you couldn’t make it up.
Deek, being the quiet boy he is (you’ve gotta watch those ones the closest!) played his cards close to his chest about what was being said by text but was like a school boy meeting his idol every time his phone went from then on through most of the weekend. What we did find out later was that Tiffany wasn’t your run of the mill Brit girl randomly driving through Belgium on a weekend break to see family or anything as dull as that. She was on her way to a race meet.
You could do a Google search on “Tiffany Chittenden” and all would become clear. In short, she is quite possibly the perfect woman and Deek, the jammy little swine, was on a text flirt mission like a man possessed. However in the interests of lazy people the world over, screw the effort of a google search - her website is [url="http://tiffanychittenden.com/"]Tiffany Chittenden – 2007 British Rotax DD2 Champion[/url] and she looks a bit like...
That was the highlight of the run down to Adenau. The autobahns should have been a highlight also but thanks to Ross’ sat nav we took a pointless turn of the auto route just before the German border and missed them completely. We then had to pull a six car U-turn in four lanes of traffic once he realised we weren’t going where we wanted to, then took another road off in to some villages, still because the sat nav told him too. By the time he stopped he only had two cars behind him. Neither of those was me, but I could see Nick circling a roundabout in front of me having lost the front three and Kev in my mirrors looking equally as puzzled.
In a stroke of fluke, the village dissecting route we’d been dragged on to was the one I had been forced to take back in 2006 as a result of a road closure on the auto route. From memory, along with some loose instructions from Ross on the phone as to which way he had went, we managed to get the two cars still with us to within one street of the other half of the party, that had fecked off in to the distance from us, blindly following their navs.
It was about now that Ross and I had a constructive debate at the side of the street about the merits and disadvantages of using sat navs against maps and the importance of keeping everyone in your mirrors, particularly in strange built up areas. To others it may have looked like an argument but a productive conclusion was reached none the less.
I was back in front, Graham was navigating using one of those paper maps, the old fashioned non electronic type that doesn’t tell you how many miles you have still to travel and what your eta is, but will likely take you the best way as you can see all the options and pick one. I cheated slightly finding my way out the villages without it as I could remember the way through but the map came in to play soon enough and before long we were on twisty, forest lined roads and picking up signs for some place called the Nurburgring.
Debate continued on the radios about the route and the merits of sat nav and to prove a point, we ended up splitting up again about 8km from our destination in a mini race to the hotel. I’ll maintain the map route would have won if it weren’t for a temp road closure but as it is, the nav gang were at the hotel a couple of mins before the map followers.
Jumping out the car I was aware of one thing other than Ross’ smug grin about being there first, it was pissing down. The nice weather we’d had all the way down from France had abandoned us to be replaced by heavy skies and lots of puddles.
The accommodation was “interesting” in that it wasn’t the actual hotel we’ve used before but their overspill guest house consisting of two floors of empty function halls before a third floor of six twin rooms off one corridor. None of the rooms had much more than beds and cupboards and at first inspection we thought only four had bathrooms in them, though they were in fact hidden away behind you as you entered the rooms.
It was at this point that Nick jumped ship. He had already booked a luxury hotel but to partake fully in the trip, had decided to join us in the spare guest house room and try to get out of the cancellation fee his posh gaff would try to charge. That was until he saw the guest house.
Can’t blame him really, I’d have done the same given the choice, but after a quick committee meeting and a re-cap of the cost of the rooms which still allowed us to do breakfast in the hotel proper, the rest of us opted to stay instead of trying to find a plan B.
After a quick planning meeting we decided that before grabbing dinner we’d be as well heading up to the rain sodden track while it was open, buy some lap passes and thus avoid the long queues for them the following day, assuming the forecasts would be correct and the Saturday would bring some sunshine. It was in the car park with the lap cards bought that I joked we should just fire on and see what it was like in the wet, what with it being so quiet.
To my amazement everyone agreed and after a quick squirt of fuel at the station along from the track, the attempt at having a laugh had turned in to a plan and we were barrier open for the first lap of the trip with the wipers and lights on.
Approximately twelve minutes later and we were off, where you’re supposed to come off surprisingly, rather than off in to the barriers and well we had mixed emotions in the ranks. I had found a couple of bends a bit nose out slippy but had no real problems and was willing to go back out, as were the rest of us bar Deek who found the slippery conditions and rear wheel drive weren’t floating his boat and Billy, who hadn’t changed to his track wheels yet and didn’t like the road wheel tyres much in the standing water that was dotted about.
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPCcrYkI-uo&feature=channel"]YouTube - Nurburgring - Wet Lap End Evo Pass[/url]
If I’m honest, lap one was a bit of a blur, such was the concentration needed at keeping the car on track, literally. Lap two in the rain stands out as being much the same but with an Evo 10 using me as a guide round the track, as much as I watched the mirrors waiting on him closing up and looking to get past, he just sat there, about 20 yards off my rear bumper for the entire lap, until that is the exit of the last corner when he decided to launch it down the run off straight and come in to the car park in front.
The remainder of the evening consisted of a sit-in pizza shop for dinner and down to the hotel bar where we all got very drunk indeed. Especially young Jamie who at about 1am was so plastered thanks to a combination of beer and jagerbombs through straws, he started having a rant at the old timers and how we can’t cut the partying any more cause we’re so old.
That was right before projectile vomiting at the entrance to the bar (thankfully outside having a fag at the time) then proceeded to do the same all the way back to the guest house. In the true spirit of looking after each other, we all legged it back to the room Graham and I had, leaving him to get walked back by his room mate and one of the said old timers, Kev.
In a token gesture to thank Jamie for putting Kev through this he sourced a glass of water and emptied it over Jamie’s head as he lay face down on his bed. In light of this doing nothing to bring him round any, a second was used, which finally brought him to life enough to get his drunken ill mug on video camera. Day two came to an end about 2am in a slurred tirade of foul language from under a soaking wet duvet.
Day Three – Saturday
With another snore induced sleep deprived night under my belt I was feeling horrendous, right up until I looked out the window and saw sunshine. No dark clouds and no dampness on the roads outside either. Breakfast was attended in dribs and drabs, Billy’s wheels were changed over and we set off for the track together once more.
Now the main problem with the open public days at the ring is that it is open to the public. Obvious statement maybe but letting any driver/bike rider, regardless of machine/vehicle, each with varying levels of driving ability and track driving experience, from novice to nut job, on track at once results in what at times can only be described as utter chaos.
Saturday was just such a day.
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fykqbt3E_Sc&feature=channel"]YouTube - Nurburgring - Usual Chaos and Nutters[/url]
Both main car parks were full of visitors to the track, as was the overspill car park, the overspill for the overspill car park and the road running past the track was also lined with cars, on either side.
That was just off the track, you should have seen how busy it was on it.
The day was filled with closure after closure due to accidents and there was a steady stream of recovery trucks, ambulances and police cars coming and going from the track all day. By 4pm, having only spent a short amount of time in the day away at some of the viewing areas, I’d only managed to get on twice and eventually went to look for a jet wash.
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_Uj74qYbLw&feature=channel"]YouTube - Nurburgring - Why to watch your mirrors[/url]
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UjHNwY0NsI&feature=channel"]YouTube - Nurburgring - Keeping out the way at a busy start[/url]
more to follow
Sadly I haven't managed to go on the two smaller trips since, that a couple of the gang have made, but unless you've been living in a cave, or a hotel’s overspill “guest house” in Germany, which also doesn't have net access, then you'll know that there has just been another large scale trip, one that in the planning, looked set to match the thrills and spills of the last run you read about. So did it live up to those high expectations?
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYzLbXFQ8NA"]YouTube - Nurburring - Ring Taxis Pass By[/url]
Well, no it didn't meet them, it didn’t even come close to them, but not in a bad way. It took those expectations and blew them out the water like the lava from an underwater volcano at full eruption, or Deek at the point when he realised his car had been hidden for the second time, both are proven seismic events!
Six cars this time, a new EC based trip record. Doubled manned again, though I use the manned term loosely as one co-pilot was 11 years old, one of the drivers has an un-manly fetish for pink slippers & another likes to sit in their underwear at the foot of my bed at 1.30 in the morning in a particularly un-manly pose, which unsettled me slightly since his own room was three doors along the corridor from mine.
The plan was a bold one, about 800 miles there, same back and near as makes no difference and two and a half days of potential ring time in between. It went a bit like this;
Day One – Thursday
The objective for day one was clear, get to Ashford Travel Lodge, M20 Junction 9 in time to have dinner and a couple of beers. The objective became foggy about Abingdon, much like the A702 en route to Abingdon had became foggy behind a certain maroon Skyline that decided it’d give Ross “I need a fag” Brown, a run for his money in the smoking stakes.
The aforementioned smokey Skyline driver announced he had promised to pick up a spoiler from someone near Derby and deliver it to an Austrian man who would be at our hotel before we left. All we had to do was find a man with a large package in a car park somewhere in Derbyshire, without getting arrested for dogging, then get to the Lodge.
This in itself wasn’t unclear but with our plan to have five cars and a van travelling, the agreed departure time came and went with the van conspicuous not by its decked on dished rims appearance for once, but by its absence. While the rest of us had packed bags, spares & tools over the course of the morning thus far then headed to the meeting point, some of us (Billy) were still at work!
As the days objective slipped off in to the mists of 2-way radio distribution, map checking (no one was entirely sure where the M6 & Derby lay in relation to each other) and phone calls to the Shotts based contingent, Billy appeared at speed, dished out the side stickers and with little further delay bar Ross’ attempt at taping a Germany flag to his Puma’s aerial, which failed before we were even out the car park, all participants were finally together on the same bit of road at last, a mere 3 months after the planning had started.
One of the unknowns of the trip, new boy Nick with his Audi RS4 quickly answered one of the questions that had been on my mind since his presence on the trip had been confirmed. Just how quick is a 420bhp RS4 on the road? Simple answer, hugely. No laws however were broken in the proving of this. Honest.
Silver Golf’s driven by ladies became a bit of a theme of the trip from about this early stage and a topic of conversation for much longer than we thought possible - the bulk of that later on though.
After the initial round of photo taking on the M74 had become boring and the serious business of actually getting the miles covered had commenced, a rather nice silver Golf GTi steamed past us. After a couple of miles of playing catch up, both myself and co-pilot/photographer Graeme, were surprised to find the female driver (I swear we only chased to get a decent picture of the car) wasn’t only doing a steady 72mph, but was driving with one hand on the phone also. If you ever read this KS**L*F, nice car and hope you don’t get clocked at that speed while on your phone anytime soon, points don’t always make prizes.
Skip forward a good few hours and after much radio banter and more pick’n’mix than my teeth thanked me for, we’re on the M6 toll but with a better idea of where we’ll be dogging soon. The meet up point off the toll road to find this dude with a Skyline spoiler was to be Tamworth services on the A5.
Unlikely as it is, should you ever find yourself in such a position as we found ourselves in, I can recommend bumping the spoiler carrier of the group and remaining on the M6 beyond Birmingham and carrying on that to the M1 as required. We didn’t do that.
With the spoiler collected after a ten minute off motorways detour and another ten minute hanging about in the services, we took the most direct road we could see to get to the M1, the A5 east past Hinckley. For a group of motoring enthusiasts heading to the shrine of motorsport, neigh, the holy grail of motorsport, Leicestershire’s A5 is possibly the dullest strip of asphalt on earth and we were on it for well over 20 miles at less than 50 the whole time, all because of that bloody spoiler, or as we thought about it more, because of Deek.
With the late departure, the multiple fuel/pee stops and spoiler collecting detour on the way down, dinner time saw us at Potters Bar services on the M25 north of London, rather than at our overnight stop in Kent. None the less we munched on a Burger King and eyed up some chick in the queue for KFC. I was too far away to see but I’m told she was hotter than the BK fries, though that’s not always too difficult.
Roll on another hour and a half or so and we’re in Ashford, joining a car park full of old Jensen cars, whose owners were also in the same lodge. I’m too young to know what they were but Billy & “Old” Jamie (we had two on the trip) kept me right on what they were!
It was right about then that the sunshine we had seen all the way down in our journey left us and was replaced, in the time it took to check in, with a torrential downpour which lasted most of the night.
We managed some beer, but only for an hour or two at the local Frankie and Benny’s. The 480 miles we’d just covered had taken its toll on everyone and the gravity of what still lay ahead over the next four days began to sink in. I could see the eyes glaze over and the shoulders sink as we spoke about the plan for starting day two - Meet in the car park at half six, to get to the tunnel check in 20 miles away well before check in close at 7.20am. We sat under patio heaters in the beer garden, listening to the rain run off the canopy above our heads, each and every one of us absolutely spent.
Day Two – Friday
Graham, my co-pilot, doesn’t snore. He shouts a loud grunting noise about every second and a half or so, in time with his breathing. I’d experienced it before on the last trip but I’d either erased it from my memory or it has somehow gotten even worse. Either way, I managed four hours broken sleep before seeing the car park at half six in the morning, well most of the car park anyway, the far side was out of sight. The weather had taken a turn, fog had joined the rain. As a result we didn’t see much of the road down to the tunnel, just mist and spray.
The train station, port, or whatever it should be referred to as, looked a bleak miserable grey place as we were loaded on to the train which in itself looked like it had just dropped out a Mad Max film. Some of us however had actually slept and most of us had never experienced Euro Tunnel before so the mood had lifted and spirits were high on board as we prepped the cars for European roads with beam benders and euro flag stickers for the plates.
There were also “I love gay porn” & “I heart my butt plug” stickers being placed on some of our cars without the owner’s knowledge, courtesy of Deek. A couple of us knew what he was up to, but let him get on with it, for me, it was merely him setting himself up for what he had coming later. The clocks were put forwards an hour somewhere under the English channel and we awaited the arrival announcements.
Calais, or sunny Calais as I’ll call it from now, was a surprise. The sun for one, as you may have gathered, was out. Unlike the French passport control people who, like Billy the day before, were conspicuous by their absence. We were off the train and in the first petrol station we could find (again) before you say viva la France.
Having never set foot on French soil before, or even in a school French lesson for that matter, our trip to the petrol station just outside the Calais tunnel port suddenly became a bit of an unanticipated problem. Whether the counter chick could speak English or not is debatable, maybe the accent threw her, but she had to be told the pump I was on by a combination of gesturing and pointing until the right amount flashed up on the till.
I was not alone with my petrol pump problems though, while identifying the pump number in French was proving problematic for me, navigating the pumps was proving a problem for Nick in the RS4. Having filled up and paid, he then proceeded to drive off the pump by dragging his rear near side alloy along, then up and over the concrete island housing the pump and obligatory litter bin, etc.
I've heard mixed reports in the past about P-Zero tyres but rest assured, the rim protector lip works a treat, a three inch long section of it was ripped clean off the rest of the tyre during this little indiscretion, but there was barely a scuff on the wheel itself when it was all over.
Fuelled up once more, we were off and running on the right side, which is the wrong side, right. Deek did his bit to blend in with the majority of “British” cars leaving the port and heading on to French soil proper, sporting a magnetic England flag on the tailgate of his liner. He didn't know much about it, but having stickered up Ross' Puma with those gay porn stickers on the sly when we were under the channel, it was only fair and the best bit, his own little cousin/co-pilot was responsible, top work Dean!
History was never a strong point but I’d guess that the Romans, or at least their descendents, built the main Belgian Auto-Routes since they are straighter than a straight edged ruler, that’s been straightened with GHD straightners. Even the slip roads in to services barely have any curves let alone the motorways themselves. Boredom crept in once more and the chatter on the 2-ways dried up once more. That was until, Tiffany.
The flow of traffic through Belgium found us keeping pace with another silver golf, again with a chick driving, this one with a British plate still but a cherished transfer that pretty much gave the name Tiffany. The radios crackled in to life again as we discussed whether she was hot or not and with most of the other drivers being happy in monogamous relationships, it was Deek that put some effort in to having a proper look, making contact in a Top Gun Goose & Maverick kind of way.
Ok so he didn’t do a 3G inverted dive at a range of a metre and a half whilst flipping her the bird, but he did smile and wave enough to get her attention and after a few miles he’d held his mobile number up against his window until she took the bait and text him.
She was indeed hot, the rest of us saw that much ourselves in the miles that passed, but what came to light in the hours and days after this crossing of paths, well you couldn’t make it up.
Deek, being the quiet boy he is (you’ve gotta watch those ones the closest!) played his cards close to his chest about what was being said by text but was like a school boy meeting his idol every time his phone went from then on through most of the weekend. What we did find out later was that Tiffany wasn’t your run of the mill Brit girl randomly driving through Belgium on a weekend break to see family or anything as dull as that. She was on her way to a race meet.
You could do a Google search on “Tiffany Chittenden” and all would become clear. In short, she is quite possibly the perfect woman and Deek, the jammy little swine, was on a text flirt mission like a man possessed. However in the interests of lazy people the world over, screw the effort of a google search - her website is [url="http://tiffanychittenden.com/"]Tiffany Chittenden – 2007 British Rotax DD2 Champion[/url] and she looks a bit like...
That was the highlight of the run down to Adenau. The autobahns should have been a highlight also but thanks to Ross’ sat nav we took a pointless turn of the auto route just before the German border and missed them completely. We then had to pull a six car U-turn in four lanes of traffic once he realised we weren’t going where we wanted to, then took another road off in to some villages, still because the sat nav told him too. By the time he stopped he only had two cars behind him. Neither of those was me, but I could see Nick circling a roundabout in front of me having lost the front three and Kev in my mirrors looking equally as puzzled.
In a stroke of fluke, the village dissecting route we’d been dragged on to was the one I had been forced to take back in 2006 as a result of a road closure on the auto route. From memory, along with some loose instructions from Ross on the phone as to which way he had went, we managed to get the two cars still with us to within one street of the other half of the party, that had fecked off in to the distance from us, blindly following their navs.
It was about now that Ross and I had a constructive debate at the side of the street about the merits and disadvantages of using sat navs against maps and the importance of keeping everyone in your mirrors, particularly in strange built up areas. To others it may have looked like an argument but a productive conclusion was reached none the less.
I was back in front, Graham was navigating using one of those paper maps, the old fashioned non electronic type that doesn’t tell you how many miles you have still to travel and what your eta is, but will likely take you the best way as you can see all the options and pick one. I cheated slightly finding my way out the villages without it as I could remember the way through but the map came in to play soon enough and before long we were on twisty, forest lined roads and picking up signs for some place called the Nurburgring.
Debate continued on the radios about the route and the merits of sat nav and to prove a point, we ended up splitting up again about 8km from our destination in a mini race to the hotel. I’ll maintain the map route would have won if it weren’t for a temp road closure but as it is, the nav gang were at the hotel a couple of mins before the map followers.
Jumping out the car I was aware of one thing other than Ross’ smug grin about being there first, it was pissing down. The nice weather we’d had all the way down from France had abandoned us to be replaced by heavy skies and lots of puddles.
The accommodation was “interesting” in that it wasn’t the actual hotel we’ve used before but their overspill guest house consisting of two floors of empty function halls before a third floor of six twin rooms off one corridor. None of the rooms had much more than beds and cupboards and at first inspection we thought only four had bathrooms in them, though they were in fact hidden away behind you as you entered the rooms.
It was at this point that Nick jumped ship. He had already booked a luxury hotel but to partake fully in the trip, had decided to join us in the spare guest house room and try to get out of the cancellation fee his posh gaff would try to charge. That was until he saw the guest house.
Can’t blame him really, I’d have done the same given the choice, but after a quick committee meeting and a re-cap of the cost of the rooms which still allowed us to do breakfast in the hotel proper, the rest of us opted to stay instead of trying to find a plan B.
After a quick planning meeting we decided that before grabbing dinner we’d be as well heading up to the rain sodden track while it was open, buy some lap passes and thus avoid the long queues for them the following day, assuming the forecasts would be correct and the Saturday would bring some sunshine. It was in the car park with the lap cards bought that I joked we should just fire on and see what it was like in the wet, what with it being so quiet.
To my amazement everyone agreed and after a quick squirt of fuel at the station along from the track, the attempt at having a laugh had turned in to a plan and we were barrier open for the first lap of the trip with the wipers and lights on.
Approximately twelve minutes later and we were off, where you’re supposed to come off surprisingly, rather than off in to the barriers and well we had mixed emotions in the ranks. I had found a couple of bends a bit nose out slippy but had no real problems and was willing to go back out, as were the rest of us bar Deek who found the slippery conditions and rear wheel drive weren’t floating his boat and Billy, who hadn’t changed to his track wheels yet and didn’t like the road wheel tyres much in the standing water that was dotted about.
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPCcrYkI-uo&feature=channel"]YouTube - Nurburgring - Wet Lap End Evo Pass[/url]
If I’m honest, lap one was a bit of a blur, such was the concentration needed at keeping the car on track, literally. Lap two in the rain stands out as being much the same but with an Evo 10 using me as a guide round the track, as much as I watched the mirrors waiting on him closing up and looking to get past, he just sat there, about 20 yards off my rear bumper for the entire lap, until that is the exit of the last corner when he decided to launch it down the run off straight and come in to the car park in front.
The remainder of the evening consisted of a sit-in pizza shop for dinner and down to the hotel bar where we all got very drunk indeed. Especially young Jamie who at about 1am was so plastered thanks to a combination of beer and jagerbombs through straws, he started having a rant at the old timers and how we can’t cut the partying any more cause we’re so old.
That was right before projectile vomiting at the entrance to the bar (thankfully outside having a fag at the time) then proceeded to do the same all the way back to the guest house. In the true spirit of looking after each other, we all legged it back to the room Graham and I had, leaving him to get walked back by his room mate and one of the said old timers, Kev.
In a token gesture to thank Jamie for putting Kev through this he sourced a glass of water and emptied it over Jamie’s head as he lay face down on his bed. In light of this doing nothing to bring him round any, a second was used, which finally brought him to life enough to get his drunken ill mug on video camera. Day two came to an end about 2am in a slurred tirade of foul language from under a soaking wet duvet.
Day Three – Saturday
With another snore induced sleep deprived night under my belt I was feeling horrendous, right up until I looked out the window and saw sunshine. No dark clouds and no dampness on the roads outside either. Breakfast was attended in dribs and drabs, Billy’s wheels were changed over and we set off for the track together once more.
Now the main problem with the open public days at the ring is that it is open to the public. Obvious statement maybe but letting any driver/bike rider, regardless of machine/vehicle, each with varying levels of driving ability and track driving experience, from novice to nut job, on track at once results in what at times can only be described as utter chaos.
Saturday was just such a day.
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fykqbt3E_Sc&feature=channel"]YouTube - Nurburgring - Usual Chaos and Nutters[/url]
Both main car parks were full of visitors to the track, as was the overspill car park, the overspill for the overspill car park and the road running past the track was also lined with cars, on either side.
That was just off the track, you should have seen how busy it was on it.
The day was filled with closure after closure due to accidents and there was a steady stream of recovery trucks, ambulances and police cars coming and going from the track all day. By 4pm, having only spent a short amount of time in the day away at some of the viewing areas, I’d only managed to get on twice and eventually went to look for a jet wash.
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_Uj74qYbLw&feature=channel"]YouTube - Nurburgring - Why to watch your mirrors[/url]
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UjHNwY0NsI&feature=channel"]YouTube - Nurburgring - Keeping out the way at a busy start[/url]
more to follow
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