Ringside Seat: happy birthday Nurburgring!
The Nurburgring opened 85 years ago this week - happy birthday to you!
For the first German GP it was more like a rally stage
Either way, it was a golden era for racing, no doubt, but totally mental. While chassis design was in its infancy, the motors were doing just fine. 300, 400 even 500hp motors were not a problem with turbos and superchargers and more litres of displacement than cylinders under the brushed alloy panels.
You can watch some of the Grand Prix highlights from 1931 to 1939 here but safe to say those years before WWII were full of heroes, villains and some downright amazing races.
The 1930s Silver Arrows made the 'ring their own
Names like Caracciola and Nuvolari will forever be remembered from this decade and a bit. The last race before war finally broke out was in 1939. These days we call a four-hour race an ‘endurance event’ and rules demand that at least two or three drivers share the car.
Back then it was just called the Grand Prix and drivers shared only to avoid collapsing of heat exhaustion. And this was Caracciola’s last GP victory, won in fine style over 20 laps and in mixed conditions driving a 7.1-litre Mercedes-Benz SS.
Caracciola (#12) won the last GP before the war
It was March 1945, to be precise, and the 11th Armoured Division had taken to the track. The local roads were littered with burning vehicles and barely passable. While the Sudschleife (south loop) and Nordschleife (north loop) were just a bit weedy. A lap in a Sherman tank would have taken well over an hour, but they only drove as far as Galgenkopf before they got off the track again...
Racing re-occurred in 1950 and I’m going to brush over 26 years of epic racing history in just a few sentences. But suffice to say, it looks brilliant. Dashing through the privet hedges in lethal contraptions, cross-ply tyre to cross-ply tyre. Check out my favourite video here - it’s from 1968.
Summer picnics and Gullwings in the Eifel!
But it was Lauda’s fiery crash that finally put into action a walk-out that should have happened a long time before. F1 left the Nordschleife and in 1984 Senna won the first race on the new, sanitised GP track.
The Sudschleife was gone, and except for one final round of Group C insanity the Nordschleife gradually fell off everybody’s radar.
Only in the last 10 years did the old northloop start to make a resurgence. Whether that’s for better or for worse, only time will tell. A few things will never change though; the track is as beautiful as it is dangerous, and those viewing figures always seem to be a little bit optimistic.
First race at the new 'ring was more like a rally stage!
As far as the N24 goes, that's an amazing weekend, more intimate than LeMans, and doesn't yet attract the lager-louts en masse like Le Mans does.
Yes, of course I'm going to the Ring again soon ;-)
How those Racing Gods of the past, in the track conditions and weather, were able to drive as they did and create Legends, that we do not understand how?--makes this our greatest driving pleasure.
Thankyou to THE Man who made it all possible--Dr Otto Creutz.If you get the chance to read "Kings OF THE NURBURGRING" by Chris Nixon-you will appreciate just how lucky We are, to be "Ringers"
see you in august 
Good story though
go back in august, I was last there for the N24 in may my first but is it better than Le Mans
I'm not so sure ive just got back from Le Mans after doing the both in a month and to be honest i could go either
way but i would say like my good friend Rolf says who has done both every year for 25 years plus
it is unfair to compare as they are different tracks and cars plus have elements that are better
and worse than each other and there are no larger louts at Mulsanne or Arnage but hey one thing
that the Nordscliefe would win over any track for me is the Eifel Region it sits in mind blowingly Beautiful!!!
I went for the first time just over a week ago and thoroughly enjoyed the experience, I'm sure the fact that the TF days are very busy now has diluted the experience, next time i'd try a proper track day.
That said it was so different from you average UK trackday that I found the whole experience a bit of a sensory overload. The whole group were giddy with excitement and spent the entire weekend living on the adrenalin. I will certainly be going back whether it is for a TF day or trackday.
SportAuto magazine testing the Lamborghini Aventador at the end of Friday TF is something I will take a long time to forget, the sight of the orange Lambo that over took us going down into Foxhole at full chat was amazing.
Even the weather held out for most of the weekend.
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