The Solo season is almost upon us! Our first scheduled event is March 25th, so I hope everyone has been taking advantage of the unusually warm winter to get their cars and minds ready for the upcoming season. There are a few things I want to open discussion about regarding this year, so grab a beer and here we go…
First of all, I have asked Eric Brown to be my assistant this year. Since I moved out of Wichita last year, it has been difficult to make it to some of the meetings for the club. Eric will be the face of our Solo program at many of those meetings this year, and he has the drive and enthusiasm that our program needs to stay successful in 2012. If you need to contact someone about the Solo program, Eric or I will be available to take care of things.
Just like last year, we are only counting a person’s top 10 finishes toward season points. There are 14 scheduled events, so you don’t have to feel obligated to go to all of them, but you can pick the ones that work the best for your personal schedule. We are also trying to work out a series with the Salina Region in which we would hold an event here and invite their members to come down to join us, and they would hold an event that does the same. Participants would get points for driving, with additional points granted for finishing position; the region with the most points wins. It’s just a fun way to gain a little exposure for both of our regions. Expect those events sometime in the middle of the season.
You may recall that last year there were two separate PAX index listings on the results, one for actual PAX based on class and another for those who were running street tires in a class that normally uses some sort of race compound tire. This street tire PAX proved to be very popular, even at the divisional level and across the country. For 2012, I will be introducing a new local class called Street Tire Pax, in which competitors can run a stock class vehicle to the full extent of the class rules except that they must be on true street tires with a treadwear rating of 140 or above. To calculate times, we will take the actual time multiplied by the regular PAX index factor and the street tire index factor of 0.975. By doing this, we can compare cars from any class to each other. This class will allow those who want to run in stock class without the expense of R-compound tires to do so.
One of the biggest bottlenecks to our events was the process of getting registered, both online pre-registration and final registration the morning of the event. We are working on a way to streamline this process so that a person can pre-register online with confidence and have a very short process at the event. This will save us time and allow us to start on time.
The entry cost for events is going up slightly for 2012 to $25 for members. However, as an incentive to help our process by pre-registering, I will honor the old $20 entry fee for those who do.
I also want to ease the process of tech inspections. We often had an issue finding someone to do the tech responsibility at some of the events last year, and I want to change that. I would like to have at least one tech inspector volunteer ahead of time, just like we have event chairs and safety stewards. This person will need to be on site early enough to start tech of cars right after on-site registration starts. We may need to have a tech inspection class to get more people certified to fill this role, and we can do this fairly quickly, even on the same date as one of our events. The more we have, the more likely the role will be filled and we can start on time.
I’ve mentioned “starting on time” a few times, and that is one of the bigger changes I am making for 2012. For the past few years, we have been starting the events at 11:00, which means most of us have to dedicate almost a whole day to the events. People also don’t generally like being on the hot pavement during the hottest part of the day, so for this year, I am proposing that we make our start time one hour earlier: 10:00. That would mean on-site registration closes at 9:30, drivers meeting is at 9:45, and first car out is at 10:00. It seems that most people were on site last year in plenty of time for this, and we started at this time with no issues for years until recently.
Several people have expressed interest in getting kids involved with the junior kart program, but many of them have noted that it is somewhat cost-prohibitive to register themselves and a child or two for any event; as a parent with two kids involved, I know exactly what they mean. I don’t want this is to be the reason that kids are staying away from the program, so for 2012 I am giving a discount to kids who are entering the events. They must have memberships, but I am making their entry fee just $10, which only covers the club expenses per driver. I hope this will encourage those who are thinking about it to continue looking into getting more kids involved.
Lastly, I am making an official call to request volunteers for the events in the positions of event chairs, safety stewards, and tech inspectors. Take a look at the schedule that is posted on the website (www.wichitascca.org) and find a date that enables you to help out. Just as in the past, if we don’t have positions filled, we don’t have an event.
As always, I am open for discussion on any of this, and I welcome any comments that you may have about anything. If you know of someone in the club or elsewhere who is not on this mailing list and should know about the information in this message, please forward it to them so we can get the word out. This is not my program; it is your program that I am helping to guide. If you would like to see something that is not here or have an idea to make our club better, please let me know either privately or as a reply to all on this list.
Thanks,
Mike Herrick
Wichita Region SCCA
Solo Chairman
Solo Youth Steward
This should help you understand. Lawyers and politicians?
Lord’s prayer:……………………………..……………….66 words.
10 Commandments: ………………………………………. 179 words.
Gettysburg address: ………………………….………….. 286 words.
Declaration of Independence : ………..…………………. .1,300 words.
US Constitution with 27 Amendments : …….……………… 7,818 words.
US Government regulations on the sale of cabbage:……. 26,911 words.”
Last event of the season. The Miata was offered up again, but been there, done that… I wanted something new and different. The Subaru will probably go up for sale soon, as I want to follow my heart and get back behind the wheel of a V8, RWD beast of a machine. Will it pax me as high as the Subaru has? Most likely, no. But I have loads more fun driving them. So I put out a call to the email list asking if I could co-drive anyone’s car. The great news is, I got lots of people offering their cars. I chose Trevor Derenthal’s BMW M3, the Bavarian muscle car.
Unfortunately, Trevor woke up Sunday morning not feeling so well, so my ride was now up in the air again. I was about to sign up with Glen Alvis’ C4 Corvette (a blast from the past because that was my previous car), when fate delivered me a new prize. Ryan Ostmeyer arrived at registration late, and I told him the penalty for late registration is that I get to co-drive the person’s car. In this case, it was a 1988 Pontiac Trans Am in C-Prepared guise. Can you say “ultimate V8 RWD beast”? It was a joke of course, but I was also serious, and Ryan said “what the heck”.
If you’ve never ridden in or driven a CP car before, I have to tell you, it is freakin’ awesome! It is just pure raw power. I’m pretty sure I can hold my breath for at least 67.697 seconds, because I don’t think I ever thought about breathing during the runs. I was afraid it would be the one little thing that would upset the car and make it go spinning off the course in a cloud of tire smoke and cone parts.
The best way I could describe Soloing this car is this: Normally, a Solo is like an obstacle course. You run here, jump here, duck under this, go around that, etc. Driving a CP car is like a military boot camp obstacle course, with mortars going off, people shooting over your head, and drill instructors screaming at you. After the finish lights, the first thought was always… “wow”. Not a screaming wow, just a muted, calm, half-whispered “wow”. But that was quickly followed by a laugh and then a huge smile that lasted until it was time to get nervous for the next run.
So look for next year at registration for the new penalty system to be implemented: If you are late (late being determined by the Past RE of the club) to registration for an event, that an official of the club shall need to enter your vehicle in said event as an entrant. 
So, thank you, Ryan, for arriving late to registration, and paying your penalty! That was an awesome ride!
With my car being on anti-solo snow tires, it was time for me to start begging for rides to finish the season out on these last two events. Since Matt had “borrowed” my WRX for the RallyCross, it was logical that I “borrow” his Miata for the next Solo. Unfortunately, it turned out that Matt couldn’t make it to either of the last events, so we hatched a plan that Matt would give me the Miata for the weekend, and I could flog it in Yoder (and enjoy the nice warm weather on Saturday in Wichita as well. That’s one of those plans that sounds great on paper, though. Here I was, staring at the mound of equipment, signs, cones, and coolers though are normally loaded into my Tardis (thanks, Dave) of a Subaru, and the little carry-on bag known as a Miata. A quick trip over to Paul Sherman’s house to drop off everything bigger than a loaf of bread, and I was ready to go.
The Sunday morning drive up to Yoder was fun. I miss having a convertible. I don’t miss feeling like I had to put the Miata on like a snowsuit. I had tried the seat out to make sure I fit before we even hatched this plan, but I felt like the car was a little tighter than I remembered it, even though I’m still losing weight on my diet every week. It only took me a few times in and out of the car to realize it was because the seat wasn’t all the way back. I had assumed Matt had driven it to my house, but instead it was driven by a shorter friend of his. At least I realized it before I started racing, since I couldn’t turn the wheel in anger without my hands hitting my knees.
Time for the first run in the car. Eric Brown comes running up to go for a ride, but only because he knows this is my first run in this car, and he’s hoping for some kind of spin out. I didn’t disappoint him. After the car stop
ped it’s slide, we waved at the neighboring corner workers, continued our run, and laughed our way through the finish lights. That about sums up the entire day in the Miata, that it was a “load of laughs”. Once I figured out where the spin point of it was in that first run, I backed off 1% from there, and the rest of the day was just pure joy and giggles as I flicked this little car through the cones.
I did pretty well for my first time in the car, gauging my times against a driver I am always impressed by in another Miata, Bill Preheim. But I wanted to make sure I didn’t mess up anyone’s season points, so I ran in SO for the day.
So Thank You, Matt, for letting me borrow your car for the weekend! I had a lot of fun!
Guy Roberts
So needless to say I was a bit nervous going in. I’ve been to the Solo National Championships 3 times, as a co-driver/tire warmer. I know the levels of the drivers and the expectations that go along with wanting to perform well with the best in the country. I wasn’t sure what the RallyCross National Championships would bring, but I imagined it was a little more relaxed, since the regional events seem to be that way compared to regional Solo events. So far, though, my RallyCross experience was the 2 events the Wichita region held a couple of years ago, and the Divisional Event at this same site in Tulsa, OK several weeks prior to this National Championship. 100 cars were registered, and that included the 16 cars that were in the Stock All-Wheel Drive class I registered in.
Since Matt Miller still hadn’t purchased a car to use in the event, I let him use my 2009 Subaru WRX for this event. He had co-driven it at the Divisional Event before, and hadn’t beaten me, so he was allowed to drive it again. This time, though, we would be on appropriate tires, a set of winter Blizzaks that came up for sale on the Kansas City Subaru forum. The previous event, we were on almost bald Extreme Summer Performance Dunlop Direzzas, the tires that are quite well suited for Solo, and laughed at for RallyCross.
Matt and I drove down to Tulsa together Friday afternoon, to try to make it in time to register at the event, and participate in the practice sessions they had set up on a part of the event site that wasn’t being used for the actual courses. We were excited to try out the new tires, and bought 8 runs to try them out. However, the section of the field turned out to be quite a bit bumpier than we had imagined it would be. After 3 runs, we decided that it would be better to not destroy the car before the actual event started, and sold back our remaining run tickets. After watching a few more cars run, and seeing things like CRXs with wheels flying off, we looked at each other and smiled, knowing we made the right decision.
Although we were 2 married guys without our wives in a foreign town surrounded by places that had ever-flowing beer taps, we decided to instead walk over to the drag strip that hosted the event, and check out some of the cars heading down the quarter mile. We saw some awesome motorcycles, muscle cars, and old hot rods. But the… most interesting… set of cars was apparently a local Miata club that had come to race. Not really the cars you normally see at the drag strip. We watched a few of those and chuckled at their times. One poor Miata driver launched really hard at the green light, and the engine made a lot of noise, but the car barely creeped along. As the breeze brought the smells from the car to us, we both said “clutch”. We decided to call it an early night so we could get a good jump on the course walk the next morning.
Saturday brought a nice day, and an extremely technical course. It was almost like a series of offset slaloms that meandered around the field. It’s funny, because, the course walk and the parade lap showed some extremely bumpy places, that I was kind of worried about for the car’s sake. However, once we got going on the course fast, those bumps seemed to be soaked up by the car quite well. The only rough parts were when you crested a large bump, started going down then came into another large bump. It didn’t seem that the already blown OEM shocks on the car really liked those situations. So much so, that Matt came back in from one of his runs with a warning light on the dash that showed a car on a ramp with a line through it, that we could only translate as “don’t jump the Subaru”. Must be a Matt thing, because I’d never seen it before, and haven’t seen it since.
A quick note about the RallyCross scoring… I think the rule makers were a little tipsy when they decided not to use the “best run” format of Solo. Instead, you combine ALL of your runs together, penalties and all. A cone is still 2 seconds if you knock it over, but a gate is now 10 seconds if you miss it. There is only a DNF (did not finish) if your car breaks, and literally cannot finish the run. And yes, there were several of those.
So my first thought was, just to try to stay clean. No cones, no gates. I figured that everyone else had a lot more experience, and money, in they cars, so maybe clean could win something. Well, that plan of attack was destroyed on my second run when I drove through my own dust cloud from a previous turn on the course, and couldn’t see the gates in time to turn for them. Well, most of you have never seen me mad, but this did it. I couldn’t believe that I missed a gate because of a dust cloud. I don’t mind making mistakes, but having one made for my by the speed and direction the wind blows….well….blows. Once I got over the initial anger, I relaxed, and decided to just have fun at the event, and not worry about what place I was in or what my times were. That was probably the best thing for me.
We got 3 runs on the course Saturday morning in one direction, then in the afternoon, we drove the same course, with a few changes for safety, for 2 more runs. At the end of the day, I was 14th place out of 16 in the class. That get really hurt my total times, but the good news was that I had beaten 2 cars. I don’t really want to mention that one of those cars had about 2 rolls of painter’s tape on it, because the guy didn’t want rock chips on his car. Good luck with that.
Saturday evening, after the event supplied BBQ and sodas, I made Matt go with me to a place that sold beer so I could drown the day away, and hopefully make it easier to fall asleep, but also unfortunately harder to wake up the next morning. We got all of our stuff out of our rooms, packed up the car, and got ready to head out for the Sunday morning course walk. I suddenly realized that it was extremely hard to start a car without the key. I had separated the fob from the actual key on Friday, and now had only the fob available. Hmmmm…. I drove it last night, I swear. Ok, a trip back to the front desk to get a key back, searched the room. Nothing. What the heck? Ok, unpack the car, go through bags, coolers, everything. Ding! Light comes on, it was still in the pocket of my shorts from the day before in my bag. Whew.
But then….”why does that tire look so low?” Ugh. 15 pounds of air, that’s not quite what the manufacturer recommends, even for Blizzaks with their stiff sidewalls. Pump it up, and head to the event, because we’re already late from some idiot losing the key.
Sunday’s course was a lot more “fun”. It was full of circles, and lollipops (single pivot cones), and a lot more of the course took place on the gravel roads than Saturday’s course did. The gravel is much more slippery, and harder to go all out on. There was one section that you wouldn’t have wanted to be a course worker on. I think Matt hit 5 cones there, and I hit 3, on our first runs. Overall the course was nice and flowing, and a good mix of fun. After 3 runs, and pumping the tire up to 40 between each set of runs, the racing was over for our class. I ended up 8th, moving up 6 positions, and Matt was only 5 seconds behind me in 11th. Matt’s times were as good if not better than mine, he just hit a few more cones (is 16 considered a few?). I was pretty happy with Sunday’s runs, though. Always glad to not be DFL.
After our runs, it was time to work. Normally that wouldn’t get the recognition in an article about an event, but this corner we were at was special. We were downwind of the course, and each car went by us 4 times, causing a dust cloud each time that wafted right into our faces. Add to that, the fact that a protest on Saturday for this heat, meant that they would be running an extra run. Thank goodness for the supplied surgical masks. By the end of the heat, we were covered head to toe in dust. I will say that sunscreen, sweat, and dust make quite a nice paste. Luckily we had the facilities to wash it all off before it dried on, and we had to ride back 3 hours in the car together.
Heading back to the paddock after de-pasting, the tire was now down to 10 pounds of air. A quick search of the tire, following the hissing sound, found a nail head in one of the tread blocks. That is good news, after what we just put the car through, and seeing other people de-bead tires. After a few calls to local tire stores and huge chain marts, we came to the conclusion that nobody wants to make a quick buck anymore. Even offering to remove the tire from the car, and point out the exact place where the nail is, the quickest someone could “get to us” was still about 2 hours. For a 5 minute plug.
And here’s where you have to think that Karma is a real thing. A Colorado driver that was gridded next to us walks by. This is a younger kid that we had helped out the previous day when he had missed the parade lap because they told him he had time to go eat lunch. He ate, they lied, he didn’t parade. So we told him all of the course changes, and what cones to look out for, and all that good stuff. The kind of stuff you really wouldn’t want to tell your competitor at a national championship, but because I’ve learned from a great region that it’s not about the results, it’s about the people you race with, we shared as much as we knew. So anyways…Colorado Ryan walks by and says, “hey, I’ve got a patch kit, if you want it.” 10 minutes later, Ryan has us all patched up. We air up the tire, go watch some of the 3rd heat, and come back 30 minutes later, and it’s holding pressure. Time to hit the road, no trophies for us.
It was a fun weekend, and great event. They did a nice job running the whole thing, and staying mostly on time, and on task. It took a lot of people to put this show on, and I ended up with no complaints except my missed gate. But there wasn’t a Wind Direction and Speed Chair, so I had to keep my complaints to myself. I had fun, and look forward to going again next year, hopefully co-driving in a 240SX? Maybe?
All photos from the event courtesy of www.GotCone.com:
http://www.gotcone.com/pgallery/2011_scca_rallycross_national_championship/
Guy Roberts
Bolstered with the confidence of surviving my first lap of the Nürburgring’s Nordschliefe, and my wife’s nausea starting to subside, I decided to attack the 13 miles of motorsports heaven once again. This time as I rolled up to the gates, I was greeted by some high dollar eye candy. A Mercedes SLS AMG was parked in the far lane fumbling for his RingCard, and a Porsche 911 Speedster was waiting just past the gates. My lusting was interrupted by a strangely polite little “bong” I looked down to see the gas light illuminated. “50km” read a display below. It’ll be fine!
Staring in awe at the indescribably shiny silver finish of the SLS, I pulled up to the gate on the far right in my feeble BMW 118i. As the gate went up, I eased out the clutch, and putted past the still stationary 911. I rowed up the hill, willing speed from the little 1.8L 4 cylinder so I could at least go fast enough to enjoy the blur as these supercars screamed past me. Within moments the 911 Speedster was on me, I signaled right, and he roared past me tearing at space and time as the white blur extended towards the next corner. As I reached the top of the hill, braking for the Schikane, the Merc had caught up. Knowing all too well my place in the automotive pecking order here, I wisely pointed him by.
However, the section of corners just after that were repeated slow corners, and I knew if this loose nut behind the wheel stood any chance of chasing down this car, it was here I’d make my stand. I stuck to those beautiful taillights and robo-spoiler as hard as I could. Obviously impressed with my superior driving talent (and not at all scared of some little POS trading paint with his $200k car), he pointed me by at Hatzenbach. During the elation of this small victory, I failed to notice that my windshield was becoming covered with tiny droplets of water. Without my rabbit to chase, and the knowledge of how my car’s mystery alignment would make things interesting in the rain, I started to back off a bit. Of course the SLS quickly came up behind again. As he pulled up alongside on the charge back up into Quiddelbach Höhe, Erica commented, “It doesn’t even really sound that good…” when all the sudden, a downshift barked into my window, and the 6.2L symphony of combustion unleashed all 500hp up the hill. Well that was fun while it lasted.
Again, the rest of the lap was uneventful, except for the exponentially fast rate that the km’s were dropping of my distance to empty gauge on the display. I also noticed with the onset of sprinkles, many sections were slowed down for construction to freshly dinged Armco, or to extract cars from the shoulder. These were both good reminders to pace myself out here on my second lap. Still I must not have been the only one to take heed of the moisture, since I caught up to my buddy in the SLS at Breidscheid Bridge, only to have my doors blown off again up the hill at Ex-Mühle. Another friendly “bong” piped up as I threw the car into the Karussell one last time, urging me to quit sloshing around the precious little gas it had left. I followed out a pack of BMW out the last sections. Sticking to their pace, I do believe I got all 4 wheels off the ground on the entrance to Pflanzgarten. But as I sat there, semi-airborne, I had enough time to contemplate how sad it was that I’d never be able to track down the tourist who’s camera lens I was staring down.
As I exited the track, my yet again nauseous wife asked where the closest gas station was. After spending 10 minutes in the powerband, the BMW’s estimated range was quickly approaching single digits. I then realized that I had no clue where the closest gas station was. As the towns in this area are quite small, most people went to the station at Hohe Acht. That fact wasn’t any more comforting, since I had no idea how to get there except for jumping the wall off the track.
With no other options presenting themselves I drove…. that way. After a while, I noticed a sign for Adenau, which I recalled from the map was one of the largest towns in the region. Coasting down the hill in that direction trying to eek out the last drop of gas I was approached by a familiar sound. A quick glance in my mirror confirmed it. A BMW M coupe presented it’s shoe-like profile around the corner I’d just past. Behind it, a swarm of bikers. I’d accidently stumbled upon one of the fantastic driving roads around the ‘Ring. My attention went back to the road ahead of me, and my foot went hard to the brakes. There was a series of 1st gear switchbacks down to a creek bed, and a similar set climbing back out. Seeing nowhere to pull over, I adjusted my pace to respectable, and prayed there’d be a gas station around the next corner… OK, the next corner…. Maybe this one.
It was quite a long drive to Adenau. The google map says it’s only 7km, but I estimate the drive took about 3 weeks, 4 days, and 7 hours to complete the journey. At least that’s what it felt like with these cars and bikes breathing down my neck. I quickly found a gas station, and poured over 46L of gas into my 50L tank, at the approximate value of $9/gallon. Putting $100 of the cheap stuff into the tank of an econo-car really shows how good we have it in the ‘States.
I suggested we find some places around Adenau to spectate a few laps from. As I described the crazy scheme of parking for free at Aldi, walking down the street a few blocks, over a fence, up a hill, etc. I got the “perhaps not” look from my wife. The “Well, I read it on the internet…” defense was shot down, and we went back to the Hotel.
Our Hotel was the Hotel am Tiergarten, run by the family of Sabine Schmitz (of BMW ring taxi, and later, Top Gear fame), and sits atop the Restaurant Pistenklause. We made dinner reservations and went to the room to clean up a bit. The Pistenklause loosely translates to Piston Pub, and it’s been a long time getaway for drivers to meet up with after the race and swap lies over beer. The walls are plastered with more racing memorabilia than a museum. The posters aren’t just of amazing racing and races, but signed by the drivers from those cars and races. We were seated under a shrine to Senna, my view was of a fantastic panorama of the Karussell, under the picture, were broken car parts laid out like sacrifices to the racing gods from those who ran out of talent.
(here’s a great link to get a feel for the ambiance of the place: http://speedhunters.com/archive/2008/08/29/gallery-gt-gt-pistenklause-at-the-nurburgring.aspx )
The dinner was great, I had an Argentinean steak served on a slab of hot stone. The steak slowly cooks throughout your meal, so you control its doneness, really tasty. They also had the fresh, delicious beer that Germany is known for, and that night I was on a Dunkelweißen kick. Despite this great food, the atmosphere out shines the food. All around us were other pilgrims to this racing mecca. A group of Brazilians came over to take a picture of the Senna shrine above our table, we were next to a couple Brits debating which line to take. Then walked in a group of stereotypically loud Americans. It was very quickly deduced that this was a group from Dodge Viper Club of America. It turns out that earlier in the week, the Lexus LFA had set a new ‘production’ record of the Nordschelife in 7minutes, 14 seconds. After boisterously telling the waiter that the salads were made all wrong, they proceeded to (loudly) discuss ways to hone their setup and shave seconds off their lap times. It was a strange mix of people, who all had far too much money, and could apparently hire someone to hustle a car around the Ring, because just after we left, they beat the record again with a 7 minute 12 second run: http://www.viperclub.org/nurburgring/ Bellies full of good food and great beer, we retired for the evening.
We awoke once again to the glorious sounds of racing, and prepared for our long trip back to Munich. We tried to get into the Museum again, but it was still closed. Jonesing for souvenirs, we made our way to the gas station at Höhe Acht. This innocent looking gas station has everything the Ring fanatic could want, from huge room containing scale models of every racecar ever conceived, to a toaster that brands your morning toast with an outline of the track. We grabbed some clothes and stickers, then sat outside gawking at all the different cars that pulled up.
After that, I began my painful drive away from the Nürburgring, vowing I’d be back again. Just as the Ring faded out of sight, it started raining on me, with a little Charlie Brown cloud following me all the way home.
If you’d like to plan a Ring trip of your own, feel free to email me any questions at rallyxPOS13@gmail.com, and I’ve complied a few handy links to put together a trip:
http://www.nurburgring.org.uk/ The #1 source for English information about the Ring, places to stay, places to rent cars from, and directions to the track, etc.
http://www.nuerburgring.de/en.html the official Ring webpage, with schedule, opening times, ticket prices.
http://www.am-tiergarten.de/en/home/ The hotel and Restaurant listed in my article.
http://savethering.org/ Organization for awareness of Nüro-disney additions to the Ring
When performing the automotive equivalent to diving head first into the deep end, it’s best not to do it in the middle of a crazed water polo game. So as all of the exotic cars were firing up and clambering towards the entrance gates of the Nürburgring’s Nordschleife, I decided it would be best wait a bit for traffic to die down before I headed out there. As I wandered back to my car, there were cars and bikes streaming past getting ready to head out for their first laps, people everywhere were checking tire pressures, and giving their cars the final checks. A line started up for those who had bought tickets to be frightened within an inch of their lives on the BMW Ring-Taxi.
I got back to my car, sitting across from the entrance in a gravel lot. As I sat there everything started to sink in, where I was, and what I was about to take on. I hadn’t had pre-race butterflies in my stomach this bad in years! The ‘Ring was built back in 1927 as an ultimate test of the best of the best, drivers and machines. 13 miles long with 172 corners, and I’d forgotten each and every one of them. A track so massive that each set of corners can have their own weather patterns. A place so demanding that Jackie Stewart dubbed it “The Green Hell”, and so dangerous that modern day Gran Prix won’t touch it. Not to mention I’d never turned a wheel in anger on the car I’d just taken the wheel of. Erica must have sensed the anxiety setting in, and asked if everything was OK. “Just excited, I guess,” I said with false bravado. To give my mind something else to focus on, I got out and gave the car it’s final once-over. A quick little autocross tech to make sure all the wheels were still mostly attached. I took a deep breath, gathered up some resolve, and started the car.
As I made my way through the parking lot, I saw that the line had died down. I pulled up to the entrance gate behind a VW R32, and a caged Sirocco and Suzuki Swift from rentracecar.de. To discourage lap timing and showing off, the ‘Ring has banned use of cameras in car. So sadly, the picture below from a time-lapse webcam is the only photographic proof I took to the track that day. As I scanned my card, we made our way through a tight cone chicane that keeps people from blasting out of the gates. The R32 almost instantly disappeared, and I gave the two caged cars a gap as I slowly rowed through the gears up to the first corner.
(if you need help with the corner names, follow along here: http://www.nurburgring.org.uk/bendnames/index.php)
As I fired off a couple quick downshifts for the second gear Schikane that starts off the lap, I got my first taste of the car’s handling. Handling in this BMW 118i can best be described as Nautical in nature, with massive amounts of pitch and roll. Despite this, the mechanical grip was higher than the soft suspension would lead you to believe. I started poking at the traction circle and coming up to speed with the car through the first few curves. Just before Hatzenbach, I was pointed by the ironically named Swift. Somewhere around here, I started subconsciously channeling the ghost of e-racer past, and had an almost perfect clarity of what corners lie ahead and the best line to take. All those laps, years ago in my dorm room on Gran Turismo fed into my hands, and I was devouring the curves at Hatzenbach and Hocheichen, tires squealing, bumping off curbing on apexes! Soon, the voice of reason screamed in my head to slow down… no, wait… maybe that was my wife. The massive bodyroll, newfound quick pace, and my maniacal laughter didn’t seem to be sitting well with my fearless co-driver as we flew up behind the Sirocco. In all of our driving adventures over the years, she’s rarely piped up about my speed… but in this case it was extremely warranted. Today isn’t about setting a new fast lap; it’s about not making a beachball out of the car. I took the go-pedal out of the carpet, and slotted in behind the Sirocco for the next few curves.
I eventually passed the Sirocco at Aremburg, and the rest of my first lap was, for the most part, traffic free. I was watching the mirror like a hawk, as my slow driving car was often passed on this lap by the likes of BMW M5s, Audi RS6s, and my favorite pass, a black C6 Z06 Corvette. I got the privilege of listening to that un-corked LS7 roar all the way up the hill out of Bergwerk. While on the track you’re to follow the German driving rules. That is, you must only pass on the left. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the slower car to see the faster car coming, and come off to the right of the racing line while using the right turn signal. I got this routine down! The highlight of my first lap was being traffic-free into the Karussell. Words can’t describe the feeling of diving your car into this roughly segmented, highly banked 270-degree curve, accelerator mashed down, and feeling the strange mix of G-forces flick you back out. It’s a much more rough ride than you’d expect, I can’t imagine what it’s like on a race suspension.
The car, on the other hand, wasn’t as excited as I was about the lap. About halfway through, it reeked of burnt friction material, and the brake pedal started to get a bit longer. As we pulled back into our parking space, I got out to see each hubcap and the whole side of the car covered in brake dust, and the tires looked like they’d gone molten a few times. I popped the hood to let everything cool off.
The BMW wasn’t the only thing to have barely made it through alive. Erica was looking a little green. My terrible driving technique, the car’s constant pitching, rolling and occasional yawing, and the feeling of not being in control of her destiny had left her fighting off a case of motion sickness. We decided to take a break, find something cold to drink, and use the time to grab some souvenirs. With my four laps on the card, I’d also received a small credit to use at the restaurant at the entrance to the ‘Ring, “The Devil’s Diner”. So we headed that way.
(I’m stepping up on my soapbox, so if you don’t care for politics, skip this paragraph)
As I’d mentioned before, I’ve been to the ‘Ring once before, in 2004. And since then, the management has changed. I’d heard about these changes, and when we drove in, I saw that they’ve built all sorts of obscene things at the GP track: A roller coaster, a casino, and a tacky fake Bavarian village. I’d been able to easily ignore all of that since it didn’t affect my stay. However, while entering the restaurant it all came home. We weren’t allowed to use our cash in this establishment, we had to load up a ring-card with cash at the door, and use that card instead. Obviously the intent there is to skim the change off your card. The restaurant had been redone, into English, plastered with Route 66 and Harley signs, and served ‘merican bar food. This is really not what a trip to rural Germany is all about… Not spending a cent of our own money, we asked on the way out, what hours the Museum was open. I really enjoyed it the last time I was here, as it had a long history of the Ring, and many vintage racing cars. We were informed they weren’t open while we were in town. Due to the high overhead of all the amusement park crap, they couldn’t even keep the museum up and running for tourists. Even the local fan shop kiosk at the Nordschleife entrance was closed. For more about how this company is running the Ring into the ground check the website: http://www.savethering.org/ And if you do make it into the Nürburgring, buy your laps on the Nordschleife, but make sure you support the local economy by staying at local hotels/B&Bs and eating at local restaurants.
More to come in the last part…
The Tire Rack Street Survival is a “hands-on” driving experience with classroom sessions that teach teenagers how to be safe on today’s roads. They learn about distracted driving, quick decision avoidance maneuvers, loss of traction braking and turning, and lots of other real-world issues facing today’s drivers. Sign up now for this nationally sanctioned school given by your local SCCA members. Entrants must be aged 15 to 21, and have had a permit for 6 months. Entries cost $75, and you can find more information, register and pay online at MotorSportsReg.com here:
But hurry, because registration spots are limited. Entry includes lunch for entrant and parent. Event date is October 1st, from 9am to 3pm. Pre-registration is required.
We’d finally made it. My second trip to Motorsport’s Mecca, the Nürburgring Nordschleife. I put the luggage down in our hotel room, and my wife opened the window, we were immediately serenaded with the sights and sounds that make this place what it is. There was a bike-fest going on a Norschleife, and not the kind based on debauchery in a far off Dakota, this one was all about dragging a knee through a corner, and waiting for the last possible second to grab the brakes. The various different exhaust notes exploding in a strange symphony as V-twins, speed triples, and high-strung 4 cylinders sung in harmony down the straights. In between these sounds, a song that was a much finer music to our ears: Aston Martin V12s were chasing each other on a drivers training course on the Grand Prix circuit. All this music shared the picturesque backdrop or a small town in the hills. Through this window we looked upon the ruins of the Nürburg castle, atop the highest hill in the Eifel region. Below, we could see grease stained garages, open, waiting, and the ever-present supercars. For instance, parked at our small bed and breakfast hotel, there were a couple Porsche GT3s, three Ferrari 458 Italias, and an Audi RS6 Avant among others. I should also mention that this is an average Tuesday, and that the ‘Ring is only open for a couple hours this afternoon for public drives… yet, there is still the allure to draw people from all corners of the globe.
It’s a long way from Kansas, both in distance, and in mindset and it’s also a long drive from our temporary German home base in Munich. 333 miles of Autobahn driving. Oh yes, the Autobahn, when uttered by a car enthusiast, the word itself conjures up visions of Porsches flying flatout, no restrictions, other traffic seemly still in the right lane. Well, I’ll be the first to shatter that dream. Our trip consisted of my two new least favorite German words “Baustelle” and “Stau” which mean construction zone and traffic jam respectively. It seemed that our journey had been prepared by putting alternating sections of the A8 and A61 under construction, with teaser sections of unrestricted zones in between. The hammer down sections were made that little bit more exciting by my choice of car for this trip.
Knowing myself, and my complete lack of driving talent. I decided to avoid certain fiery death in something fast, yet I still wanted to have fun out there. After months of searching around, and interesting player rose to the top of the list. I could rent (from a nameless rental company) a BMW 1 series with a manual transmission. I built up an image of this in my mind, certainly slow with a rental-spec engine, but the ability to row my own gears, and the same underpinnings as the currently renowned 135i and 1M coupe. I pulled the trigger on this as my trusty ‘Ring steed, and sent about preparing for my journey. Watching lap videos and even dusted off the ol’ Playstation to do some laps with a stock 120i on Gran Turismo…. After a quick digital tour of the Ring’s various sandtraps, tirewalls and leaving BMW shaped bumps in most of the guardrails through my first few laps, I decided a faux-confidence was the last thing I needed out there, and put the playstation away.
I picked up my BMW 118i rental car in the early morning, and was ready for everything… Except for the car to be complete crap.
As I took to the Autobahn that morning, and drove by the glorious sign with five stripes through it, I discovered a perfect storm of terrible handling. The aerodynamics of a thrown shoe, the high winds of the day, wet roads, the feedbackless electro-boosted steering, and a custom pre-curbed rental alignment made this car terrifying at speed. At 170-180kph (110mph to those playing along at home) the rear of the car would lift and then intermittently pull to the right, HARD.
I could have slowed down… Of course, I opted for the other option: cruising along at 169kph, sweating bullets, white knuckled death grip on the wheel, ready to quell the arschedancing at the next gust of cross wind. All the while, mindful of the rear view mirror, waiting to dodge out of the way of those mythical Porsches going flat-out down the road.
The first couple times HIDs flew up behind me, I noticed another feature of this car: Unintuitive controls. The turn signal stalk had no detents, when you’d signal in one direction, it would indeterminately blink once, three times, or never turn off. Once it’d decided to start blinking a lot, you’d have to click it the opposite direction to stop it, but best not touch it for too long, or it would start blinking the other way. More annoyingly, the wiper stalk had the same logiclessness built in. 30-some odd wiper speeds with one detent, and an occasional swipe of the rear wiper just to mess with your mind. Getting the wipers to go the correct speed seemed more like entering a cheat code in Nintendo: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start, select.
I got some time to come to grips with the wipers in our first traffic jam, and just about the time I had that all figured out, coasting to a stop in neutral, the car stalls out of nowhere! Panicking, I clutch-in, and the car magically restarts. Experimenting with this in traffic, it seems that the car turns itself off to save gas/emissions, and then with an embarrassing loud restart starts itself as if you’d just stalled it. Not every time mind you, just when the car thinks it’s prudent. Glad I’m not the one paying for starters/batteries.
This routine of frightening triple digit straight-line rotation, followed by periods of shameful restarts continued for 6 hours.
But once I was caught up in all that was the Nürburgring, these complaints were put to the back of my mind. The traffic and construction had eaten most of the tourist time, and the ring was due to open in 45 minutes or so. So after checking into our hotel, and un-loading the car, we took off to get to the Nordschleife entrance. After a quick pause to drool all over the Porsche GT3 parked next to us at the hotel, of course. We strolled into the Nordschleife’s parking lot, just as people were starting to show up, and you can’t help but be hit by the casualness of it all. A guy in a Ferrari F430 Scuderia calmly chats up a group of bikers with Ducati (Ducatis, Ducatii? Never had to worry about how to pluralize that word until now!), while someone with a Porsche GT3 RS sets his tire pressures. You’re standing amongst cars you’d only otherwise see together at an autoshow. But in this case, the fanfare, umbrella girls, and shiny lights are stripped away, and on close inspection, the bumpers are covered in dead bugs, chipped from rocks thrown up by other cars, and have slits cut in them for tow hooks. This is what these cars are made for, and they’re unapologetically raw. It’s kind of surreal.
I buy my tickets for the Ring. Since I’ve been there last, things have modernized a bit, and instead of paper tickets, they’re pre-loaded onto a plastic card. The laps are currently €24, about double what I paid in 2004. (More on that later) There’s a bit of a discount at 4 laps, so I put 4 on my card and head back out to the parking lot. Some of the bikers are heading out after their long weekend, and the parking lot is filling up with cars for the Touristenfarthen. I saw every generation and type of Porsche there, BMW’s fitted with cages and carbon fiber everything, purpose built rentals from companies like rent4ring.de andrentracecar.de. There was a smattering of Japanese cars a few Miatae, a WRX P1, a 350Z, and an Evo VI. There were a couple American cars, a Z06, and a Mustang GT. There was every kind of BMW/Audi/VW you could imagine there as well. As I looped the lot, I also noticed the license plates. There were cars there from near every country in Europe, and quite a few from Great Britain… again, on a random Tuesday afternoon for only a couple hours of open track time.
As I walk back to the car, they announce the opening of the Nordschleife, and engines all around me start to fire up, playing that wonderful symphony again. Flat 6’s growl, Ferrari’s bark, LS7s rumble, bikes spin, and even the clatter of a few diesels, it all adds up to an amazing cacophony of sound
To be continued…
