First Day on the Ring - Saturday 8th of August

So this trip has been planned for 6 months and as everyone knows all best laid plans change..

After an excellent brekkie at the hotel, we set off to Nurburgring.. now Nurburgring is actually two race tracks

http://www.nuerburgring.de/en/fans-info/news/media/circuit-maps.html

The Nordschliefe which is the public toll road (20km in length) and the Grand Prix track.. On the maps the little extension at bottom left hand corner is the GP track!

So on the GP race track there is actually a 2 day classic car event

http://www.nuerburgring.de/en/events-tickets/oldtimer/avd-oldtimer-grand-prix.html

Which meant two things, first there was massive amounts of traffic approaching the track and second everyone was buying a ticket for a fast lap around the Nordschliefe!!!

Oh and the track did not open until 1pm so Paul and I got there with plenty of time... We found rentracecar which is where we going to hire the Golf GTI.

http://www.rentracecar.com/

Our Golf was a racing version of the one I have back in Sydney so I was pretty familiar with the car except this one had been modified.. Upgraded engine producing 250 BHP :-), upgraded brakes (pretty important), upgraded suspension and upgraded exhaust - oh yeah baby...

The Golf closest to us was our car for the day.. it was an amazing car!

So I drove the first 2 laps... OH MY GOD!!! first the track has 130 turns so you never know what is coming next, second the locals literally fly around.. and I mean fly - they pass you on the left in their BMW M series, Porsche or Audi's going flat out.. Whilst getting a handle on the track I went around in  sedately 13 minutes...

The record is held by a Radical with a V8 completing the ring in 6 minutes and 48 seconds..

https://nurburgringlaptimes.com/lap-times-top-100/

The first production car is a Porsche 918 Spyder.. in 6 minutes 57 seconds..

It is very difficult to explain the rush from driving the ring - it is a mixture of elation driving at speeds over 160 kph and sheer fear of the number of cars driving around you.

I will load some videos on you tube and add some links once I edit out the swearing...

Now with over 800 cars on the track at anyone time that is 40 cars per km (that was is what we guess).. you are bound to have some dickheads.. and crashes happen!!

On our first day, we saw two lots of brits stack into walls.. no-one was hurt but they shut the ring and the recovery vehicles go out to clear the track.. everyone piles off. Each time takes about 30 minutes.

Below is a picture of a bike who basically did not respect the Green Hell - unbelievably the rider walked way unhurt!! Yes - there are bikes on the track at the same time but they are just mental!