Last minute Nurburgring trip report

[Prawn]

I'm at the ring again! Haha

Got a call last night from a mate asking if I fancied a trip to the ring, leaving at 2am! Passengering in his mondeo.

Why the hell not ey?

A quick phone call later and robbob was also onboard, and we decided to take the mighty Leon Cupra instead

Got the train across the tunnel at 2am, and we're now sat in the Burgstube having breakfast

Will be odd not having the a3 out here, but there's a VLN Race on today, which should be awesome!

Can't wait to be back in September with you guys in my own car

Trip report to follow soon!

 

[voorhees]

Nick...I hate you

 

[MUSH]

****** hell Nick! You dont hang around!

Wish i could drop stuff nd ****** off for a ring trip! Lol

 

[16Klappe]

I was gutted when I phoned you last night,

"Eh Prawns, how you doing?!"

"Sorry mate, off to Germany. Bye..."

"Veel Gluck!!!!"

lolz!

 

[Prawn]

Got to Burgstube in time for breakfast!

Big thanks to my amazing Girlfriend for convincing me to come on such a stupid trip with 3 hours notice!

Thanks to Andy the nutter for booking a crossing with nobody to go with him

And thanks to Bob for offering to drive in the Leon

 

[L1 HCS]

Fantastic! Lucky so and so!

 

[mikeyg]

I like it, how many other people would actually go at such short notice! Not many i bet!

 

[S3 Rav]

What's the spec of the Leon bud?

 

[Westy]

I'm so jealous nick. If I'd been called by a mate asking to go, I don't think I could say no either. Have a great weekend and take care.

 

[16Klappe]

What's the spec of the Leon bud?

Pre facelift with rear arb, lows and some poly bushes. No map because the owner is a girl.

 

[Sam_]

This is very random. Not Andy P is it? A mate of mine from back home!! Small world. You ride trials?

 

[Prawn]

Yea! It IS Andy P!!!

What a small world!

I do indeed ride trials you?

 

[Sam_]

Nah I was never really that good. I did some downhill/dual slalom events but nothing massive. Andy is skilled though, impressive to watch. I quite often used to tag along and watch.

Andy and I used to work together and stayed in contact. He is building a crazy S40 at the moment, as I'm sure you know

 

[16Klappe]

Andy and I used to work together and stayed in contact. He is building a crazy S40 at the moment, as I'm sure you know

The only way to describe anything on that build as "crazy" is the amount of time its taken him to make any progress!

 

[Sam_]

Yeh true - he is taking his time...

 

[Prawn]

Sorry if some of the pics end up being reposts, I'm doing a big trip report, so this is copied

So, I didn't expect to be writing another one of these until September, but as it happens, I was made an offer on Friday that I couldn't resist, so for the second time this month, I found myself packing my bags on Friday night, preparing to head to the Ring!


Sorry about the large chunk of text, but here goes. :veryhappy:




It all started late Friday afternoon, I was sat at my desk, trying to bring an LED flashing amber beacon back to life using electrical tape, and a string of half head batteries linked up with paper clips:

I got a call from my mate Andy, asking me if I was free that weekend, and if I wanted to go to the ring with him in his Mondeo CDTI company car, with a view to hiring a swift.

No was the answer, quite simply, it was a stupid idea.

He had booked a tunnel crossing for 2am that night, had no passenger to go with him, hadn't got anywhere to stay, and didn't know if there were any rentals available, or if the track was even open for TF over the weekend.

I had ****** all money, and I've only just been 3 weeks ago. so I put it to the back of my mind, politely declined, and carried on with my work.

Which as it happens, is looking more and more like finished job these days:

I had a chat with RobBob later on that afternoon whilst we were both sat in Friday evening traffic, and we spoke about Andys crazy idea, and how we must do something similarly impulsive one day, but not until we had a bit more spare cash.

Fast forward 2 hours and I'm sat in a restaurant with Tori (my lovely girlfriend) eating a meal, having a chat about the previous week. She asked me what my plans for the weekend were. I didn't have any, but jokingly told her about Andys offer of a quick dash to the Ring.

To my amazement, she seemed confused that I hadn't jumped at the idea, and suggested that I go!

I don't need to be told twice so I rang Andy back, who was thinking of cancelling due to not having a passenger.

The trip was on!

I called Rob and told him not to bother popping over to mine Saturday morning, as wasnt going to be there. He sounded gutted.

Best start packing I guess

10 minutes later, and the phone rings. Robs decided he wants to come, but he wants to bring his own car and drive. A quick call to Andy, and we got the tunnel booking changed over to Robs Leon, and then there were 3 of us.

I packed my bags, and at 23:30, Rob and Andy arrived in the Leon, and off we went, loaded with tents, sleeping bags, and all the camping gear we could need.

0130 and we arrived at the Eurotunnel terminal:

and onto the train:

Once parked up, we sat for a minute, and started to realise just how random this trip was!

 

[Prawn]

30 minutes later, and we found ourselves in France, Satnav set for Nurburg, and we were off!

Driving through the night was great, not many cars on the road, so we kept up a decent average speed, without having to thrash it and use too much fuel.

We also got to see the sunrise as we headed East towards the Ring, which was strangely cool:

We seemed to be leap frogging a group of bikers for the first 2-3 hours, seeing them at almost every stop:

You know you're getting close when you start to see the Ausfahrt signs!

Even closer now:

After driving through the night, we arrived in Nurburg at 9am. Having got up for work on Friday morning at 6am, we had now been awake 26 hours, and were feeling a bit shattered. Time for breakfast.

Remembering the Burgstube breakfast hours, we thought we'd try our luck and headed up the hill to see if we could grab some breakfast.

We were greeted by Heidi, who was more than happy for us to sit down and have some breakfast, and a much needed cup (or 3) of coffee!

We had planned to Camp, although to be honest, we didn't want to, it was a financial decision.

When Heidi offered us a good deal on a spare room, we couldn't resist! So all our camping gear was offloaded and stored at the Burgstube, and we got a decent sized room to grab a quick shower and get ready for the day ahead.

As luck would have it, unknown to us previously, the 4th round of the VLN was on, so on advice from Martin, we took a walk down to Hatzenbach to watch the cars come through, it was awesome!

Poor porsche clipped an E36 and span, ending up parked in the armco

We then had a quick walk around the Bulovard, which was as always, totally empty, and not worth a pic.

Gorgeous 2002 Turbo on the roadside near the M test centre:

Headed up the Hill to the Burgstube, to find some serious Horsepower on display in the carpark:

Down to Lidl to grab snacks and things for Sunday, seeing as most shops are shut.

I love how just about EVERYTHING over here is modified. I particularly liked this beetle on Porsche twists:

On the way back we popped into Rent-4-Ring, and were lucky enough to find they had just one stage 2 swift left for rental on Sunday, so we signed up the paperwork to have it for Sunday morning, on a 6 laps all inclusive deal. Ralph, Fredy, and Dale were as friendly and helpful as ever, which certainly helps when choosing where to go for a rental.

So, by now it was 6pm, and we had been up for 35 hours without sleep. We got back to the bar, and after a beer, it started to show how tired we were!

A few more beers, and an early meal and we called it a day at 8pm, 37 hours awake, certainly more than I've done for a while!

11 hours sleep before taking the Swift out was definitely needed

 

[Prawn]

OK, so, afte 11 hours of sleep, we started to feel human again. Up at 0700, a quick breakfast, then down to rent 4 ring at 8 to pick up the car.

Being that Bob and I (mainly me!) are 'of larger build' Freddy decided to give us the older red car, with the slightly more roomy OMP seats. I'm not sure which model they were, but they fitted me perfectly. Might have to look out for a set.

Fredy showed us around the car, and we handed over our money to Ralph, and off we went!

I had the first lap out. Due to the randomness of the trip we were on a VERY tight budget, so were only able to book the car for 6 laps, 2 each.

First lap out, and I thought the car was brilliant. Not powerful in the straights, but wonderfully balanced, and gave great feedback. A really nice little drivers car! It was great fun to be in something where you can be almost flat out just about everywhere

We were also surprised at quite how cool it sounded. Through the tunnel heading towards Eds it made a wicked sound :shout:

After my first lap Rob jumped in, to take Andy round:

Rob seemed to think much the same as me - great little car

I then jumped in the pax seat with Andy, for his first ever lap.

I'm by no means experienced, with around 45 driven laps, and maybe 20 pax, but I do at least know which way it goes left and right, so Andy wanted some sort of direction, and an early warning for the tricky bits!

Interesting first lap, certainly much quicker than my first few laps that's for sure! Andy can drive pretty well having had a string of high powered cars of all different shapes and sizes, and said that the directions and gear suggestions were helpful.

We were flying past all the other rentals though, and had a fairly quiet track which was great for a first lap.

I did my second lap after that, and felt much more confident in the swift having had a lap to get to know it, although still very cautious about pushing it too hard being a hire car!

Having had a chat with Fredy last year about the swift, and him saying he could take it round I 08:45 BTG, I couldn't resist setting Harrys lap timer going in my pocket before we left the carpark, and was pleasantly surprised to see it record 09:23 on my second and final lap. Nowhere near Fredy I know, but for a second lap in the car, and fairly few laps in total behind me, I was pleased. I had had GREAT fun.

After that Rob took me round for a lap, and had a really enjoyable lap again. With all 3 of us driving the same car, it was great to chat and compare techniques and lines to see what worked best.

Last up in the swift was Andy for his second and final lap. Being a left hooker it was a bit different for us, and sadlY Andy managed to change from 5th to second on the way into hohenrain chicane. The poor little thing bounced to 8138rpm. Ouch.

Apart from that though it was a really good clean lap, only overtaken at T13 by a focus RS and an 8P S3. Perhaps a bit more surprising was the pace, watching the video clip back later on showed it to be 09:23 BTG. Pretty impressive for a second ever lap.

With all our laps finished, we headed back up to Rent 4 Ring to drop the car off, where we bumped into Solo again.

After Andy had paid for his RPM fail (Thanks to Ralph for knocking some money off!) Mike offered to take us for a lap in the amazing, Jewish Racing Gold Toledo V5. What a great fun lap that was! 4 up in the toledo, and it just cruises around effortlessly, thanks Mike :veryhappy:

Right, bored of typing for tonight, need to get some rest!

Will do the final installment tomorrow

 

[Prawn]

Ah, shame we missed you Terence! I would have looked out for you, but had no idea what you look like!

So, I've got 30 mins whilst I wait for my lasagne in the oven, so I might as well finish this off.

With Mikes awesome Toledo Tour completed we headed back down to the carpark for a look around, with a view to doing a few laps in the Leon of Love.

As we were parked in the carpark, a red S1 Elise came in and parked up next to Rob, it was sounding rough, clearly not right at all.

The bloke got out, and started walking around the carpark, clearly looking for something.

Rob overheard him asking a few people with audi Turbos about coil packs, and cheekily asked what was wrong.

As it turns out, this rather innocent looking S1 elise had a 225bhp 1.8T BAM engine in it, from an LCR.

As luck would have it, Rob had a spare 1.8T coilpack in the boot of the Leon, the chap (James) could hardly believe his luck!

30 Euros were handed over, Rob explained to James how to diagnose which coilpack was at fault, and the new coilpack was slotted in.

Success, James turned the key and the car ran perfectly straight away.



As a thanks, James then took Rob out for a passenger lap, which Rob tells us was pretty awesome.

After Robs lap, we decided to take the Leon of love out for a cheeky lap.

After the Swift, the Leon certainly felt a bit different, 3 up with Andy in the back, we had a great fun lap, taking it fairly easy.

The Leon was going well, a bit understeery on normal road tyres, but otherwise running very nicely.

Out of AF, and heading down to Metzgesfeld, a GT2 appeared fairly rapidly in the mirrors, Rob moved over straight away (as you do!) and backed off, but as the GT2 came past, he cut RIGHT in front of us, so stupidly close we jsut couldn't believe it, and to make matters worse, he hammered the brakes on in front of us got MG1!

Scary stuff.....

At 91mph, that is TOO close.

So, with that scare over (and a small scare for Andy and I when Rob insists on playing with lift off oversteer) we decided to head for lunch.

3 Devils Diner Burgers sorted that out a treat No pics I'm afraid, we were too hungry!

After lunch we headed over to Brunchen for a bit to watch the TF for a while, something we rarely get time to do, as we spend most of the time lapping.

Didn't bother taking pics of TF, because lets face it, you all know what it looks like!

I did find myself rather drawn to this mk2 leon though:

Seriously considering one as my next daily. I know I should man up, but I have a thing for high powered FWD cars that I can't seem to shake. I even sold my M3 for a turbo'd A3!

So, after 20 mins watching Brunchen, we got bored, and decided to take a walk, first to Eschbach:

Then round to Hohe Act (Have I got that right?)

And then on down to the Karussell:

Sadly, after about 20 mins sat there watching, there was an accident somewhere, and the track was closed.

Being typically british, we decided to do the typical lads thing, and get a few pics of us on the track

We got some other British guys there to take this pic:

Then, JUST as they took the pic, we heard a car comming up the Hill from Bergwerk, so we legged it!

Decided at that point to head back towards Brunchen, and back to the Burgstube

Gorgeous views of the track on the way back:

Lasagne is now ready, more after dinner!

 

[voorhees]

Good stuff Nick

 

[Prawn]

A few more nice motors when we got back to the carpark:

Back at the Burgstube, we met Steve, a regular visitor (I'm sure you guys know him), and driver of a black 306 Rallye, which this weekend, had red wheels (although sometimes green).

Steve very kindly offered to take all 3 of us out for a pax lap each, which was great fun.

Steves car was very nicely prepared too, standard engine wise, but everything else was seriously nicely done, out on the track it felt so planted and composed, and with me on board, Steve drove a very smooth, yet really very quick lap.

Having done 300 laps or so, Steve had about 6x as much experience as me, and it really showed, I've learnt from my pax laps over the weekend that I'm not using enough of the track on many places, and most surprising to me, was how much all 3 guys I went out with used the kerbs, the main ones being Hatzenbach, the left hander after Foxhole, and Eiskurve. I already use the Kerbs in Wipperman after watching Dales first lap vid a while back, but these others were new to me.

After my lap, Steve took Andy and Rob round for a lap each too, and both the guys echo'd just what I'd said, very smooth, yet very quick. One of my favourite laps ever, thanks Steve.

Sadly, being useless, none of us got a pic of Steve or his car, so you'll just have to imagine a friendly Scottish bloke, with a black 306 on lairy red wheels.

EDIT: As I'm typing this ANdy just sent over a pic of Steves car:

With the pax laps done, Andy jumped into the car with Steve, and Rob and I jumped into the Leon, and headed out of the carpark.

Going round the roundabout, we noticed the time, 17:30. It seemed a bit too early for Beer O'clock, and this is where we made a terrible mistake.

''Bit early for a beer isn't it Bob, what shall we do?''

''Fancy another lap?''

''Yea, why not, just the one more''

Never again. Mistake!

We donned the helmets for one last time, I bought a ticket, and we headed to the barrier in the Leon, Bob driving of course.

There was hardly any traffic around at all as the day drew on, so we knew we were in for a nice clear, enjoyable lap.

Through the barrier, and we were off. The car felt good in the early evening cool air.

Through Hohenrain chicane with good pace, around T13 and down the hill, it felt like it was going to be a good lap.

Approaching Hatzenback 1, and Bob was in 4th, doing around 100mph. He put his hand onto the gear lever, at pretty much the same point I'd go to change.

4th to 3rd I thought, and onto the brakes for the left right Kink.

Oh no. Not for Rob. We still can't work out what exactly happened, or why, but for some terrible reason, Rob changed from 4th to 5th, and put his foot down again!"

AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!

By the time I realised and yelled ''BRAKE!'' it was too late.

Rob had realised his mistake, and it was far too late to do anything about it :S

Rather than risk a big spin trying to make the left at full speed, Rob decided to bin the car across the kerbs,

Up over the right hand kerbs we went, braking all the time, across the infield area, then back onto the track, sadly perpendicular to the racing line, and still at some speed. We scrubbed off a LOT of speed across the width of the track, and thanks to ABS, Rob managed to get the car to turn back towards the correct direction, but sadly it wasn't enough.

The front end just about gripped and turned, but by this time it was too late, the rear of the car had reached the far kerb, and as soon as it hit the grass we were passengers again, the back end came round, and smacked the barrier. Looking back through vids I don't think this is armco, it's something big, red, and white.

Any ideas anyone?

The car hit the red/white stuff with some serious force, and bounced back in towards the track, still rolling at this point, all be it very slowly, I looked behind us, to see ho debris on the verge, and no damage to the barrier/tyres/random red and white stuff (it's all a blurr)

More amazingly, the car looked OK too, from my position I couldn't see any damage at all, and everything still seemed to work, so we carried on very slowly, feeling a little ashamed, and SERIOSULY regretting that 'one last' lap.

Back in the carpark, we honestly couldn't believe our luck:

It had been some force when the impact came, but somehow the car had taken it VERY well. The wheel was pretty badly damaged, and appeared to have taken most of the impact.

Amazingly though, the bodywork damage was very minimal, just needing a new bumper where it has been ripped open. How he got this lucky is quite beyond me, but still, we were thankful it wasn't worse. Just another reminder how savage this place can be. Just as you start to think you know it, the worst happens.....

 

[Ryan_W]

Done that in a v6 Vectra, backwards into the armco at around 80mph, scraped along it for about 20m, back onto the track facing the wrong way... Ended up with a smashed OS rear light, that was all!!!!

Just to add, I wasn't driving

 

[Prawn]

To make matters a little more funny, Whilst Rob and I were having a very quiet, very slow lap of shame, I got a phone call from Andy, saying he had been jumped on by an Angry Scotts man asking who owned the black Leon.
Apparently Rob had cut him up a tad at Karussell, dropping in below a bike who looked like he was going round the outside, but was infact just dropping in very late.

Either way, whoever was at fault, the bloke sounded pretty angry!

Andy explained that it wasn't his, but infact his mate, who would be there soon. He then called to Warn us.

Rob started to worry a bit more. A very tense lap for him then!

We walked into the Burgstube to be greeted by a really rather big ******* Scottsman, who seemed really quite angry. A few angry words directed at Rob, and a few expletives, and Rob confessed to not remembering the incident at all

''Look, mate, I'm REALLY sorry if I cut you up, I honestly didn't mean to. I've just crashed my car, and I'm not in the best of moods. Can I buy you a beer and call it quits''

''Aye, that'll be a start lad''

So, Rob bought the chap a beer, and hoped for the best!

As it turns out, the bloke wasn't angry at all, he was just trying to **** Rob up for a laugh.

It worked! Had me going for a bit too!

We ended up chatting to the guy, he was there with his mate Stuart, and the pair of them had bought their kids too.

Stuart on the left, then his son (sorry didn't get your name) Then Kirsty (daughter of Mac), then Mac (the big angry Scotts *******)

Mac bet andy a beer that he couldn't down a glass of Heidis sauce, being a pompey lad, Andy wasn't about to lose a challenge:

I don't think he enjoyed his beer though, after half a pint of thick white sauce :S

A couple of pints went past, and a few drunken stories exchanged:

It turns out, Mac and Stuart live in Camberly, just 15 minutes away from me, and even better news, Mac had a spare 16'' leon Cupra alloy wheel, just like the one Rob had just ruined, and the best bit was, it was FOC!

After abour an hour sat there, Mac got up to go and find the bathroom.

I have to say, none of us were expecting him to be sat there in the worlds tightest cycline shorts!

His poor 15yr old daughter looked thoroughly distraught at her Dad dancing in the bar in some skin tight shorts!


As always seems to be the way, we ended up heading to bed at Stupid O'clock, after sitting at the Bar chatting to Martin again, I'm sure he must get very bored talking about the same stuff to new visitors all the time, but still, it's this friendly approach that makes the place so appealing. Massive thanks to Martin for all the advice over the weekend

After about 3 hours sleep, we got up at 5am, and packed our bags, it was looking like a beautiful day in Nurburg:

The infinitely solid Leon of Love was looking a little sorry for itself, but ready for the trip ahead none the less:

We hit the road around 6am, thankfully, Rob was looking really rather with it:

Andy and I, were not so:

A bit different to how we all looked when we started out 3 days ago!

Whizzing through the german countryside

A quick stop for refreshments, somewhere in belgium I think. I bought the most horrid sandwich ever so soggy!

Not far to go now:

Listening to StuBru radio most of the way home, some of it actually isn't that bad!

Here we are, pulling into the train/tunnel terminal:

The trains are looking pretty grotty these days:

parked up behind a nice TT on the train, not far from England now!

I decided to try and get some shut eye on the train. For some reason in my tired state, it seemed like a good idea to Don my helmet and glasses to air sleep:

I soon realised how much of a tit I looked, and gave up on the sleep idea.

Back in the UK! and the weather already looked more miserable:

Andy was being really vocal, clearly he was excited to be back on home soil:

100 miles completed off the ferry port, and thing were going well. We were only 20 miles from my house, and aside from Robs Talent fail, the trip had been a huge success!

As we passed Fleet services, Rob pulled out to overtake a lorry, and put his foot down.


BBBBBRRRBRBRBRBRBRBRRRRRRRRRRRRRR..................

The Leon started sounding like a ****** Subaru!

We were greeted by this:

The dreaded engine management light.

Would you believe it, it had only gone and blown a coil pack! After all our joking around about giving the spare away to James in the Elise, I guess it's only Sodds law that we blew one at some point. Thank god it was only 20 miles from home though!

We unplugged the injector on the dead cylinder, so as not to cause bore wash and kill the cat, and carried out, very slowly, back to Basingstoke.

We tried the Audi dealer, and the VW dealer, but none had a parts counter open on the bank holiday.

So we headed over to City Seat, to try our luck over there:

No joy, plenty of people, but none that could function in enough of a human way to get a coilpack from the store room, so we limped back to mine, where Rob borrowed a coilpack off my car to get him home, and dropped it back later that night.

From one ring road to another (I'm SO lucky!)

Not quite the same I know, but our Ring Road has roundabouts. you dont get them on the Nurburgring!

And that people, concludes my trip report!

Massive thanks to everyone involved in making our trip great, Thanks to Andy for the mental idea, to Rob for driving, Thanks to Martin and Heidi, for putting us up at such short notice, Mike for all the entertainment and a friendly face, and all the boys at Rent-4-Ring for being as cool as ever.

also a big thanks to Tori my girlfriend, for letting me go to the Ring twice in a month and not being the slightest bit annoyed about it!

See you all again in September folks

 

[S3 AUO]

At least the coil pack went close to home!
Love spur of the moment trips - always the best ones

 

[Westy]

Wicked report mate sounds very eventful. I can't wait till September.