Presenting the most awesome race track to you

[Grace]

Arguably I am a bad presenter of the track because it took me a day and I could have told you days before.
We say better late than never :)



Let me introduce the track first and why it is so special. Finished in 1927, it originally was a 28km long mountain race track also built to test new cars. It has undergone some major changes but not much since around 2002. The reason why it is so demanding is, that instead of building a relative flat race track, they simply integrated it into the region. It consists of two parts, the 20.8km long Nordschleife, also world wide known as the famous "Green Hell" and the GP course in the south looking like an appendix (it is).

Here is a short video giving some impressions on the track. 2 minutes


Every reputable car manufacturer from all over the world comes here to test their cars. If it drives and handles good on the Nordschleife, it handles like that everywhere. The track is so huge that it has several different weather zones. You could have snow in the upper parts and dry roads down in sunny places, fog in the middle and rain in some parts, all in one lap. 18% uphill sections and 11% downhill sections.

That's partly the reason why it is called the Green Hell, F1 driver Jackie Stewart coined the term. It demands everything from the driver and the car. It destroys literally. There are no runout zones. If you crash here and get off the track, it's going to be brutal. The most famous crash from Niki Lauda (RIP 2019) in 1976 that lead to major changes around the track and Formula 1 rules happened there. 

You either flow with the track or the track will send you out merciless. It's also a public toll road. Means on special days, called "Touristenfahrten" "Tourist drives", you can take your car, drive there, buy a ticket for a lap and go bonkers. I would not recommend it like that though. Many think the track is flat and from videos it looks like that. But its just waiting for a chance to upset your car and send you off.

Look at them go and crash, not supposed to look like that, but what can you do :D



Okay now, here is one full lap, it is the 2018 record setting lap time 5:19.55 in the Porsche HYBRID 919 EVO. The video is not speed up. The lap starts around 2:52. Granted this is extreme. Even for me who can cite down blindly every corner with details, the speed, on some parts is just unreal to watch.




Fast lap times today are 6-7 minutes. When I was driving there actively I burned a 7:19 in to the tarmac (stopwatch) with the back then ~840HP R33 GTR due to someone still on the track in a foggy area. I didn't slow down but followed the memorized track. I would not do this today like that back then I had absolute no concerns for having an accident. You never know what awaits you there, in my case sudden brake lights in fog in front of me although the track should have been empty for me. 2-3 inch to the side and we both would have crashed as I passed with more than 180kmh difference. Later after a short brawl and the sporadic beer with that one, he told me it sounded like a whistle passing by, his right side mirror bent away from the draft I was pulling behind, the whole car shook. I just saw something I passed in the fog and that was all. Before I could think what I saw, I already had to concentrate.

Today such runs are only possible of you are manufacturer team. They also do not allow clocking times anymore, because of that exact reason, it pushes freaks like me over the edge and led to crashes before. My uncle crashed there once, lost downforce and went into a bump, catapulted the car up, air got under it and it just lifted away over the guard rails into the forest sideways half overturning. I did not see it, I was down the track two sections marshalling flags but I heard the crash and the radio going wild. He got out with no scratches but one rim was ripped off and lodged in some tree branches on head height. Carrera GT V10 was that, we tried to fix it but the chassis was bent, we could not do anything. Someone bought it for spare parts what was left intact.

Enough trivia about how dangerous the track can be, let me introduce the Nürburgring long range endurance races to you. I drove there myself more than ten years ago in a SEAT, FWD. Not everyone makes it to the finish line, 4h endurance race and making it to the finish line with what is going down in any section of the track is a feat too. The idea is to test driver and material, it's very demanding.

And real motor sport, emotions, new talents old guys, EMOTIONS because you can fever with so many teams and it's different, more private and personal than most other race series. People literally camp on the track between the lanes and grill, you come up certain sections in such an event and smell their BBQs, sitting at the track and applauding every driver that passes by. Some like to thank them with drifts and a fist out of the window (what you will see being tried during tourist drives up in the video too).

So this last Weekend, the Endurance Series has begun. 20.03 the first tests drives were done and last weekend 135 race cars started. You will see crashes, people fighting with their cars, emotions, failures and epic wins in battles. 



Enjoy :)

Very very cool! I SO wanted to do that when I was younger...