'Ring Taxi

[GVK]

viper_larry said:

We were at the 'ring on Sunday and met an American guy asking for directions to the Ring Taxi office. Didn't have a booking, just turning up on the off chance. Saw him later on and he got a cancellation - got a lap with Sabine and no-one else in the car. In fact, there was another space he could have taken also. My advice is, turn up, get to the office for 10am and get your name down, chances is, you'll get a go. Sabine has lapped the 'ring over 15,000 times now - guess she knows it quite well!

I was lucky enough to get a spare seat in the 'old' V8 E39? M5 ' ring taxi with two Danes in 2002, most enjoyable lap.

240ish km/h down Fuchsrohre and the dip before SX, airborne over the Sprunghugel and a lovely 4 wheel drift at 200+ through Flugplatz...

Sabine seems totally relaxed , driving sideways whilst chatting



>> Edited by GVK on Thursday 16th June 07:03

[kedelbach]

yeah, that was a good lap, even though Dirk was driving instead of Sabine
fell in love with that BMW V8 - he wasn't going crazy with late or trail braking, more of a slow, firm 1/4 turn of the wheel and a mere flex of his big toe, then WHHHHEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!! I'M LOOKING SQUARE OUT OF THE PASSENGER SIDE WINDOW AT THE (soggy) SPECTATORS OF ADENAUER FORST!!!!

It helped us to give a cell phone number to call if a cancellation happened, at least the nice bloke in the 'old' Ring Taxi office was very friendly about putting down our info, then calling Ben when one a completely free taxi came up (apparently better chances of that when its rainy).

good luck - the new M5 with Sabine at the wheel would be a lap to remember, she's passed me enough times on the NS, with inches to spare, hopping over curbs, for me to know
cheers
Kurt

www.nurburgring.org.uk/who/details.php?u=167

pogo85 said:

www.nurburgring.org.uk/trip_reports/trip37/index.html Ben Lovejoy picks up a cancellation on trip 37. The whole report is well worth a read. Couple of quotes below. "a few Taxi facts. The tyres are changed after 10 laps. The brakes are changed after 20 laps, and the car gets a full inspection at the same time (this is the reason it can only do 20 laps a day). We also confirmed that the running costs (excluding the cost of the car itself) are €300-400 a lap, so after the €160 charge it runs at a considerable loss, but of course this is made up for by the huge PR value. At the end of the season, the cars are sent to the BMW lab for analysis, and then are crushed." "is agreed that our lap will be a no-holds-barred one. In the end, we are switched from 19th lap to 20th (and final one of the day). The advantage of this is that the tyres do not need to be saved for future laps.." www.nurburgring.org.uk/trip_reports/trip37/index.html www.nurburgring.org.uk/

[kedelbach]

from reliable sources, one of the Taxis had a bit of trouble over the weekend, puking fluid/oil over the track from MHM to Breidscheid.

www.nurburgring.org.uk/trip_reports/trip41/

Very surprising to hear, of all cars on the Ring that you'd assume would get right off the track when dropping fluid, it'd be the Taxi(s)...

Kurt

[dazren]

I'm sure if the Ring Taxi driver had known the car was dropping fluid, he/she would have got off the track ASAP.

DAZ

[tiga84]

Was there all weekend, they were flying about pretty much non-stop, didn't see that there was a problem, certainly nothing of substance to mention, other than the proper old timers slip-sliding the way round after the torrential downpour, total respect to them!!! cross-ply's anyone??

Saw AdamT's M5 flying round at various points during the weekend, looked superb (as did the RUF as well!).


If anyone was there, did you also spot the new menacing M6 in the car park, those rims were huge!!!




>> Edited by tiga84 on Monday 27th June 14:15

[kedelbach]

yes, sorry I jumped to the conclusion that he knew oil was dropping - I've never had an engine/gearbox explode on my, so have no idea what it sounds/feels like, or if there was anything to hear/feel at all until Breidscheid, when he presumeably sensed something, and pulled off.

Have something like this ever happened to you DAZ?

Good point, we've all seen people on the highway/autobahn leaving immense clouds of smoke behind them, and wonder "WTF can't they see that?!?" but maybe they don't...

Kurt

dazren said:

I'm sure if the Ring Taxi driver had known the car was dropping fluid, he/she would have got off the track ASAP. DAZ

[dazren]

I've been lucky so far. Nothing dropped on the road.

Although I have broken a plastic gear shift linkage downshifting from 4th to 3rd at about 75mph. On another occasion I've had a turbo pipe work loose when shifting from 5th to 6th at 155mph, this resulted in a significan loss of power and driving 150 miles in limp home mode below 2.5k revs.

Meanwhile back at the ring, the chinese whispers rumourmill suggests that after the oil blowing incident the car kept to the far right of the track rather than following normal lines......... Hmmmm bloody poor show.

DAZ

>> Edited by dazren on Monday 27th June 17:20

[dick dastardly]

Off Topic - does anyone know the story behind the graffiti all over the track? I've been wondering why it's there and what is says for a while.

[dazren]

Sometimes put down by people who've crashed or worse.

DAZ

[bad_roo]

There's a big cock and balls painted on the circuit at Adenauer Forst that curiously never made it into GT4.

[Zod]

dick dastardly said:

Off Topic - does anyone know the story behind the graffiti all over the track? I've been wondering why it's there and what is says for a while.

I think most of it is just encoragement for amateurs in the 24h race. I've seen people juat painting random stuff though. I didn't paint anything when I crashed at Metzgesfeld last month.