Got back safe and sound just before lunch time today. I'm glad I decided to have the rest at thurrock last night instead of heading straight for home as although I could have done the miles, I guessed it would be midnight when I got home and it turned out I fell asleep in front of the TV around 10:45 :lol:
anyway, I thought I would do a bit of a trip report:
Thursday:
Late setting off from home trying to miss the most of the heat in the afternoon. Set off for the hotel in Ramsgate arount 4PM and got there hot and sweaty around 9:30PM. Didn't think the weather boded well for the trip as there was a massive thunderstorm around midnight which knocked out the power to the hotel twice lol
Friday:
Meet everyone else in Dover. Introductions made to Andy's friends and Spike's navigator. Nice and stress free onto the ferry and a calm ride across the channel. Off at the other end with Spike leading using his satnav with me following with about 10 hand-written lines of directions (prepared as ever :lol
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Things going smoothly till we had a rest stop after about 130 miles or so. Getting back onto the motorway landed us taking a slight wrong turning and ending up on a single lane viallage road with cobbles
Ant in the modified GT4 wasn't too pleased about that. Well actually, I wasn't either as it was a tad bumpy
Anyway, off onto the right roads and the next stint into Germany........and stopped by the fuzz. Apparently they were on the lookout for people from the UK having a race to the ring and were checking out groups of UK cars running together. The chase was then on by the pigs to catch Yipeekiay who had just carried on driving when they tried to stop us
They stopped him further along but then let him go when they found out our group wasn't anything to be concerned with
Last few miles to Nurburg were wonderful, finding some wonderful roads and noticing how the style of cars were gradually changing from shitbox sales rep types to M3s, elises, GT3s, GT3RSs, GT2RSs (there were a few porches lol.
arrived at the ring and Zara kindly and helpfully negotiated a new food and drink package with frank as the original one couldn't be done (the chef had had an accident and couldn't cook for us). The new package was all drinks and three BBQs one on each night for 70 euros.....cracking deal.
Saturday:
Woke up to the sound of cars being thrashed round the ring. Breakfast and then a walk down to the ring from the hotel to scope things out. After drooling our way around the carpark and sorting out the cards we needed to buy our laps on etc we decided to leave it a little while and have some lunch etc. thinking the very beginning of the public session would be silly season.
Went to get a spot of lunch at a nice restaurant in Nurburg, seeing more and more sporty vehicles turning up. It really is a petrolheads dream holiday location.
Once the Track was starting to open to the public we made our way back to the hotel with the view to head to the track, buy some laps and have a play. At the hotel we foudn out it had been closed due to a crash....a biker badly hurt (did wonders for my nerves lol). We decided to walk down and buy our laps while it was closed but on our way down it was re-opened so we decided to quickly grab some laps on our cards and head back up for the vehicles.
You got the feeling the nerves/apprehension were building as we all got ready, but it was time to get out there and experience the ring for the first time (it was the first time for everyone there which was pretty good).
First lap: oh my fucking god.....how fast do those BMWs and porsches go???????? spent most of the lap checking mirrors and being impressed at the speed of some of the cars on the track. rather scary but wow, such a thrill at the same time. Came off the track buzzing with the thrill and partly relieved to have made it round in one piece, the same as everyone else thankfully.
The rest of the afternoon was spent discussing the lap and when to go back out, deciding that late in the evening would be better when it had calmed down (at one point I had a line of 4 GT2 and GT3RSs coming passed me :lol
Second lap: we went out around 7PM and it was much better. hardly any cars out in comparison to earlier and much more chance to enjoy the lap and take some better lines etc. Haven't got a clue about times, but that wasn't the point for me, just to get round in one piece each time, but push a tiny bit harder each time too. Came off on an even bigger high, both tyres starting to bobble up nicely and sticky to the touch, not bad for touring tyres
evening was the BBQ and lots off very nice bitburger beer and discussions about when we should do laps on Sunday.
Sunday:
Early start so that we could get down to the track for around 8AM when it opens to the public.
Third lap:
on a par with the second one with not much other traffic on the track and able to take decent lines and not be looking in the mirrors all the time. Think it was slightly slower than my second but I had at least half a lap completely clear, thoroughly enjoying it.
Went back to the hotel for breakfast and discussions on the lap we had just done, with Andy buzzing more than anyone as he hadn't bothered doing a second on Saturday. I think he really enjoyed the more clear track a lot
for the rest of the morning we had a chilling out time, wandering round part of the track, watching the other nutters hammering round, and snapping them at one of the early corners, seeing how mad it all looks.
we had a nice break for drinks and ice-cream before having a walk up to the castle up on the hill above the town....stunning views of the town and the surrounding hills. you could see some of the track but not very much of it. You could see over the new GP track/buildings etc.
It was then back down to the hotel to prepare for our final laps (everyone had bought a group of 4). Just when we were preparing to go out it starting spitting with rain, with the majority of the dark clouds over the far side of the track. We basically waited till it stopped raining and went down to the track entrance to see who was going out and try to gauge the conditions. One of the guys staying at the ringhaus driving a scooby said it was about 90% dry and only wet and greasy off line under the trees. The decision was made to head out for one last blast and it was quite a good lap, but I had to go off line a few times onto the wet patches so had to be a bit careful with the cornering and braking in these areas.
Back to the hotel and more BBQ and beer and also shared relief that we had all done our laps without any incidents.
Monday:
Monday was basically heading for dunkirk and the ferry, although we had a more leisurely start and set out from the hotel around 10:30AM. due to a couple of things (including some crappy road works) we only just made it for the ferry, turning up at the port just after 17:30 for a 18:00 sailing
Luckily they let us on and everything was fine. The big experience of the day was around Lille where we could see some big clouds gathering. We had just had a huge downpour about 100 miles earlier when we were stopped with what I thought was about the heaviest rain I'd experienced for a while. The storn near Lille was something else though. Visibility was bad enough to make us (and other drivers) stop at the side of the road. I think visibility was down to less than 10 meters and was pretty scary, especially on the bike. The wind was gusting the rain and it felt like someone was throwing buckets of water over me
anyway, we made it back safe and sound to england with me a little bit soggy in places :lol:
All that was left was to go our separate ways, most to home and me to my scummy travelodge at Thurrock, for a well needed quiet nights sleep.
The ride up today was a bit soggy but nothing like the one near Lille.
To sum it up I think the ring experience was the best but most intense exerience one I've ever had and I can't wait to do it again, hopefully with you lot in 2010
I've found some of the ring pictures from the pro guys online and posted them in the gallery. I've got about 120 pictures to crop and upload from my camera. I'll probalby just put them on flickr and add a link to here