The Big Five Oh Trip - Part 3

The Nurburgring Nordschliefe.

Just the sound of that name is enough to stand what little hair I have left on end.
Since its inception in 1927 it has claimed the lives of 72 professional racing drivers.
Every year it claims on average another 3 – 12 public lives.
It is not for nothing that Jackie Stewart gave it the haunting nickname it still carries today: The Green Hell.
And I’m actually about to drive it.

We head out to the track, the public entrance to which is just down the road from the RSR Nurburg garage. Normally after 9:00 am we’d be allowed on, but it looks like there’s already been an incident as the track has come to a standstill. So we sit in a field with a hundred or so other cars and bikes and wait for the P.A. announcement to give the “all clear”. Derek in the meantime regales us in humble fashion with stories of his former life as an F3 and pace car driver and how he came to be an instructor at the ‘Ring.

 

Finally we hear a klaxon sound and some kind of garbled voice in German makes an announcement. Derek quickly navigates us over to the entrance before most of the mob gets the jump and in no time we’re in line at the toll gate.
The way it works on “public days” is that they create a forced exit and re-entry to the track along the main 3.5 km Döttinger Höhe straight so that traffic must slow down, get off and re-enter on each lap through an electronic toll barrier. I drive in, hold the chipped card against the sensor, the gate lifts, and we’re gone.
I can’t believe it.
After all the years about fantasizing what it would be like to drive this beast I’m finally on it. It seems most surreal. All of the jet lag, stress, brain fog and insecurity suddenly vanish, as soon as we clear the last yellow gate cone I am full down on the Scirocco’s accelerator and banging it off the redline as it screams to haul the three of us down to the first turn. Derek is immediately in full track guide mode as he describes meter-by-meter exactly where to brake, turn in and accelerate. His instructions are amazingly precise. I feel initially that he has me braking a bit too early, but there's no doubt that this is not a place you want to get a first-timer in over their head, many veterans have been caught out by coming around one of the 'Ring's tortured blind corners only to run smack into the back of a lumbering bus or other tourist vehicle. On public days you really have to drive this track like a rally course, always leaving that last few percent of extra grip to deal with unexpected.

Meanwhile as we hit the first set of curves that take us past the interchange that connects it with the modern GP track, I am completely blown away by how much it looks EXACTLY like it did in my practice laps at home on Gran Turismo. It's really freaking me out. But no time to dwell on that, we are in thick traffic with smaller fish to get around in front, and big dogs in M3's and 911 GT3's flying up to overtake us. Unless you're piloting a Koenigsegg or something else with the power-to-weight ratio of a superbike, driving the 'Ring is as much an exercise in watching your mirrors as it is looking ahead. Thankfully the Scirocco is as perfect a partner as I expected, mindlessly easy to flog about due to the excellent balance of its GTI derived chassis and lower center of gravity. As per RSR's rules I have to leave the traction and stability controls engaged, but these thankfully have very high thresholds and barely ever make themselves known.

As we get out of the first few tight turns the traffic spreads out a bit and we start making the long climb up through Flugplatz and Schwendenkreuz. Some 4 - 5 kms in at this point, I finally see the speedo climb past 160 km/h and we begin to reel in some more closely matched cars. I find the uphill blind turns the most unnerving, as Derek insists I keep the power on and it takes a great deal of faith to do so, but every time we rocket over the top one and stay in it there's a tremendous feeling of satisfaction and I eventually learn to just go with it. We suddenly then see the caution lights come on and the yellow flags come out. It doesn't take long to see why... a silver E46 M3 that passed us just moments before is sitting by the side of the track with a good chunk of its nose missing. Ouch.

You really don't want to crash at this track.

Besides the somewhat more obvious perils of getting maimed or killed, breaking your car is probably the cheapest thing that's going to happen. You have to also pay for absolutely EVERYTHING else that results. Like the grass you tore up. The oil and coolant spills that they have to mop up. The Armco barrier you bent. The posts to go with it. The emergency vehicles. The staff that drives them. If the fluids you spilled cause another accident you're on the hook for that too. And if you really go out with a bang and manage to shut down the whole track, that will cost you an additional $2200 an hour until it gets reopened.

About half way around, the intense concentration required starts to get the better of me. For just a few fleeting seconds I think my sleep-deprived brain may not be able to sustain the pace but then I see it coming up, the lead-in to Karussell. Without question this is one of the most famous and delicious track corners in the world. A bizarrely configured 270 degree continuous hairpin with flat asphalt on the outside and steeply banked concrete on the inside that is rough to the point of feeling like it's corrugated. The correct way to approach is to just drop the car straight into the steep inner banked section and hold on for dear life as the steering dances violently in your hands and the g-forces try to fling you into the passenger seat until you suddenly fly up and out the other side, wheels momentarily clawing at the sky. I don't quite manage it as elegantly as I'd have liked, but just going around it for the first time and feeling the car rattle through it for real is incredible. I regain my confidence and go on the charge again and eventually we are making the long climb up the back sweepers past Pflanzgarten, keeping the throttle nailed to the floor just like in the game at the top of 4^th gear until we finally have let off for the final left-right turns that will take us on to the long straight home, the famous 3.5 km Döttinger Höhe. Sadly as explained earlier this is truncated down to a kilometer or so on public days to control traffic, but we still manage to wind the little white 'rocco out past 200 km/h for just a few brief seconds and begin to reel in the massive rear wing of a 911 GT3. Of course he's already slowing down for the exit, but in my mind we are up on his bumper challenging him. Hey, a guy can dream right?

The fact is I really have just completed a dream, a real honest-to-God lap of the Nurburgring. And as good as that would have felt on my own, I can say without question Derek's instruction took it to a whole other level. Having someone beside you with a HD resolution map of that track in his head, calling out each turn and how to attack it with surgical precision, completely made the experience.

Of course I had paid for two laps, and as much as I would have liked to have Derek guide me around again I knew that I had to try it alone, just me against the Green Dragon. Well, me and Pete that is.

We exit the track and as we head back to the office to drop him off Derek debriefs me in a very complimentary fashion. I am careful to put the positive comments in storage, lest my ego start writing cheques on the next lap that my still very inexperienced 'Ring hands will not be able to cash.

Moments later we are back at the gate and off again. Despite having Pete up front now as the second set of eyes and voice of reason, I don't mind admitting that for the first bit I did feel a wee bit naked. But I knew as long as I kept the same 8/10ths – 9/10ths pace as on the first go-round I should be able to deal with the unexpected so I begin to pour it on. Some corners I came in a little overcooked (finally waking up the stability control) and others woefully too slow, but on average I think I kept a pretty respectable pace. Sadly there was much more traffic to deal with, and not one but two caution slows downs this time, so my dreams of posting a sub 10 minute lap (the magic time if you're a Top Gear fan) quickly evaporates. Nonetheless finally navigating the world's most notorious track on my own feels as amazingly good as you'd expect, and on my second try I finally get just a wee bit of air coming out of Karussell.

I suspect my grin at that point exceeded even the Drift video cam's 160 degree field of view. 

Many, many thanks to RSRNurburg for the overall excellence of the experience, instructor Derek (who’s last name I sadly do not have) for his outstanding guidance, and finally Christopher Heiser for his fabulous blog Nurburgring For Dummies, which is absolute must-read material for anyone considering this mad (and HIGHLY recommended) adventure.

Truly the crowning experience in any gearhead's resume.

The Big Five Oh Trip - Part 2

Bolzamo, IT – Day 10 of the motorcycle tour and I’m obviously WAY behind in posting anything. No surprise as there just isn’t any time, the routine for the last 10 days is always the same, get up, eat, ride like hell through some of the most challenging landscape on earth, eat, go to sleep. I make that sound repetitive; believe me, it’s anything but. Those tales are to come.

Now where were?

Day 2 of the trip finds us waking up at the Haus Pit Lane hotel in Nurburg, Germany, home to the famous Nurburgring race track complex. The “Ring”, as it’s affectionately known to gearheads everywhere, is actually several circuits on one giant piece of landscape. The one that we’re here to see is called the Nordschleife, considered to be one of the most difficult and dangerous tracks in the world. At some 20.8 kms long with an amazing 154 unique turns winding through dense and hilly forests with elevation changes of more than 1000 feet it well lives up to its nickname, the Green Hell. And I’m here to drive it.

 

http://www.nuerburgring.de/en/fans-info/race-tracks/nordschleife.html

 

I’ve been practicing for weeks prior to the trip using a Sony PS3 rig with GranTurismo 6, one of the best game simulations of this track, but as good as it is it will in no way prepare me for the extreme hills, valleys and lack of sight lines of the real thing.

What’s peculiar about the Nordschliefe is that when it isn’t being used as a race track or test center for the car manufacturers it’s actually open to the public as a toll road. Yes, that’s right, anyone can just show up, pay a fee and have a go. That includes scooters, tour buses, Bugatti Veyrons and just about anything else you can imagine.  However rental cars are a no-no, every major chain in Germany expressly forbids it right in the contract. So the only option for overseas folk like myself is to rent a Ring racer. Of course I had to have something from the VAG family so I decided to go with a VW Scirocco, a lower slung version of the Golf that's been long gone from our shores but still exists in Europe. The current version they have is based on the MK5 Golf/Jetta/A3 platform (2006 – 2013) and as a result is very familiar to me. The versions you can rent here are all pretty much the stock 2.0L turbo with around 210 hp, but frankly for my first go at this track I don’t think I’d want any more, what I want is an idiot proof, well balanced chassis that has more brakes and handling than motor and this car fits the bill perfectly.

The night before we spent a bit of time just walking the local streets around our hotel, located less than a kilometer from the track’s tourist entrance, and it is absolute high octane heaven. Awesome cars and bikes of every description are seen and heard everywhere, the place is one giant brotherhood of speed unlike anything I’ve ever seen outside of an F1 event. And everyone is here for one reason, to slay the dragon and live to tell the tale.

I must admit at this exact moment I am now not so sure this is a great idea, I barely slept and have massive jet lag. And the next hour will demand every fibre of hand-eye coordination that my aging brain can muster.  We leave the hotel and head over to RSR Nurburg, the company I’ve reserved the car with. I fill out the requisite paperwork signing my life away and before being turned loose then sit through a very thorough 30 minute briefing which in the words of our host is designed to “scare us to death now so that we don’t die out there”. His words carry weight, there are crashes every day this track is open. Most just bend tin, but some do worse. Being that the deductible on the Scirroco is basically a good chunk of the purchase price, and to that you must add the fees charged by the track to clean up and replace everything down to the last blade of grass you chewed up, I am well motivated to heed his warnings.

Luckily my two lap package includes a lap with an instructor, so I will have expert guidance to make sure I keep it paint-side up on the first go.

Looking around the garage and yard outside here makes one’s head go light, there are awesome cars everywhere. You can rent Lotuses, M3’s, 911 GT3’s, Lamborghinis and they fill every space on the lot.

Finally around 9:00 am I get the car and meet instructor Derek, an expat Brit race and safety car driver who has recently moved to Nurburg to work full time at the track. We spend a few minutes setting up the car with cameras and mics and then head down the road to the track entrance. Herr Schaefer dons a helmet and drops himself into the back seat. Time to see if I’m up to this…

The Big Five Oh Trip - Part 1

Briancon, FR – It’s Day 6 of our motorcycle tour, a rest day, and man do I need it. This is without a doubt one of the most intense trips I’ve ever been on. So much has happened in the last nine days that my mind hasn’t even begun to process it. Just the first three days in Germany before the motorcycle tour knocked more things off my bucket list than many other whole trips have. And I’m going to struggle to relate what happened in the next six after that. But I will try my best and hopefully won’t lose you all (or myself) in the process. First let’s wind back a bit and explain how all this madness came to be…

A certain Peter Schaefer, who has put up with me for reasons unknown since the age of 12, suggested sometime in our early forties that for our collective 50^th  (we were born exactly a month apart) we should do a European motorcycle tour. The original idea was to ship our own bikes over and do it all ourselves. But around four or five years ago Pete discovered Edelweiss, a highly specialized worldwide motorcycle touring company, and was instantly convinced this would be the better way to go. Being that I generally despise any form of organized tour I was initially not the least bit receptive, but when he rattled off the list of advantages like that we use their bikes - so no worries about shipping back and forth, insurance, breakdowns - and that they also shuttled your baggage around from hotel to hotel, planned all the breakfasts and dinners, I started to come around. The clincher though was this: you DON’T have to follow the guides. That’s right, if you so desire you can just take off in the morning and ride wherever and however you like, just as long as you’re back at the designated arrival hotel that night.

SOLD!

We then spent the next few years deciding which tour and when, but it was pretty clear from the outset that it would have to be their "Grand Alps". At 13 days through almost every major pass in Austria, Lichtenstein, Switzerland, France and Italy, it was the longest one they offered in the region and happened only once a year. As it turned out the schedule for 2014 put it at the end of June into the beginning of July, exactly between our two 50th birthdays. How perfect was that?

As soon as the booking opened we were in.

Not long after our friend Dave decided he’d like to join. Being that he would be turning Five Oh himself just before us he did technically qualify (not that we would have banned him had he not) but what was a little more worrisome was the fact that Dave has spent his entire riding career piloting a Harley Night Train. Now as HD riders go he definitely has that bike mastered and keeps a pace that generally leaves his fellow Milwaukeeans long back in the dust. However this gig was going to be a whole other matter. Edelweiss’ guide lists this tour as a “7 to 9” out of 10 in riding difficulty. And the only types of bikes offered that would fit his well over 6 foot frame were full-size adventure rigs like the BMW GS and Triumph Adventure. Perfectly suitable in experienced hands for the unbelievable hilly and sinuous terrain, but a world away in riding technique from his factory custom lead sled.

Despite this he was convinced he’d be up to the challenge, and the nice thing about a group tour is that there are bound to be riders of widely varying abilities and styles, so no matter what we would all be able to find the right pace. And Dave essentially being a Monty Python character who somehow escaped off the screen would lend some much needed levity to our group, what with Herr Schaefer being the serious-minded, super organized traveller and me focused 23 hours a day on just filming everything and going Mach 2. So then there were three.

About a year out we booked our flights and decided that we should take advantage of the opportunity to get in some other local experiences while here so Pete and I gave ourselves two extra days up front to run around Germany and Dave went five days ahead with an insanely ambitious schedule to see most of the lower Scandinavian regions. All that was left now was to assemble all the required gear and pack.

The Geekware

In my case I knew from the outset that I wanted to record as much of this trip as possible in all forms, as so many people expressed a lot of interest in knowing what it was like and I knew my writing skills alone (or lack thereof) would never do it justice. I also wanted to be able to piece together a little film that would tell the story in some coherent way and serve as a memento in years to come. After a lot of research I decided on the Drift Ghost S action camera as the weapon of choice as it got great reviews and offered a 1080p/60 fps recording ability that rivalled the ubiquitous GoPro but with a slim bullet shape instead of the “brick”. They also came with a nice remote control that could synch with up to five cams. I picked up two of them along with a pile of different mounts, batteries, mics and whatever else I could imagine would be required. One would mount to the side of my helmet and one low on the bikes’ frame, and I could also flip one of them to be rearward facing off the luggage rack, hopefully giving me enough angles to make it interesting as what kills most homemade videos is the lack of variety in the vantage points. Not having a Top Gear budget this would have to do. I also brought my trusty little waterproof Lumix compact camera for static pics and filming.

The only problem in all this was my vast underestimation in what it would take to get this all stuff up and running the way I imagined it. More on that later…

D Minus 3

I am staring at the biggest collection of electronic gear I’ve ever brought on a trip. It is spread all over my basement floor. There are video cams. Still cams. Cell phone adapters. Suction cup mounts. Tripods. Sticky mounts. Mini USB wires. Micro USB wires. Travel chargers. Batteries. Back up drives. Memory cards. Tools. Tape. Tie wraps. And oh yeah, should really add some clothes. And maybe a helmet, boots and jacket. Yes, you are reading that right, at three days to go I hadn’t had single thing packed, and this for the biggest trip of my life. Herr Schaefer on the other hand had been packed for six months (and that is NOT an Ianism for dramatic purposes). But the months leading up to this trip for me were pretty nuts and it just never seemed to get to the top of the list. To make matters worse I now have to leave for two days of work in Los Angeles and arrive back with only 24 hrs to pack, go to work and then immediately head to the airport.  Somehow I actually pull it off and amazingly don’t forget anything (well, more on that latter too). Off to the airport to catch our overnight flight.

Ze Fazerland

We land in Munich a little ahead of schedule at 9:30 am local, which is great as the next two days’ schedule is packed. We bolt through customs (AMAZINGLY efficient, as one would expect here), grab our luggage and run for the Sixt rental car counter. Since childhood it’s been my dream to run loose on Germany’s famous Autobahn where long sections are free of speed limits, and I absolutely cannot wait to have at it. I really would have loved to do it in an Audi – my brand of choice for the last twenty years – but they weren’t offered in any of the listings I could find online so I settled on a 3 series BMW, still an excellent tool for the job. Despite my “express status” we still have to wait a bit but thankfully we aren’t at the other major rental counter… they’ve been completely shut down due to a piece of unidentified luggage being left at the counter and that whole area has now been police-taped off!

Our turn comes and I am informed that my car of choice isn’t available… but we get a 5 series instead! No complaints. However as we run through the garage to retrieve it I start realizing that in Europe you can get a 5 with some truly tiny and anaemic engines… uh oh. Pete on the other hand is ecstatic because most of the 5’s they rent are wagons, and what could be cooler than cruising the ‘bahn in a eurowagon (if I have to explain why then there’s little point. But trust me, it’s cool). We get to the correct row and before I can even spot it all I can hear from Pete, two octaves too high, is “IT’SAWAGONIT’SAWAGONIT’SAWAGON!!!!!!!”

Yes, a resplendent black one too with panoramic roof, gorgeous brown leather interior, sat nav, the works.

But what’s it got for a motor? Hmm no badges on the tailgate to tell us. I start it. Brrr-rrrr-rrr glig glig glig glig glig.

It’s the 2.5L diesel-electric hybrid.

Oh no.

Goodbye dreams of Autobahn glory.

We get in and head out for our first stop, the Audi factory and museum in Ingolstadt, and as expected the little diesel struggles to get the lavishly appointed mega wagon up to speed from a stop. However what’s funny is that it doesn’t seem to slow as the needle climbs. Acceleration is what I would describe as train-like, you don’t feel anything as you leave the station but look down and suddenly the needle is sweeping past 200 km/h and climbing. I can’t imagine how this is possible from such a tiny power plant. We don’t really get to test it any further as there is traffic and construction everywhere, making our 45 minute journey more like an hour and a half. Also dashing any hopes of making it in time for the daily factory tour at 11:30.

As much as I would have enjoyed that I am still happy just to be at the birthplace of my last 5 cars and peruse the museum, which has an exquisite collection of the brand’s models from the last hundred years. Audi has a bit of a weird history, as they are really the sum of four brands that amalgamated over time, Audi, Horch, DKW and Wanderer, so it’s cool to see firsthand examples of the various types close up.

Of course my favourites are the powerhouses of the eighties that really put the brand on the map such as the TransAm and IMSA race sedans that were eventually banned from both series as they couldn’t be beaten; and of course the legendary rally Quattros which turned the entire sport upside down and forced everyone else to adopt AWD to even keep up. This arms race in turn spawned the ferocious Group B cars like the 650 hp Quattro S1 that were eventually deemed too fast to be safe and regulated out of existence.

I so want to sit in the middle of the floor and commune with them for the rest of the day, but we have much ground to cover so after a quick bite at the excellent outdoor restaurant we hit the ‘bahn again.

 

Pete has dubbed our big black train the “Maus”, after the famous  180 ton German WWII tank that was too big to be of any practical use. Interestingly that also had diesel-electric drive, but even its mighty 1200hp engine could only propel it to no more than 20 km/h. Our Maus however seems to defy all known laws of physics, as I hammer down and we watch in amazement as it climbs… 210, 220, 225, 230, 235… 240!!

We’re now travelling faster than I’ve ever gone in a street car. Powered by a 2.5L diesel. Smaller cars scurry out of way like Shermans surely would have when faced with the real Maus. I hold it down as long as I dare but eventually I see Pete getting a bit squirmy so I back off to a sedate 180 – 200. This pace seems to work as he now nods off to sleep and after a few hours finds it completely normal. That is when we’re not stuck in construction related traffic. In this regard Germany is no better than Quebec, there are closed lanes EVERYWHERE. Perfectly signed and organized as you would expect, but it really puts a damper on our pace.

Despite frequent full stops we still cover the 500+ kms in under 5 hours. It’s glorious. The drivers are for the most part amazing, staying in the appropriate lanes and most cruising along at somewhere around 160 to 180 km/h in a perfectly organized ballet. When all is clear and you’re surrounded by locals, the Autobahn is the true promise of what highway driving can ultimately be. Next stop, the Nurburgring.