Doug Lindberg's Journal Of My Triumphs

So, my wife Marti and I got off a Viking cruise ship in Nuremberg Saturday morning, the Viking Gullveig , highly recommended by the way. Nurburg, where the track is, is 392 Km away, so we made the first leg by train to Frankfurt. Arrived in Frankfurt in the late afternoon Saturday. In Frankfurt we said goodbye to my sister Ceci and her husband Chris who had accompanied us on the cruise along with my sister Kathy and husband Euan. Ceci and Chris were going on by train to visit friends in Germany and Denmark. Kathy and Euan had returned to the states from Nuremberg.

We had booked a hotel room in Frankfurt for three nights to give us time to see the sights there and get to and from the 'Ring. Fortuitously, the InterCity hotel was right across the street! Cool, we were bushed. Found a nice Italian ristorante around the corner for a bite to eat, very tasty, and hit the German hay. InterCity hotel was actually quite OK. The room was clean and functional, friendly staff and a really good breakfast buffet included.

Rising on day 2, we hit the breakfast buffet at the hotel and then headed out to explore the city of Frankfurt. A nice thing about the InterCity hotel was the city transportation pass included with the room. We took advantage of that and used the subway and electric trams to get around. There was the Frankfurt marathon going on that day, so that was interesting too. We hit a couple of their Modern Art Museum locations and a beautiful cathedral while wandering around. On the way back to the hotel we found the old city center and stopped at a bar there and had a sausage and the local apple wine, then back to the hotel.

Monday, picked up a car at the Hertz counter; conveniently right in the train station ( "hauptbahnhof" or Hbf.) also and hit the road guided by the navigation system. Once we had a Hertz guy reset the nav. system to English, that is. We got a Mini Countryman, which worked fine.

So, on our way, mostly by autobahn/freeway. About a two hour drive in normal conditions. Nurburg is a ways away from most major cities,so one pretty much has to drive some to get there. Bonn is closer, only about an hour drive. Everything was very easy through pretty green fall countryside until we got pretty close to Nurburg and took an exit from the autobahn. Oops, detour. Well, the nav, system didn't know about the detour, so it kept telling us to u-turn and take the closed road. After a couple loops hoping the nav. would suggest an alternate route (no) we saw signs Nurburgring > and started following the arrows. This worked better, and soon the nav. picked up the new route and guided us right to the front door of the track car rental in Quiddelbach.

Yes, that's right, one needs a non Hertz type rental for the track. The regular rental cos. frown on driving their cars on the track. I had reserved a little Ford front driver econobox with a hopped up engine and suspension/tires beforehand. Of course, Franky of NeedForRing explained that if I wanted less liability I could give him some more money... Luckily not tooooo much. He did upgrade me to a better car, tho, because the one I had booked had been crunched in the front by another hot shoe. He quizzed me to see if I understood that the engine could be over-revved and to be careful shifting the five speed manual. I assured him I had fifty-one years experience with all types of manual trans.

Yesss, off to the track we went! Pretty easy to find the entrance to the track, so I dropped off Marti, who had no interest in zipping on the track, at a convenient restaurant right at the entrance/exit point. Surprisingly, with the magic lap card provided by my friend Franky, one just gets in line, presses ones card to the sensor in one of the three entrance lanes, engages gear and gets on the track. Don't have to talk to anyone, show any ID, prove ANYTHING, and off you go.

I took off somewhat leisurely and was immediately swamped and passed by a group of really fast looking Porches, Audi's and Mustangs. Better step it up a little, I told myself. You turn pretty quickly thru some connector roads past the old 1930s pits and onto the main Nordschliefe circuit. Pretty cool to see the old concrete stands on your right, behind the old pits. Then hard left and hit the gas. A bunch of rights and lefts and you get to the flugplatz pretty quick. That's Flying Place for those of you who haven't heard of it, and they're not kidding. A pretty good uphill, followed by a pretty good downhill. You have a good view of the track ahead at this point, as I recall, so you can get some good speed up. Of course this is followed by a sharp right hander and then onto some esses in the Adenauer "forst". Then a whole bunch of twisties to the Bergwerk, which is almost a hairpin right-hander. Then another chance for speed/long curves to another hairpin and then just past the Km 13 marker a sudden drop into the ultimate hairpin left, The Karussell.

What a thrill to hit the Karussell after watching the old films of all the greats taking this famous corner. The likes of Nuvolari, Stuck, Rosemeyer. Yup, still looks the same! I didn't do it justice on the first lap, better once I learned where to look for it.

Off thru some more twistys mostly keeping out of the way of all the supercars, and obviously superior drivers, to the Kleine Karussell, (little carousel). Then on to the main straight. One can really get some speed up on this, I was in fifth and over a hundred sixty K in that little beastly.
It's probably a good thing that they put the pull off and slow down signs at the end of the main straight so you don't get going and miss the first corner. Instead, cones move you over to the right and into a choice. Left lane to make another circuit, tap your card and go again. Or split right and pull off if you've had enough.

Well, I had paid for four laps, so, off I went. I won't give a play by play of the next laps, which were slowed somewhat by some now disabled cars on the track. Yeah, I guess it's fairly common to have a few wrecks every day. There was a guy and his friend in what was possibly a VW Golf backed up against the Armco fairly soon, only a few turns after the start of the second lap. He must have crashed just before I got there, the safety crew wasn't there with the yellow flag yet, but they were there on the next lap and had him loaded up on the flatbed on the fourth go-round. There was another guy got turned around up against the Armco, I think just before the lead-up to the Karussell on the third lap, also. Yellow flags and unhappiness again. At least they probably wrecked their own cars, so they didn't have to pay for a rental wreck; very expeeensive. Or, maybe wrecking your own is worse.

I'm still thinking it's amazing there weren't more wrecks the way some the hot shoes were traveling in packs at really amazing speed. Also, it's amazing they just take your ticket and off you go; insurance and ambulance is your problem, I guess. This could NEVER happen in the good old US of A.

After my four laps, I picked up Marti at the restaurant, uneventfully returned the track car and retrieved our Countryman. We had some misadventures on the way home, found the one-way bridge under repair that caused the detour and had a miss-programming of the nav. to iron out, but we made it back to Frankfurt.

What a blast this was. If you can put yourself within a couple hours of the track at some point in your life, do it. The only way this could have been better is if I could have had a Triumph to drive. It was way too expensive for a day at the track, but, I said "I only have one life to live, I'm probably not getting another chance to go, Marti has OK'd it, let's go!"