It’s been a while now since we came back from the Mecca of Motorsport.  I still haven’t edited any videos, maybe that will never happen.  That insidious four letter word beginning with W and rhyming with Berk always gets in the way.  Oh, and beer, obviously, but I can forgive that a lot more.

So this post exists purely to flush the buffer of Stuff-I-Wanted-To-Say, that didn’t quite make it into the previous blustery marathon.  And maybe there’ll be some wistful nostalgia because, as usual, I have been drinking, and that’s where your nostalgia comes from when you’re still the pert side of 40.

OK, so what have we got in the unused pile? Well, there’s one detail that was bugging me.  After we’d been kicked off the track for the day, they opened the track for Touristenfahrten, which means anyone can rock up and pay for a lap.  Only … they didn’t change the layout.  So if you happened to bimble up one evening for a lap or two and you knew the Nordschleife, you’d wang on down through Tiergarten and so on, and then you’d set the car up for turning right past the old pits, where the Nordschleife start/finish line is.  But all you’d find is a line of tyres blocking the track – you need to be on the right hand side of the road for the run onto the GP circuit.

There was no indication whatsoever at the Nordschleife entrance that they were running the VLN circuit instead of the regular Nordschleife (I checked) and even if there had been, who the hell knows what that means?  It’s most peculiar.  There must have been people that evening who thought they knew the track, but were unexpectedly fed into the GP circuit and didn’t have the slightest clue where they were supposed to be going because they’d never seen that portion of the track before.  How weird is that?!

I guess that’s part of the beauty of the place – it’s assumed that you can take responsibility for yourself.  Maybe that seems weird to me because in the UK we have so many nannying rules that whenever something goes wrong, people look for somebody else to blame.  It can’t be our fault because we’ve stuck to the myriad rules (largely), so it must be someone else’s fault.  That attitude is so very wrong and counter-productive, but it wins votes in this broken country so that’s the way it is.

Did I just start talking politics?  Ah bollocks.  Sorry about that.  Let’s get back to dicking about in cars.

First, a couple of gratuitous shots of the Karussell, for no reason other than it’s cooool

(Above) from the helmetcam in the Elise.

And this one’s from the Roadhawk.

Now, some shots from the passenger side of Nigel’s gorgeous 458:

(Above) A quick perv at Sabine Schmitz as we burble into the pit lane.

Through one of the wide open corners on the GP circuit.

Doing some grass-tracking through the GDK chicane.

The first corner after you hit the Nordschleife (whatever it’s called).

A Z4 M coupe, somewhat reluctant to move over at Aremberg.

Ah, there he goes.

Waving at the crowd at Brunnchen.  Being German they probably thought the wheel was on the left of the car and I was being very irresponsible waving like a simpleton at them whilst driving through Brunnchen.  Crazy Englanders.  Snicker.

A mobile road-block with apparently no indicators – the press Litchfield Nissan GTR (not the one that crashed).

At the end of the 458 lap, that loony orange M3 that we mentioned before did something very naughty indeed.  Here we’re approaching a Suzuki Swift, wondering why he’s pulled over only the width of a 458-and-a-fag-packet to let us by.  Well, at least, I’m wondering from the passenger seat – Nigel’s on top of things but I have no idea at this point.

We pull alongside as Nigel comments incredulously on somebody I can’t see…

and then …

vashoom …

Holy bear-tits … the lunatic orange M3 takes both of us on the wrong side.  Bloody good job the Swift saw that move coming or they’d still be peeling bits of knob-head off the track now…

and he’s away into the distance.  Coming soon to an obituary near you.

Well, that’s the 458 ride done with.  That was fun.  Back to something a bit slower now.

I’ve banged on at length about how the tatty old MX5 with its wobbly rear tyres hilariously handles like a pensioner on ice skates, but I haven’t yet posted proof.  So here’s some.

In many of these pictures the car’s going in the opposite direction to the steering wheel.  They’re only snapshots, carefully chosen for the optimum steering angle to look as cool as possible.  I wasn’t drifting like a god through these bends.  But in forty years’ time, when I’m sitting in my bath chair shouting at pigeons, these will be the photos I look at and remember that yes, I have lived.  I pursued my passions.  I did spend my youth doing what I loved.  And yes, I look at these photos now and I think, halle-fucking-lujah.  I’m doing it right now.  I really am.  This is what I want to be doing with my life and I’m actually fucking doing it.  Yes, I have to spend 80% of the year earning enough money to do be able to do it, but it’s worth it.

(Above) Whole heaps of sideways through the “shortcut” on the GP circuit.

MX5 being passed by mad racing 911 on the GP circuit.

Exiting the GDK chicane on the GP circuit.  Turning right, steering left.

Leaving the GP circuit, onto the Nordschleife.  Sideways.

Passed at Hocheichen by … what the hell is that?  A Vauxhall Signum?!?!  Where’s the delete button…

Turning right with the wheel turned left … at Hocheichen.

Blue flag means there’s someone faster coming up behind.  Yes, thanks Mr Marshal, that’s why I’m on the right and indicating right…

… being passed by Batman’s Ginetta approaching Schwedenkreuz.

MX5 hitting v-max down to the Foxhole.  Look at that speedo pointing at the floor!

Entering Adenauer Forst wagging the tail.

Drifty drifty Adenauer Forsty.

Exiting Adenauer Forst, still sideways.

Steering completely the wrong way through Kallenhard.

Sliding through the tightest corner on the track – Wehrseifen.

Elise passing the mobile chicane Club GT M5 climbing out of Ex-Muhle.

Passed by a Caterham at Kesselchen.

Passed by a 458 Italia approaching Klostertal.

The new astroturf just before Hohe Acht.  Lethal in the rain, apparently.

Taking oodles of kerb at Wipperman.

Sideways going into the Brunnchen viewing area.

Sideways coming out of the Brunnchen viewing area.

Sideways through Eiskurve having just been overtaken by an M3.

Passed by the V8 Atom … phwooarrrr …

Passed by a sexy and NOISY Gallardo Superleggera.

Elise passing a GT2 at Galgenkopf.  Hee hee!

Sliiiightly sideways through Galgenkopf.

Elise passing a Megane at Dottinger-Hohe.

MX5 hits v-max down the straight.

Hands up who’s been overtaken by a Megane whilst at v-max.  Just me?

Elise speedo reading 120mph at Antoniusbuche.  Didn’t know it went that fast!

Sideways again through the GP circuit shortcut on the (ahem) cool-down lap.  And there’s your lap of the VLN circuit complete.

And relax.

And smile.

Coming home from a Ring trip is not the most exciting of days.  Depending on your route, you might get a brief blast of derestricted Autobahn, but there tends to be Other People on it (bah) and you’re in a convoy, so you can’t exactly disappear into the distance.  Besides, Mike’s Skoda is the quickest car in our group in a straight line … and it would be embarrassing to be dropped by someone listening in air-conditioned comfort to Russell Watson who doesn’t even realise he’s in a race …

So instead let’s use this time to reflect on the glorious days we’ve enjoyed.  We’ve only really murmured about lap times so far, why is that?  We’re on a race track, surely that kind of stuff is important, isn’t it?

Well, you’re not allowed to time your laps on a track day, as it invalidates the track day organiser’s insurance.  However, you’re allowed to stick a camera in the car and find out your lap times afterwards, and that’s what we’ve been doing for the past 2 days.  So I’ll jump forward a bit and tell you what the footage is like.

It’s humbling to watch back the videos of your first few laps – those pant-jeopardising moments where the bravado was nowhere to be found.  They look so slow now, and that’s because they were so slow.  Where it seemed like I was pushing the envelope at the time, it now looks like I’m on a sighting lap.  I’m being passed by mildew.

You soon learn at the Ring not to judge your performance by what overtakes you.  I love to tell the story from a prior trip of the Vauxhall Meriva course car that steamed past me on a wet track, stopped to deal with an incident, then passed me AGAIN on its way back to the pits … you can only laugh    When you consider that the famous lap on Top Gear that Sabine did in that Transit was considerably quicker than I’m doing in the MX5 … hmmm … it brings both her skill and my own ineptitude into sharp focus …

So let’s bring the numbers out in the open.  None of us will ever be the next Walter Röhrl.  We’re all driving our own cars.  We all have a healthy imagination and have seen enough mangled wrecks to appreciate that a balls-out attack of the Nordschleife is not really in our best interests.

But that’s all excuses.  That’s what we drivers do.  We can’t help it.  We try not to do it, but then it just comes out more excusey then ever.  Right.  So here’s where we are.  Numbers on the table.  No more procrastinating.

The MX5.  Oh my god, I can hardly say it.  The MX5′s BEST recorded lap of the VLN circuit, in my hands, was a 12m58.  Holy shit, 13 minutes?  Really?  There have been faster ice ages than that.  The next lap, admittedly, was 7 seconds up by Wipperman, but the camera battery died at that point so it doesn’t count.  And it still wouldn’t have been quick.

Having analysed the lap of the proper racers that I posted before we went, I reckon you can multiply your bridge-to-gantry lap by 1.21 to get your VLN lap (i.e. 21% more in lap time).  I might revise that up or down once I’ve done the same calculation with our own laps, but nevertheless that’s a reasonable rule of thumb.  So, the MX5′s 12m58 VLN translates to 10m43 bridge-to-gantry.  Hardly stellar.

In the Elise the times were slightly better, but still not particularly ego-massaging.  I had the Roadhawk in the Elise the whole time, so I have accurate timings of every lap, so let’s see where we are … I have an 11m40 with Nigel in the car, and an 11m41 with David, with fairly light levels of traffic on both.  By my previous rule, that makes about 9m38 bridge-to-gantry.  Meh.  I guess that’s acceptable with only 120bhp, but it still doesn’t sound very quick.  It feels a LOT quicker than that at the time.

The lap where David and I were absolutely-not-racing, we were 11 seconds quicker than that by the red flag at Eiskurve, but again, that doesn’t count, because we didn’t get to finish the lap.

So, as usual, measuring your own lap times at the place where the headline times are set by the best drivers that have ever lived, is a folly.  I feel kind of flat now, despite everything.  So I’m going to pick myself up by reliving some of the little moments that made my trip special.

Bliss number 1: Hitting the rev limiter in fourth gear in the Elise.  I’d never done that before, ever.  The Elise runs out of puff completely when it hits the ton.  Fifth gear is for fuel economy only, so you never use it on track, but it was only the second or third lap on this trip where I hit the limiter in fourth after Flugplatz and had to slot it into Cruise.  And then it happened again down Döttinger-Höhe if I got a good exit from Galgenkopf.  And then when I eventually grew a proper set of bojangles, I started hitting it down the Foxhole too.  I didn’t go any faster when I changed up to fifth, so I may as well have left it in fourth, but it just feels wrong bouncing off the limiter.  I don’t have much mechanical sympathy, but even I have limits.

Bliss number 2: Finding the MX5 had a speed restictor!  First lap out I was gleefully pointing out to my passenger how the speedo was on the stop after Flugplatz.  Next lap I started palpitating as the engine discernibly coughed at the same point.  The last time I’d felt something like that, the Evo’s engine had just gone pop, but this time everything felt fine except for those moments when the speedo needle was bending against the little pin that the designers never expected it to touch.  What’s going on?  Eventually, after several identical occurrences and some chatting around the paddock, we discovered it was only a speed-limiter – you know, like those bonkers Mercs have, to stop millionaires crashing and suing … ooo I felt a proper charlie.  But having realised it, it became a new challenge to nudge it every time 

Bliss 3: The VLN circuit.  We’ve been here loads of times before, we’ve driven the Nordschleife lots and we’ve driven the GP circuit once.  The VLN circuit, which is (pretty much) both together, was, for my money, far better than either individually.  You get to do two laps of the GP circuit for each outing (see the vids), and you get to do the whole Döttinger-Höhe straight EVERY LAP.  On a normal track day at the Nordschleife, you start at the end of the long straight, so you only ever get to do the whole straight if you do two laps on the bounce.  The VLN circuit seems like the perfect layout.

Bliss 4: Everything.  It all just came together this time.  No regrets at having not had enough track time.  No mechanical failures.  No rain.  It just worked.  Carlsberg don’t do track days, and that’s probably just as well, because they’d be shite.  But if there was a god of track days, he couldn’t have done a lot better than this one.

Ah.  Happy memories.

And all that chatter has taken just long enough that we’ve now arrived at Dunkerque for the trip home.  How suspiciously convenient.

I’ve been driving the whole way with the roof off – in March – just for the hell of it.  This is what I look like after driving across Europe in March winds.  Don’t try this at home, kids.

Until the next time, happy driving. 

Petrolheadery done with, we’re off to a little jolly in Essen to let our hair down, courtesy of the good people at Haymarket publishing (Classic & Sports Car, Autocar, Autosport, Stuff etc.)

This little vignette in the car park amused me; a weeny little Issigonis Mini by an Audi Godzilla.  As you can see, I hadn’t even arrived at the free bar and I was already too drunk to realise that you don’t use a flash in front of a perpendicular reflective surface.  Doh.

And from there, the evening just varied in its degree of ugliness …

Christ knows what was happening here…

or here for that matter … I seem to have taken a sudden interest in soft furnishings and musical theatre …

Here I’ve a feeling I might’ve been distracted by Michelle in the background.  Easily done 

and this is just wrong in so many ways.

Team Moo-Moo at large.  What can you do?

No narrative to go with this one … just some down-to-earth car porn at the Essen Techno Classica …

A second day on a track is quite rare for Team Moo-Moo.  We don’t have cash to burn, we usually do one day on track and then scurry home.  At the end of yesterday it felt to me as if we were pretty comfortable with the track and the cars, but we still hadn’t put in anything properly quick.  We all knew the forecast was totally Juney for both of our March days, so I guess we all felt we had a bit of a comfort zone yesterday.

Not so today.  You just know we’re going to see crashes today while people try to stick a mega lap in before going home.

I learned from yesterday’s experience and took the MX5 out for the first half of the day, while the track was slippery.  I don’t know what I was thinking yesterday starting with the Elise, which treats a cold track much like a giraffe treats a skating rink.  The MX5 launches into such conditions like a cat on a polished floor – it looks completely out of control, but you never see a cat crashing into the wall, do you?  It knows where it’s going and secretly it’s having the time of its life getting there.

There’s a new bit of astroturf between the Karussell and Hohe Acht that we’ve been warned about, so we’re staying well clear of that as by all accounts it’s as slippery as Alastair Campbell on Butter Bath Day.  On the other hand, Schwalbenschwanz and the right-hander before it (just before the mini-Karussell) have both been resurfaced and they’re gripping stronger than a superglued barnacle.  It feels like you can take a good 20mph more into the right-hander, which brings the entry point much further forward, and makes the blind entry to Schwalbenschwanz afterwards just a little more sphinctally challenging than it was before.  Great fun 

I’m setting glacial 14-minute laps but I’m still having more fun than a warehouse of monkeys on Ecstasy.  The wobbly sidewalls on the new ditchfinders on the rear have taken some getting used to, but I think I’ve just about got the measure of them now.  As I turn in, they clamp me on the shoulders and say “BOO!” but there’s actually another degree of grip left to use – I have to push through the initial scary phase to get to the ultimate limit, but then the wobbliness sends you right back into it as soon as you curb the oversteer, so their natural cornering attitude is akin to a D-Type on cross-plies – in-out, in-out, shake it all about.  You do the hokey cokey, but somehow you don’t turn around.  That’s what it’s all about.  Hoi!

Against all the betting, it wasn’t me who crashed next.  I don’t even remember what this stoppage was for – maybe clearing up the oil dropped by a BMW whose sump puked round most of the GP circuit.  Whatever it was, we legged it over to the cafe to beat the crowds to the willywurst.  Moooooossion accomplished boys.

Back on track and Nigel is taking more and more kerb as the day went on:  Although thinking about it, that was probably Gareth driving … Gareth did like his green-laning …

and then, I’m pleased to say, I got a ride in the 458 

Oh my god, what an incredibly capable car that is!  There’s power and grip to spare everywhere.  Nigel wasn’t insured on the track day, so understandably he was well within the limits of the car, but even so it knocked everything else we’d brought into a cocked hat.  A full minute faster than the rest of us without even trying, I thoroughly enjoyed that lap 

Immediately afterwards, I took Nigel out – I’m not sure if he was disappointed or relieved that I’d retired the MX5 at that point, but he seemed happy to do a lap in the Elise so out we went.  He had a smile on his face when we came back in, with stories about “chucking it in” to corners, so I chalk that up as a success 

It’s the Elise for the rest of the day, and I know there’s plenty more time to find and not much more time to find it. I need to start concentrating, so I go out for a serious lap and … oh my god that’s Sabine Schmitz bending over in the pit lane …

The next few laps go down as being “in the zone”, which means I can’t actually tell you much about them, because … well, I don’t know, that’s just how it works.  Once your brain gets out of the way, it just happens.  Your hands flick at the right point, your right foot uses just the right amount of brake, your heel blips the throttle on the downshift.  You find the traction limit out of a corner and your hands stab on the perfect amount of corrective lock before your brain’s even noticed the car’s sliding.  It all just works.  And it’s bliss.

By the end of today, without thinking about it, I’d taken four corners flat that I’d never taken flat before.  Experienced ‘Ringers will scoff at this list, but that’s OK.  I’ll never be Walter Röhrl.  I just take pleasure from being better than I was the last time.

My Happy Flat List:

- Antoniusbuche – the left kink at the end of the ridiculously long straight at the end of the Nordschleife.  OK, technically I’ve taken that flat loads of times on public days when it’s at the start of the lap, but on those occasions I haven’t had my foot in the carpet for the previous two miles.  It’s quite scary turning the wheel without lifting when you’re at V-Max.  Go on, who else here has done that?  I hadn’t.

- Kesselchen – that first proper left kink after Bergwerk … you know, the one up the hill, after the turn-in-at-the-white-sign, left-left-left-constant-steering, then that last left.  Easy in a car as low-powered as mine, but I’d just never had the balls to do it before.  Once I’d taken it flat the first time it was easy afterwards, like the Lauda Links before Bergwerk was.

- Klostertal.  From Bergwerk, up the Kesselchen hill, past the now-flat left we’ve just discussed, kink right, kink right, kink left, BRAKE a little for the very fast Angstkurve left, then that nasty off-camber right before braking hard for Steilstrecke right and the Karussell.  Klostertal is the nasty off-camber right, and I could only take that flat because I was such a pussy through Angstkurve.  But oh man, that run-off area is sooooo small and we’re going sooooo fast and I’m sooooo squishy under the helmet …

- Don’t know what this one is called … after the Karussell, you go up the hill and take two left kinks before Hohe Acht, separated by the new astroturf.  Having watched a VX220 bin it at that first kink on a previous trip, I’d never taken it flat before, but now I have 

Feeling happy now.  I am at one with the car and the track.  I’ve gone as fast as I’m prepared to go and my Ring itch has been scratched.

Hang on, that doesn’t sound right.  Ew.  Maybe … my lust for the Ring has been satisfied.

Goddammit … I just like playing at the Ring, OK?

Aaaargh!  There must be a way to say this!  Me likey Nordschleife.  There.  That’s got to be safe.

Ah, I’m getting silly now, it must be nearly the end of the trip.

[Frank Sinatra]
And now, the end is near, and so we face the final curtain.
There is, of this I’m clear, more time to find, of that I’m certain.
We’ve stormed round like a bull
We’ve flown down each and every highway
But more, much more than this
We did it Oooouuuuur Waaaay
[/Frank Sinatra]

Time for one last lap then?  David thinks so.  “I’ll follow you,” he says with a twinkle in his eye, “I just want to see if I can keep up.”

Hmmm.  David’s a police driving instructor.  My car should be quicker than his.  I’ve got nothing to win here.  This could go very, very wrong.

So of course I go along with it.

“Oh, Jimbo … it’s NOT A RACE!” calls David as I’m helmetting up.  Hmmm.  I wonder if I can fake a puncture…

We’re barely out of the pit lane when all that fannying has been smashed as inevitably as a priceless vase in a 70s sitcom.  Greased shit off a shovel, I believe is the phrase.

Halfway round the GP circuit past all the tight fiddly bits and I’m disappointed but not entirely surprised to see a tidy MX5 in the mirrors still within striking distance.  I thought I might have had an advantage through the fiddly bits.  The Elise is good at fiddly bits.  I glance across and wonder if I can kick Chris out for some extra power-to-weight, but it’s too late for that.  Toe down, hackles up, it’s now or never.

Out onto the Nordschleife and my experience advantage has gone – I’ve driven the GP track before this trip, whereas David hasn’t, but out here the honours are roughly even.

From my earlier passenger lap with David, I could see he was much quicker than me through the ballsy bits – Flugplatz, the bottom of the Foxhole and so on.  Consequently, I knew I had some safety margin there, and I took it.  Flugplatz came and went with zero drama (proving what a pussy I’d previously been through there) and consequently V-max arrived well before Schwedenkreuz.  I definitely held my breath through that scary corner, whilst trying to recalibrate the braking zone for Aremberg, which is now bigger than the straight now that I’m going faster … eeeeeeccchhh … oof … aaand breathe out.  Slightly later turn-in than usual to Aremberg but no time lost.  Down to the Foxhole, don’t even think about lifting until just before the compression … ooooffff that’s harsh … and just a quick hard stab on the brakes before the sequence into Adenauer-Forst.  Clinical and tidy through there and finally I have a moment to look in the mirror.  David’s coping valiantly but he’s definitely creeping away … he’s about 3 seconds behind now and far enough behind that I don’t have to worry about him arse-ending me if I balls it up.

Through the mid-section of Miss-hit-miss, Breidscheid and Bergwerk, David’s clearly more decisive through the traffic than I am, and he’s making time because of it.  Up the long hill I have a slight edge and inch away, and with my new-found confidence through my new harry-flatters corners up there, I’m far enough ahead by Hohe Acht to really enjoy the technical section.  I’m fully hooked up now and using an inch more apex on every bend – it’s definitely my quickest lap in this car.  At Brunnchen I don’t even notice the spectators, I steam past the point where the Evo died a couple of years ago … everything’s going so well …

And then, Eiskurve.  It’s about two thirds of the way round the Nordschleife and it’s called Eiskurve because it’s … well, a bit like ice.  And that’s where our track action came to a premature end.

Back in the paddock, the rest of the Moo-moo guys see the red flags coming out.  Some of them had heard David’s plan, some of them started looking at each other and fidgeting.

Four cars, the briefing guy had said.  Four cars written off.  Four guys not taking their pride and joy home.  It’s the end of the event and so far we’ve had three write-offs and now this red flag.  While David and Jimbo were Not Racing on their final flyer.

The waiting was awkward.

The pause was pregnant.

The seconds turned into minutes.

And then both of us arrived back unscathed in the pit lane.  Team Moo-moo collectively breathed out.  Yes, dear readers, I was unfairly teasing you.  Our fun was curtailed at Eiskurve by a red flag, but the red flag wasn’t for us.  An orange GT3 had played involuntary pinball at that scary corner Schwedenkreuz, and ended up mangled beyond Aremberg with a hefty armco bill to contemplate on the long truck ride home.

So we’re left with mixed feelings.  We were clearly on our quickest lap ever (definitely the quickest ever seeing as we can’t prove it ) and it was red-flagged for an incident that happened several miles BEFORE us on the track.  Huh?  Couldn’t they have just let us motor in?  Bah.

Does that sound callous?  Someone totals their car and all I care about is not being able to finish my lap?  Well, yes, I guess it is.  But that’s just how it is out there.  It comes with the territory.  We all accept the risk.  People crash all the time.  You get blasé to it.  When it’s a biker, you get a sick feeling in your stomach, because that rarely has a happy ending, but when a car pinballs down the barriers, the energy’s being dissipated during the accident and the driver walks away without a scratch.  He walks away a lot poorer, but he still walks away.  I’m post-rationalising really because I’m trying to justify it, but really, that is genuinely how it is.  Nobody feels sympathy for the loss of the vehicle, as long as the people are OK.

And on that slightly anti-climactic note, our Ring tickling is done (DAMMIT!)

Nothing left to do but get our banner photo:

well, after a bit of fannying around…

aaaand one last bit of shadow-play … humour us, we’re just relieved to be still alive 

Right, that’s that.  Pizza place in town tonight I think, don’t you?

Ooo … that reminds me.  I made the classic mistake when ordering pizza.  Always remember … Peperoni in German, despite what certain online dictionaries will tell you, doesn’t mean pepperoni … it means chilli …

and if anything’s worth remembering from a spicy Ring trip, it’s that…

Oooo holy smegballs … that wouldn’t be the V8 Atom in the car park would it?  And the two press Noble M600s, as seen on that bit on Top Gear where Hammond broke the first one?  Well bugger me, so it is.  And it’s Chris Harris, the Evo & Pistonheads journalist who’s on driving duty.  Reckon this could be A Good Day.

Some more down-to-earth machinery in the paddock – Fords Capri and Anglia:

Silly but fun RX8:

Journalist David Yu’s tuned GTR with the Litchfield boys:

A couple of English Sevens, one with over 200bhp:

Ferrari 458 with Gallardo:

A little Mini porn for Nyki:

Apparently this is a GTM Gen 2 (whatever that is) and cost about €90,000:

My two shaggers.  The Elise still looks weird clean:

Mike’s Octavia got a few laps in during the first day before being usurped by a rental Scirocco for tomorrow:

Team Moo-Moo on tour:

Nigel’s 458:

Ring track action tends to follow a pretty standard pattern.  Arrive full of internal bravado with plans to smash your previous best lap.  Do sighting lap.  Wonder if you’ve brought enough clean pants to last the morning, let alone the whole trip.  Pootle around like a fanny for a bit.  Click with the track and stick in a couple of flyers, noticing every lap where you could’ve gone faster.  Get over-confident, have A Moment and calm down a bit.  Reach a happy balance, get slightly quicker every lap until man, track and roller skate achieve a sweet, harmonious nirvana.  Then they close the track.

Here, Ben and David are in the pants-counting phase:

Best way to calm tingly nerves?  Play with the cow.  Hmm, that sounds like a euphemism … but thinking about it, that would probably be just as effective…

So, sighting laps then.  How do they work?  Well, the idea is that you pootle around the track, following the pootler ahead whilst not having to worry about faster traffic overtaking.  You remind yourself where the racing lines are, notice where the marshals are posted and take a note of anything that’s changed since you were last on the track.  It’s all fairly straightforward.  Today we have an hour of sighting laps, during which time no-one is allowed to overtake.  This was explained to us last night during the briefing, but then he drops the bombshell … sighting laps are to be done at 30-40kph.

What?

We look at each other aghast.  I might have even spluttered.  Did he really say thirty to forty k’s?  He bloody did!  He wants us to do fifteen-and-a-bit miles at no more than 25mph?  That’ll take … erm … divide by x … carry the fourteen … fucking ages!

I know the rules are there for a reason.  I know you have to obey them.  But sometimes common sense has to prevail, and in a pleasing display of mild middle-class rebellion, everyone ignored the gross stupidity of 30-40kph and instead went around at a sensible speed and finished their sighting laps before their beard growth interfered with the brake pedal.  30-40k’s.  For fuck’s sake.  You can cycle faster than that at the Foxhole.

The end of the sighting lap period seemed a grey area – we were mildly concerned that we might start a hot lap and find an anally retentive driver on the far side of a blind bend obeying the rules and driving more slowly than a coach full of dialysis patients, who’d started his lap sometime back in the previous autumn.  But then, we were still in pants-jeopardy mode so we weren’t exactly tanking around ourselves.  Build up familiarity first, the speed will come later.  Keep saying it, it might come true…

Chris takes the chicane.

As does David:

Lunchtime, and I pretend to take a boring photo of Ben munching on willywurst, when I was actually trying to get Keith Flint from The Prodigy in the background.  Team Moo-Moo, mixing it with the stars.  Ar yeah.

Mike looks a bit shaky on his feet after David “shows him the lines”:

Mike and Chris wonder if their affairs are in order before venturing out again:

Ho ho, we do like our shadow play:

Noble, Anglia and racing thingy on track:

Crapping sodflaps, those are C- and D-type Jags!  They’re actually Proteus replicas, and we had a chat with the C-type guy.  He’s done 8000 miles around the Ring in it!

So there I am, happily refreshing my neural network with the best lines in the sunshine, whereupon I approach a Golf just after the Karussell who seems to be trickling along the right hand side of the track.  As I approach to pass, I see a blast of flames on the overrun that makes me chuckle … but hang on.  He wasn’t exactly tanking along, so why would there be …  Aargh!  That’s not unburnt fuel!  That’s the car ON FIRE!  Oh shitty death …

I wave my hands around to try and tell the driver to ditch it, but he’s way ahead of me.  He’s pulling onto the new astroturf and is over the barrier like a jack rabbit as I disappear over Hohe Acht.  I’m kicking myself for not stopping to help, it didn’t even occur to me until I was too far away to get back.  Silly Jimbo.  It’s not as if I can even complete my lap, the track is inevitably red-flagged so I have to tickle into the pits regretting my bad judgement.  I heard later that several people stopped and used their extinguishers on the flaming stoppers, but to no avail – the car was barbecued exactly as the Kings of Leon predicted.  (Whoooooahhhooooaah …. my brakes are on fire).

So that’s dead car one of four.  It was half an hour before the VW Charcoal made it back to the pits and we could go again.  I’d used the dead time to move the transponder over to the MX5, so I headed out in that.

Mwahaha, what a laugh that car is    At the run towards Schwedenkreuz for the first time, I gleefully shouted to Chris in the passenger seat, “IT’S ON THE STOP!”, gesturing towards the speedo that was pointing at my ever-shrinking bollocks.

The MX5 really is a shit-heap from a muggle’s point of view but feck me, it’s completely brilliant from where I’m sitting.  I thought the Elise was the perfect car, but I’m really struggling to find a winner now.  If the MX5 had the Elise’s kerb weight, if the Elise had the MX5′s gearbox … nnnng I’m just going to have to keep loving both of them and thrash the living bejaysus out of them until one of them explodes 

Mike takes the Skoda for a spin:

Ben chases down a couple of aptly-named Swifts:

Nigel chases facelifted Elise:

and gets chased himself by a ludicrously quick 3 series that paid scant attention to the overtaking rules … more on him later …

Rent4Ring’s new Artega GT, piloted by Dan Trent from Pistonheads:

And then, it happened.  It had to happen, but nobody really expected it to happen quite like this.  The facts of the drama have all been collected from paddock rumour and hearsay, so it’s all possibly bollocks, but it’s an entertaining story nonetheless.  With that in mind, we think that rallycross and X-Games driver Liam Doran was there with Litchfield in his soupy GTR.  Liam is the son of another rallycross star, Pat Doran, which confused the rumour mill somewhat, but it was definitely Liam who was screaming down the pit straight with his cousin in the passenger seat, towards the very-tight-can’t-take-at-30 hairpin alongside a VLN Corvette with VLN racing driver aboard.  According to Mr Corvette, Liam decided to outbrake him.  By rather a lot.  At the 50 board the GTR’s LED brake lights flicked on, but at that stage it was rather like trying to stop a train with a stick of butter.  The GTR’s onboard computer regressed to the factory in which it was made, as its short silicon life flashed before its electronic eyes.  The enormous gravel trap disappeared under the runaway rice rocket in a flash, the doomed GTR gracefully clearing the catch fencing at the far end and beginning its metal-crunching series of impacts that consigned it to the slowly swelling ranks of ex-GTRs…

And so the first day of track action ended.  The last hour and half was spent scooping up bits of Nissan while the packed paddock waited patiently and the rumours spread like syphilis at a swingers’ party.

The driver’s fine, by the way (thanks for asking), but it’s safe to say he’s deeply unpopular at the moment.  Many people started accusing him of being a country music lover but stopped five syllables before the end…

Pistonheads’ reports on the incident, with pictures of the mangled wreckage:

http://www.pistonheads.com/news/default.asp?storyId=25392

http://www.pistonheads.com/news/default.asp?storyId=25440

and it gets a mention in Top Gear too, in which he claims he wasn’t trying to outbrake the Corvette, in fact his brakes were cooked to the point of uselessness by the drifting he’d been doing earlier in the day (errrr…..): http://www.topgear.com/uk/photos/liam-doran-monster-energy-x-games-interview-2012-03-30

and then there’s this article, in which he claims the brakes stopped working because he hadn’t used them for so long … which is blatantly horseshit.  He’s just come off the main Nordschleife straight, where he’d had about 2 miles of flat-out straight, enough to get him touching 200mph, then braking hard from there for the wiggles that lead on to the GP circuit.  He says he’d just finished a 7 minute lap of the Nordschleife (on his fifth ever lap, so that’s clearly guff of the highest order anyway), so the brakes must’ve been fine for the rest of the lap.  He says he has footage of him braking early and pumping the brakes, but he’s choosing not to share it – it just doesn’t add up:  http://skiddmark.com/2012/03/the-real-story-behind-liam-dorans-gt-r-crash-at-the-nurburgring/

On the other hand, this is genuinely him beating MARCUS GRONHOLM – one of the best rally drivers of all time – on a rally stage.  So he’s obviously pretty damn handy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fszz7zHzm2Y&feature=related

But he still cost every single one of us 75 quid of track time, and I’m not seeing any sign of him apologising to anyone, so he’s still a country music lover in my eyes.

Anyway, that’s by the by.

Dead car tally: Two.  Bloody lucky drivers: Two.

On a rather more fragrant note, Pistenklause was packed to the rafters as usual, and the slab of cow on a stone was as delicious as ever:  Happy days.

You know it’s early when you’ve already travelled halfway across the country and the sun still hasn’t come up…

That’s the Elise, spookily and unusually clean for one of my cars, and that’s Chris in the clanky old MX5 that he’s driving over for me.  I had hoped to be in the NSX, but the exhaust has rotted and couldn’t be fixed in time.  Bah humbug.

It’s still ridiculously early, so say hello to a rather bleary looking Mike:

Ben:

And Chris:

The screen behind Mike helpfully tells us that there are THREE loads of roadworks between our cups of coffee and Dover – but it was lying like a Tory in tight trousers.  Not that I’m politically aligned in any way – other liars are available.

Arriving at the ever-reliable DFDS crossing and sorting out the headlight doohickeys:

whereupon all of a sudden, the hills were alive with the sound of David arriving:

David’s car, laden down with the brand new Team Moo-Moo clobber, is another MX5, but whereas mine is scabby and slow, David’s is honed and fast.  And now considerably lighter now it isn’t stuffed with Moo-Moo shirts, coats and beanies.

The chap on the boat decides where to put us based on the sexiness of the car … therefore Ben and I are naturally at the front … at least that’s my theory …

Bye bye England

And immediately the humour of a bunch of lads begins as we enjoy a Cocksta coffee in the shadows:

Arrival at Dunkirk … such a picturesque part of the world, provided you ignore everything you can see, hear and smell.

Amusing Phlegmish place names, tee hee!

First fuel stop at the typically enigmatic Belgian petrol station:

David prods buttons in vain, looking for the one labelled, “just give me some PIGGING PETROL!”

Ben tries the equally unproductive method of sticking the nozzle in and waiting for something to happen.

Nope.  Try poking buttons.

OK, so surely after eventually getting petrol we now know how the silly things work?  No, we are none the wiser.  The successful technique seems to be to faff around looking lost for a while and eventually some petrol comes out.  I love Belgium.

Cruising down the euro-motor-route behind David, very nearly legally:

Nice stretch of autobahn 

Scenic road on the way into Adenau:

Jimbo’s car, from Jimbo’s other car:

Entering the Exhaust Appreciation Tunnel on the way to Adenau:

And finally, nearly 12 hours after the alarm went off about a week ago, we arrive at the Hotel an der Norschleife with the wonderfully welcoming Eddy Mathey and family:

This shot is from the Roadhawk – as you can see, the images it records are pretty crappy quality, but it does have the advantage of recording automatically whenever the ignition is on, so if anything interesting happens unexpectedly, you have it saved on the SD card.  The tech isn’t quite there yet, maybe the next iteration will be The One.  It’s all perfectly achievable for, say, £200, I’m not sure why it doesn’t exist yet.

Settled in, we can sign in for tomorrow’s track day to save time in the morning, so we’re off to a dark Nurburgring GP circuit paddock with the hordes to sign in.

“Hands up who’s planning to write their car off?” says the briefing guy.  Ho ho, what a jolly question.  “Statistically four of you will, over the next two days.”  An eerie hush descends.

He was right, too.  Four cars would go to the great crapheap in the sky before the track action was done.  Tune in tomorrow to find out which ones.

I love having the day off before a road trip.  And I need all of it, because I ALWAYS forget something.  Once I forgot my trousers.  Genuinely.

My plan of action, which cannot possibly fail, is to keep the laptop open all day and, whenever I think of something I need to take, make a note of it on the laptop.  At the end of the day, all I need to do is collect all that stuff.  Then I keep the list for my next trip and use that as a starting point.  Genius.  How can it fail.

Well it doesn’t work too well when your last trip was to Anglesey, where you don’t usually need a passport.  Hang on a minute.

Right, that’s packed the passport.  Wonder what else I’ve forgotten.

The other loophole I’ve had to plug in an otherwise (clearly) flawless plan is when all my crap doesn’t fit in one bag.  I have, in the past, meticulously packed everything on the list and then confidently gone away with only two out of the three packed bags.  So I had to do Snetterton in a suit.  I was the most poshly dressed dickhead there that day, I can tell you.

But today, I’ve had the whole day to get it right.  And it was the Oz F1, so I was up at sparrow-fart leaving me oodles of time in which to prepare.  Granted, I’ve gone to bed twice since then, but let’s not split hairs.  All the bags are packed.  The only thing left on the list is “laptop”, which I can’t really do anything about just yet, for obvious reasons.  I can’t type this drivel from inside the bag.

Now I have a new problem.  To avoid repeating Snettertongate, I have to write down the list of bags as well.  And I have to pack them in the car before I turn the laptop off, otherwise the process doesn’t work.

I already know what’s going to happen.  I’ll be loading the bags into the car.  Chris will turn up early to drive Car Two and I’ll get distracted, load the bags into the car (which is like a game of Tetris in an Elise) and forget to take the laptop.  But I have a cunning plan.  I have another laptop.  It’s crap and it won’t be fit for dicking about with helmet-cam video (which is what I need it for), but I’m going to put that one on the list and pack it.  Then it won’t matter if I forget this one.  Which I then won’t do, because it isn’t important any more.  Ha!

These are the lengths I have to go to in order to work around my own incompetence.  They’ll probably drive me into a padded cell at customs.

Of course, I should probably be typing this nonsense and the luggage lists on the crappy lappy and packing the mean machine … but if I swap over now I’ll get confused and will end up blogging on a loofah or something.

Christ knows how I’m going to get around the VLN circuit without dying.  Wish me luck.

Here’s a lap of the VLN circuit, so you can tell later exactly where I caught fire:

(Bugger … forgot to pack the fire extinguisher…)

Nipped into the Rush set at Blackbushe again this morning.  Not much happening except for a few bored wet security guards milling around.  Got chatting to one of them who kindly let us into the grandstand for a photo op 

Well it’s been three long years since I drove the hallowed Nordschleife tarmac. The last time was in my old JDM Scooby STI RA (now sadly departed).

This year it’s all about control and cornering over power and my JDM MX5 (Eunos) is nearly ready.

Bought as a replacement for the Scooby and now with three track days and two drift days under its belt the MX5 is in its final stages of preparation.

So far, new wheels and tyres (2nd set), new Gaz Gold coilovers, stainless de-cat exhaust system, hardtop, cam belt service, brake discs and race pads and a complete 4 wheel alignment have changed the MX5 from a weekend run about owned by a middle aged couple into a decent track day tool.

The Team Moo Moo clothing arrives tomorrow evening and I’ve got to work out how to fit all my stuff and the TMM clothing into the car and leave enough room for a mate of mine who I’m dropping off in Kent!

This year we are blessed with two days on track (GP and Nordschleife) without the public, organ donors or coaches……. and of course the queuing at the gate…. for what seems like hours.

All that we need now is a dry two days (no snow please) and for the Ferrari drivers to stay out of the way!

All this plus a fantastic classic car show at Essen on Thursday.

Looking forward to a fabulous week with great people on the best track in the World.

David.