Prawn, BigAl, and Frenchmans July Ring Trip Report

[voorhees]

call me stoopid but i never realised they make you pay for the barriers you bash up when you crash! jesus, harsh isnt the word!
i tend to drive on the reckless side on the trackdays ive done in the past.
at mallory park they didnt charge to recovery me out of the gravel trap i ended up backwards in in a mk1 elise.... then charge me to re-hoe the gravel trap.
is it just a "ring" thing?

Stoopid lol
The ring is renowned for being the circuit/road to drive but comes with the added bit of paying for armco/loss of business/ambulance which is why and when I see a ring sticker on a car I admire them.

 

[Prawn]

The thing is, if you crash on a UK road, you also have to pay for the barrier, but your insurance covers it, and you never hear about it.

It's the same as the Ring, but UK insurance just isn't worth bothering with, so you take it on the chin and move on

 

[Maz]

Glad you guys are ok, I've watched the vid half a dozen times and I'm convinced there must have been some divine intervention to save your bacon there.

That's one hell of a ring trip and a great write up Nick, can't believe how well the car looks after that impact and the fact that you managed to drive it home is a story in itself.

Good luck getting the car back together again!

 

[Dane]

As said on fb dude, glad you're ok!

if you need any help I'm there! I won't be much use, but I make a mean cup of tea

 

[Paradox1]

Prawn, just saw the vid, so glad your ok. end of the day a car can be replaced. this could have been so much worse

Im sure im not the only one to say this but if you need any help with anything you know where I am

 

[badger5]

when I 1st head about it before you posted here, and the speed you went off at, I thought of just this exact place where you had the woops..

It looked pretty scarey from the in car.. and the commentary "oh oh, big crash" was incite-full. eak!

that rise/hump really unsettles the car...

Glad you are all ok, and that you recovered the car and already back getting it back going again.. nice one. keep at it prawny.

 

[Welly]

keep at it prawny.

Completely agree, it's one thing falling off the horse, but it's completely another to get back on and learn from your mistake.

Looks like a good trip other than that bud, and glad you're OK. :thumbsup:

 

[Cobra88]

Blimey Prawny

You lucky lucky boy
Thats a scarly prang as your just a passenger after the tyre touched the grass

Glad you are ok mate and the car will be fine

Regards
Rick

 

[Dan-Jnr]

Ouch that could have been a lot worse. At least your both in one piece.
The 'ring can be such a unpredictable place. Seen a fair few crashes, I have even had an off but luckily I didnt touch any barriers just span round 180 degrees.
I have crashed in to a barrier at Oulton Park (wet grass, dry tarmac, two wheels just clipped the grass and unsettled the car) before so know how you feel, I haven't done a track day since but I will one day.

Extremely nice of the American to help with your bill.

Hopefully you'll be able to sort your car out.

 

[Prawn]

Completely agree, it's one thing falling off the horse, but it's completely another to get back on and learn from your mistake.

My thoughts exactly Wellyboots!

And on that note, the adventure continues!

On saturday I went to see a mate who was breaking an a3, and picked up a rear beam and a pass side door from him, I then fitted the door on Sunday to get the car water tight again, as the bashed door was leaking like a seive in the UK rainy season

I whipped the coilover out to check it over, and it SEEMED to be OK:

It wasn't:



After a quick phone call yesterday morning, the car was booked into Gareth (UB) for an assessment this morning.

Gareth said he better not be in the pic, so I've carefully removed him using my epic photoshop skills:

To our amazement, we dropped the bent beam off, and offered the new one up, and EVERYTHING lined up perfectly, all the holes were perfect with no levering or manipulation, no visable signs of stress or movement under the car at all, just that strange small lift on the seat squab where the metal is thin.

Very odd indeed!

We bolted the new beam up, swapped over the brakes and bled them through, and I went off for a test drive.

SORTED! It drives straight and true again, and the rear wheel geo seems to be bang on. Words honestly can't describe how lucky I feel!

Here is the battered wreck, which now drives just fine despite the still dead front subframe, wishbone, knuckle, and coilover!

Hugely happy all in all, and a massive thanks to Gareth for fitting me in at such short notice!

Also met Oakie down there too, which was cool, had a good chat for a few hours whilst Gareth worked his magic. Very nice to meet you Nick, and Gareth!

Absolutely top day for me today, feeling really positive again.

Can't wait to get back on track!

 

[badger5]

so the rear floor is slightly bent up but the beam fits and tracks perfectly?

 

[Prawn]

Yea, very strange isn't it Bill? It's the thin section of the floor above the chassis box thats moved a tiny bit, but it's almost as ifthechassis has flexed in, then returned to its original position. All 8 holes for the brackets lined up with no manipulation, and everything sits perfectly with the rear wheel geo bang on.

Strange or what?

 

[<tuffty/>]

I would still be getting it jigged tbh to make sure...

<tuffty/>

 

[jamieA3]

good read, a shame about the car. cheers for putting this up though. your a braver man than i am lol

 

[Jay A3]

All i can say Prawn is Wow! Epic ring trip and crash. Good to hear your all well and that the car is up and running straight again! If you need anything for the A3 let me know and i will try to help. Look forward to seeing the car back on track again! :icon_thumright:

 

[Prawn]

PT: It's a REALLY strange one mate, you'd have to look under it to see, but we measured the distance mount to mount against a straight leon shell, and it's perfect, the beam height is perfect, checked for straightness against the shell with a digital level, it's all spot on somehow :S

I'm going to fit all the front end gear before touching the body work, and have the alignment done which should show up any serious errors.

Just had a PM from Ben which should get things moving very nicely indeed! Thanks hugely for your offer Ben, I'll PM you right now!

Feeling good about getting it back on track in the next month, just following up a lead on a nice seat as well.

Picked up a TT convertible subframe and wishbones last night, and a TT225 left front hub this morning on ebay, so it's all coming together fairly fast.

 

[iR8V10]

Just got back from there yesterday myself and watching your video made me cringe knowing the speed your taking through there! Lucky, lucky man. Pleased it's all coming back together for you too now!

 

[s33nyboy12]

phone your insurance company now and say you're going to the nurburgring and am i covered. lol. no chance

Phoned today, for 24 hours track cover abroad £312 ( Inc nurburgring) , plus £550 voluntary excess in event of accident, excluding race events. Not that bad, kind of worth the money me thinks, only lie I told them was that my car is set up for the track and mine isn't.

 

[iR8V10]

Check to see what the insurance covers, circuit damage, recovery etc or just car and personal injury?...

 

[s33nyboy12]

Check to see what the insurance covers, circuit damage, recovery etc or just car and personal injury?...

To be fair I just did it out of interest, he called it basic track package , he said next one up was more than double. I'm not going I haven't got any money at minute thanks to the weather.

Did you take your r8? Any good? Pictures,......

 

[stevegti2]

tough break man at least you guys were ok i saw your mates red volvo at lakeside a couple weeks ago it was damp that night

 

[iR8V10]

To be fair I just did it out of interest, he called it basic track package , he said next one up was more than double. I'm not going I haven't got any money at minute thanks to the weather.

Did you take your r8? Any good? Pictures,......

Didnt take the r8 this trip, went in a mini bus with 4 other mates and all rented Suzuki swifts from rent4ring for 2 half days. Awesome little cars! There a couple of pics of the r8 in my noggy bam thread in members cars. No more thread jacking, sorry!

 

[s3dave]

PT: It's a REALLY strange one mate, you'd have to look under it to see, but we measured the distance mount to mount against a straight leon shell, and it's perfect, the beam height is perfect, checked for straightness against the shell with a digital level, it's all spot on somehow :S

I'm going to fit all the front end gear before touching the body work, and have the alignment done which should show up any serious errors.

Just had a PM from Ben which should get things moving very nicely indeed! Thanks hugely for your offer Ben, I'll PM you right now!

Feeling good about getting it back on track in the next month, just following up a lead on a nice seat as well.

Picked up a TT convertible subframe and wishbones last night, and a TT225 left front hub this morning on ebay, so it's all coming together fairly fast.

Perfectly normal mate for the chassis to flex ..do its stuff then recover...you are talking about 20 gauge metal that does not like to be teased,, and once tickled it cannot recover,,,,

 

[superkarl]

you dont **** around prawn!
impressive progress. whens the next track day, next week? lol

 

[Dane]

Lol

 

[Prawn]

Would quite like to be on track at Goodwood on August 11th still.....

We'll see, that's my goal at the moment.

 

[MUSH]

Good to see you back on it mate.

For a little while this thread reminded me of NigeP's mk2 ring crash and subsequent reshell.

Glad to see its not totally wiped out. Will you be respraying it? Time for full TANGO mode...? Or track slag matt/satin black?

 

[frenchman]

I've been a little quiet in here since our return, I would blame it on the stress Nick put me through on our trip but thats a complete lie. In a way it has made it even more memorable and the fact that Nick has just got back onboard and isn't letting it beat him is a true testament to his personality and mindset.

I apologise in advance for the pictures but I thought it would be nice to have it from another persons perspective. Plus I'm better at taking pictures

The trip for me started with fitting some of Nicks ao48's to my spare S3 track wheels. Handy having a garage at your disposal.

A few days later it was time to make the trip up to Basingstoke where we fitted the wheels, packed a few bits in the car and enjoyed our evening. On previous occasions we have camped and not only were all the cars loaded to the max, things generally weren't as smooth.

Old wheels.

New wheels, I actually really like the car with silver wheels.

Loads more rubber

Then it was time for a few beers, a monster pizza and an early night.

I got a knock at the door at this ungodly hour to head to our 4am ferry!

Once in the motherland we saw a lot of this.

And I saw a lot of this!

We had a nice little routine when it came to fuel and toilet stops, back on the road in 5 minutes. We had places to be!

Car was looking pretty cool in the services too, lots of strange looks from onlookers seeing us climb out of the jungle gym.

The signs changed language and I was of no use anymore, we were getting close!

Yep, not far now.

In Nurburg we went to see the boys at Rent4Ring and stowed our luggage so we could hit the track. Cheers guys

They also had some tasty rentals in.

Ready to head out for our first lap.

Lots of M3's in the car park, love the one on the left especially.

High end heat shielding to try and cure the misfire we developed.

Then the Bag showed up, with Nicks mum in tow.

Ready for her first lap of the Ring!

BigAl sharing his words of wisdom, caption comp anyone?

Byeeee.

Always interesting machinery at the Ring.

Back from a good but busy lap.

Jenny certainly had fun!

 

[frenchman]

Alun and Jenny have a good friend in Croatia who paints for a pastime, they surprised Nick with this at our hotel.
Mini and the A3 on the Nurburgring, pretty cool don't you think?

The guest house we stayed in let us use the garage to check the car over, they were such lovely people and so accommodating.

We went out for a little drive to check the car and stopped for the obligatory sign photo.

DK himself.

Saw this LFA in the distance and managed to time it pretty well

Tripod! They really should resurface the carpark.

Nick, very happy with R-Tech's work. A little shout out to the boys.

It's so quiet when the track is closed.

What to do? Drive the amazing surrounding roads of course.

Bigger machinery stops fun.

But only temporarily!

Prawn and Frenchman looking cool.

Then I ruined it. (as per usual)

Why stick car to wall? Because race car.

We must have brought some of the rain with us

BigAl did his little teapot dance and it cleared up nicely.

Off they went to get a few laps in and Jenny and I went off to a super secret location to take some photos and watch.

 

[frenchman]

Tracks open!

And then my camera died and like an excited child I left my charger and spare battery at home. Damn.


The next lap out was Nick and I, we all know what happens and to be honest we were to busy after that to take many more pics.


Thanks to the guys at the Burgstube for giving us the entusiasm to try and fix the car, earlier that morning we were adamant that it was going home on a trailer.


To Bill, our new American friend who helped us out in a time of difficulty. It helped to share the unfortunate even with someone else and keep us from over analysing anything.


To Jenny and Alun for the laughs, support, sandwiches and the great steak at PK's.


And finally to Prawn, good skills.


Frenchy.

 

[Prawn]

^^^ what a winner. None of it could have happened without you mate. Thanks so much for everything!

Awesome pics too, 10x better than anything I could manage on my iphone!

 

[S3 Andy]

**** me you did well to end up with so little damage there! Got to be the fastest loss control i've seen at sx with the least damage (including race stuff).... That bump is a **** lol. Glad your ok, that coulda been so much worse... When you lost it just reminded me of Winkelhock's crash there... seriously mate you did ****ing well.....

Winkelhock crashes MINI on Nordschleife 8 times rolling by - YouTube

Is that Michaela as in the old Blaue Ecke manager? Absolute ledgened...Last I heard she'd bought her own guest house? What's it called?

I'm sure you'll look back on the trip as one of the best ones in a few years time

 

[frenchman]

I have no idea if she used to manage Blaue Ecke but Michaelas guesthouse is the Foxhole in Welcherath.
Foxhole guest house germany

Strangely I think you're right, good story to tell in a few years.​

 

[S3 Andy]

Yeah it's her! red glasses Grand Opening Part 1 / Eröffnung Teil 1

Saved me a few times lol!

 

[Sevv]

Sounds like an adventure story hehe... but honestly mate doing 115mph YOU are LUCKY to be okay thank God. you kept it up in good shape too..remember good things happen to good people maybe Bill was your good thing along with the rest, mind you that A3 deserves lots and lots of praises too its just dumb founding it took the damage so well thaknfully.

we are all happy your are just fine mate.