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By this time of the year, many of you have attended three or four (or maybe more) driving schools. I, on the other hand, have been merely threating Audi drivers on the autobahn that if I had my 944 instead of the rented VW Polo I’m driving, they would be moving out of my way. It’s easy for one’s ego to take a bruising on the autobahn.
That’s when I saw the little blurb in BMW Car Club of America’s national magazine, the Roundel (well, after I was done driving). Did I want to sign up for the International BMW Nürburging driving school in Germany? Do fish pee in the water? Are new 911s water-cooled? Of course I wanted to sign up! I immediately e-mailed Dan Tackett (California), the coordinator for the event. Soon I received my confirmation that I was in the school and that I had a BMW rented in my name. The cost for the school was $865, plus car rental and hotel costs (and the flight, if coming from the States).
Due to the carnage of cars in last year’s school by the silly Americans (11 of the 40 black BMW 328s cars given to Americans by BMW AG crashed with 6 of them totalled), we were relegated to rental 316i’s and 520i’s this year (“umm...can we have the extra insurance, please?”). My partner Hugh Golden (Washington) and I had a 316i. We would lose speed everytime we went uphill, or if a bug hit our windshield, but it was a fun car. As a first-timer at the ’Ring, it was ideal for me (it was Hugh’s third school).
In the interest of space, I’m just going to give a brief description
of the school. It’s a follow-the-leader school, with the instructor
showing us the proper line through the curves. Because of the
size of the track, it is broken up into nine sections, with about
1.5 hours for each section per group. (For the proper line through
a corner between sections, that exercise is left to the
student.) At the end of the school, fourteen corners are graded,
with the worst score thrown out. The emphasis is on the correct
line, but the judges like to see speed. Awards are given within
each car or motorcycle group at the closing banquet. There were
over 120 cars at the school (9 groups), with most Americans having
two drivers per car. How did I do? My partner and I finished
with the highest scores for all of the 316s. Unfortunately, no
316 driver won an award for their group. And that’s all I’m going
to say about the scoring (see sore loser).
So what is the Nürburgring track like? It looks like a typical German road that winds through the Eifel Mountains, except with Armco and red-and-white curbing. And unlike most tracks in America, there is very little run-off room here (there’s a reason why they closed this track to Formula 1 racing after Nikki Lauda’s 1976 accident). It’s also very loooong. At about 21 km (13.7 mi), it shows up on most maps of Germany (think about that for a minute). Next time you drive at the Waterford race track, count about nine laps. That’s equivalent to one lap at the ’Ring. During the full laps, there were times I wanted to stop and ask directions. They should really add a Rest Area here somewhere.
There’s also about 300 m (1000 ft) of elevation change. At one part of the track, near Füchsrohre (foxhole), my ears kept popping as we went downhill, topping out 4th gear. (It’s traditional to exclaim, “Down into the foxhole! Yeehaa!” at this part of the track, but you have to do it in German. I couldn’t translate “yeehaa” so I just cleared my throat alot.) It’s like Hurry Downs at Road America, except higher and longer and faster and narrower and with motorcycle skid marks everywhere.
Yeee Hah! -- The Fox Hole
The most famous turn on the track is the Karussell (Carousel). The popular lore is that a driver came up on traffic at this part of the track while carrying a lot of speed. With nowhere to go, he drove down into the culvert at the inside of the curve. He did this again on the next lap when he discovered it was the faster line there. Eventually, others followed suit. If you look at it today, it looks just like a ditch paved in concrete. Think of it as the NASCAR portion of the track. My favorite stories are of those that take this turn wrong and fly off the track without touching the guard rails. (Did I mention that it’s very, very bad to go off the track? These nature expeditions usually involve tall trees and steep mountains.)
The ’Ring is open regularly to public traffic. It’s 17 DM for cars and 22 DM for motorcycles (I think the difference is for the added cleaning costs). If you bring a bus to this public toll road, then it’s 4 DM per person. They moved the entrance of the track this year, so the guy handing out tickets in the old Porsche commercial is gone. However, they did put an ATM machine right next to where you get the tickets.
If you want to know more about Nürburgring, how to get there, when it’s open, or even how many people lose their lives at the “Green Hell” each year, visit my web site at www.emansworld.com.
| << June 1998<< | >> August 1998>> |
(The BahnStormer is the official newsletter of the Rally Sport Region (Detroit area) of the Porsche Club of America. You can contact the editor at .)
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