Nurburgring Trip with pics

TheBazman

Well folks I finally did it and drove the 535d to the Nurburgring this week.
Left Dublin at lunch time on Monday - Ferry to Holyhead - drove to London and kipped at a mates house for a couple of hours. Up early on Tuesday and drove along with my mate in his 997 Carrera 2S to Maidstone services to meet up with three guys in their stripped out E34 M5s. When I say they were stripped out..they were really stripped out - no panelling, no back seats, no mats, no soundproofing, no door handles...just an engine, two bucket seats, steering wheel and not much else

Two of the three M5s are shared and used as track cars (altho' they also have standard everyday E34 M5s also). I had kinda hoped that they would ease into the journey down to the ferry at Dover, but they just put the boot down as we were leaving Maidstone and literally disappeared into the horizon. My mate in the Porsche had got caught behind a truck leaving the service station so I rang him ...the conversation went something like "put the hammer down...these guys are gone!"

Anyway two hours on the ferry and we were in Dunkerque. Did my best to stay in touch with the M5s which was proving difficult. Again the Porsche was getting unlucky in the traffic (which was pretty bad in fairness) and was getting left behind.

We checked into the Hotel Am Tiergarten which is just up the road and the guys headed down to do some laps .

I went out on several passenger laps and I must say these guys in the M5s were absolutely amazing drivers. They all know the Ring so well, and their cars so well. They drive at the absolute limits, know all the lines of the track, and were bullying Porsche GT3 drivers. I cant say enough how impressed I was with both the cars and their driving. They consistently lapped between 9.05 and 9.15 even in traffic, altho' one lapped in 8.45 the next day!!
I went for a little drive around the track in the 535d obviously taking all the wrong lines and with the indicator almost permanently on letting others by.


That evening we had dinner in the Pistenklause restaurant (owned by Sabine Smhmitz family) and hit the hay around 11pm. After breakfast the next day we headed down to the track and spent the day putting in laps and admiring the car porn. There was a Scuderia Hanseat event on also and the amount of supercars were unbelievable - GT3's, GT2s, GTRs, 2 Gumpert Apollos, at least 4 F430 Scuderias, 2 R8 V10s, no end of M3s, M5s, an ISF, C63 estate. Everytime I put away the camera I had to take it out again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAWAGrqCMhQ

It also helped the atmosphere that it was 30 degrees while we were there

We left that evening and made our way back to Dunkerque for the ferry - with hindsight we probably left a bit late and were under quite a bit of pressure but gladly we made it on time. Anyway got back to London at 3am Thursday morning, got 4 hours sleep and headed for Holyhead. Left myself plenty of time to get there but got stuck in a 15 mile tailback outside london for 1.5hrs. Cue pressure to make the ferry again with me being the last car on. Anyway got back to Dublin at 6.30pm absolutely knackered.
Definitely something that I always wanted to do - experience of a lifetime.










I'll add more photos when I get them uploaded (dial-up is not fun!!)

TheBazman

TheBazman

Gumbo

nice....

cool pics. have you any of your 535d?

Vertakill

Sounds class!

That GTR got quite close on your inside there when he overtook..! :eek:

TheBazman

kceire wrote: »

nice....

cool pics. have you any of your 535d?

Its the silver one you can just about see in the background of the 1st pic, also you just see the back of it on the pic above the silver M5. I'll be uploading more pics in the next few days

TheBazman

Vertakill wrote: »

Sounds class!

That GTR got quite close on your inside there when he overtook..! :eek:

I was only a passenger but that thing was amazing. Very little passed these guys when I was out with them but that GTR passed us like were were standing still

Vertakill

TheBazman wrote: »

I was only a passenger but that thing was amazing. Very little passed these guys when I was out with them but that GTR passed us like were were standing still

Lol, crazy. I think I'd be sitting in awe as they went by.

bladebrew

brilliant pics!

whats the story with the paint all over the track??

.Longshanks.

Wow!

tossy

bladebrew wrote: »

brilliant pics!

whats the story with the paint all over the track??

Graffiti people paint their names,Club or Forum names or just motor racing tributes all over the track.

Great write up and pics Bazman,brings back memories,you should check out some of the professional ring photographers sites to buy some pictures of yourself on the ring,i hope the bmw is wearing its Ring sticker with pride

mrfamilyguy

Was there on tues and weds, spotted your car, a 04 CW reg 3series coupe and a 95 d-reg honda civic..

Some of the metal on show was crazy, there was an AMG driver day on tues, the ring runners of sweden were there on weds(f-430's were as common as muck)..

I drooled for hours over the 2 gumperts.

1 guy arrived in his lambo which only made it half way around and was towed back due to mechanical difficulties.

Another guy made s**t of a gt2/3(not sure) towards the end of the day..would not like to see the repair bill!!!!

What a place though....



btw one of the new gtr's was driven by a disabled driver...what a pilot

JimmyCrackCorn!

Thanks

These are the type of threads there should be more of in the motors section.

Donnelly117

unreal pics

Paddo81

Fair play - thats really cool, something Id love to do someday. Just out of interest is it all sportcars and suped up motors at the Nurburgring, is there any clapped out bangers or cars that clearly arent up to the task!?

** Asking because I want to go and have a sh!t car! lol

very nice bazman! great thread..

for anyone who wants to read more like this, this site is brilliant..

http://www.nurburgring.org.uk/

Yakult

Looks brilliant man, zee germans like their cars thats for sure.

definally would like to go their when Im a little older and have money lol!

Midnight_EG

I-I-I-I think I just came :O

TheBazman

mrfamilyguy wrote: »

Was there on tues and weds, spotted your car, a 04 CW reg 3series coupe and a 95 d-reg honda civic..

Some of the metal on show was crazy, there was an AMG driver day on tues, the ring runners of sweden were there on weds(f-430's were as common as muck)..

I drooled for hours over the 2 gumperts.

1 guy arrived in his lambo which only made it half way around and was towed back due to mechanical difficulties.

Another guy made s**t of a gt2/3(not sure) towards the end of the day..would not like to see the repair bill!!!!

What a place though....



btw one of the new gtr's was driven by a disabled driver...what a pilot

Good stuff - as you say as well as the Scuderia Hanseat event there was a lot of Ringrunners cars from Sweden. I wonder if I were to go back on a "regular" day would I be disappointed... There was a couple of track closures alright - the guy in the damaged GT3 I'd say was well pi$$ed. I have a picture of the LP560-4 leaving on the back of a truck - it makes sense that it was a mechanical problem as there didnt appear to be any cosmetic damage

TheBazman

Paddo81 wrote: »

Fair play - thats really cool, something Id love to do someday. Just out of interest is it all sportcars and suped up motors at the Nurburgring, is there any clapped out bangers or cars that clearly arent up to the task!?

** Asking because I want to go and have a sh!t car! lol

I think anything is allowed - this thing was there

They did make him take off the temporary spoiler though
I also saw a 42 seater bus go around and an old mark 1 Fiesta and Golf

tdc

brilliant report bazman, defenitely something i want to do myself one day

TheBazman wrote: »

please tell me u hav more pics of the black one with red stripes!

TheBazman

a few more pics

TheBazman

BArra

what exactly is the opel in the pictures above?

fryup

how much is it to do??

btw ..don't mean to be a kill-joy but have there been many fatalities??

tossy

Last year it was 71e for 3 laps,i believe it's gone up since though.There have been multiple fatalities on the Ring,it's like a fair ground ride that can bite back that is part of the attraction it's one of the scariest things i've ever done in a car but i'd do it again in the morning.

Put it this way the Ring was deemed to dangerous by F1 drivers and the stopped holding F1 races there,then they opened it up to the public :eek:

if you check ben lovejoys site, the numbers for deaths are skewed badly... it's only if they die on the track that it's counted as a fatality.

3 people died one day he was there but only one on the track so only counted as one fatality.

mrfamilyguy

2 guys on bikes died there last week..cops arrested somebody over one of the incidents.

Its 22e per lap..

Cmar-Ireland

Whats going on with the exhausts on the Corvette?

ikillcopiers

BArra wrote: »

what exactly is the opel in the pictures above?

It's an Opel GT, replacement for the Speedster/VX-220.
Based on a GM/Saturn thingy from the States, as far as I know
it's LHD only (well, so far at least).

Saw them when I was in Slovenia last year, nice car!
2.0 Turbo RWD, and they were talking of a V8 version,
don't know if it was popular enough or not to warrant it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opel_GT