It doesn't matter if it's the Nurburgring on a public day or Knockhill on a trackday, there's always at least one race car out there with the road cars. Trying to rub doorhandles with your pride and joy, the same car you have to drive home, and they're more often-than not driven by fireproof-suited maniacs with laptimers stuck in the window.
So what's the story? Earlier this week the Nurburgring was closed after one such nomex'd numpty got a bit carried away during a public session on the Nordschleife. Not only were there several reports of him driving like a tit through the tourist traffic, but when the inevitable crash happened he ruined things for everybody by driving back onto the track and 'limping' the car home and over the line. Rather than stopping and warning others, this racing driver chose to drive the above-pictured wreck over 6km to the end of the lap whilst leaving a variety of both fluids and solid debris all over the line behind him.
Should he have driven it back? Nope...
Ridiculously over-zealous behaviour in a race, but absolutely deadly during the Nurburgring's public hour. With no flag marshals to warn the other drivers of the idiot ahead, the first warnings came as the front tyres hit coolant and washed-out toward the steel barriers.
Behind this guy there were two serious crashes, one involving a British biker (who's a friend of mine), before the volunteer marshals could respond and control the incident. Needless to say, the track was closed for the rest of the night and the German police were on the scene within minutes.
So what's the solution? Ban race cars? The Nurburgring staff already do their best, but this particular guy had done enough work for his BMW 325i car to pass as road-legal and carry numberplates. Indeed he was actually turned-around once by the yellow-vests, but had his day ban repealed by a higher authority. Somebody's regretting that decision, no doubt.
It's no use banning so-called race cars. Plenty of us build our track-going sport scars into machines that could easily go racing. And wherever there is 'cheap' track time both teams and racing drivers will find a way to get on to the track for a few laps of extra training, and who can blame them? Some race drivers just love to take their real racing car out and scalp some normal street cars. Trying to be the big fish in a small pond, it's an attitude thing.
The problem, as ever, is the driver and not the car. It's the racing driver who thinks that overtaking on any corner, any braking zone or any side is acceptable behaviour. It's the racing driver who presumes that if anybody hits their crash debris it will be "their problem and not mine".
An easy enough problem to solve on a trackday where there is a mandatory briefing before anybody takes to the track. But for public driving on the Nurburgring, with no briefings at all, it's just another risk you have to take.
So here's a hypothetical question for you PHers... If we take it that public driving on the 'ring is for street cars and not race cars, would the banning of rollcages, HANS devices and crash helmets during these hours make things better or worse?
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