Had a chance recently to mark off a bucket list item of mine recently - driving around the Nürburgring. Figured Id post about the experience a bit here.

The initial thing that surprised me was how extremely accessible it is for visitors. All you need is a car (you can rent one on site as I did) and a card/ ticket from the info center (or from your ring rental car place) to enter and take a lap. No qualifications besides a license (US ok) and being of age.

I went out and did 3 laps first thing in the morning, followed by a half hour break, and then 2 more laps. For the experience I did, it was about one thousand euros (car rental, lap pass rental, all inclusive rental - they refuel it, and insurance $6k max deductible). I believe individual lap cards alone are down around 100 euro each. It was an absolutely surreal experience and very differnet than Id inagined from driving it on video games for years.

The things that stuck out most to me:

1. The two concrete 'carousel' corners are extremely rough and choppy. Very hard on the car and your wrists. Absolutely the fastest way around due to the bank angle, but I thought for sure I broke something after the first one with how hard it bangs the car over every slab.
2. How much elevation change there is. Video games always have a tough time conveying this as you can never actually feel the vertical G forces on screen - the Laguna Seca corkscrew is similar. But the overall height delta here is 300m+ (about 1000 feet), so it's very surprising in person. Makes some of the corners a lot more tricky when you're managing horizontal grip while the track is either helping or hurting with elevation change.
3. How variable the weather is. The day I went was cold with spotty rain. As the track is almost 13 miles long, I experienced one lap with about 1/3 dry and sunny, 1/3 dry and foggy, and 1/3 wet and drizzly. Strange to be able to go through different conditions on the same track on the same lap.
4. How narrow it is beyond the track. Lots of areas barely have 6-8 feet of slippery grass before the metal wall. Absolutely no room to recover there if things go wrong. Sure adds to the feeling of danger when you're flying through at 100+.
5. How slippery it can get. By the latter laps, the rain clouds had moved across the entire track and it was all wet. The rental car place warned to stay off the racing line as much as possible. The track is very old so drainage isn't good, and they had an endurance race the day prior that left a lot of rubber on the primary line. As the rubber fills in the gaps in the track surface, the water beads up on top and makes it greasy - almost as bad as ice. The tough part is the whole track isn't like that - just the sharper corners where lots of rubber was laid down - so it was always hard to judge traction in advance as it was so variable.

Overall a fantastic experience. I'll absolutely do it again if I'm ever in the area. Actual pic of me in the track rental car (minor engine mods, race suspension and brakes, cage, gutted interior, track tires) as they have lots of pro photographers set up around the perimeter / sell photos to you online afterwards.



They also have several YouTube channels out there to catch the wrecks and craziness - some whole channels dedicated to it. Even the rental car place had a major body part (hood, bumper, etc) off every car they'd lost to a wreck during a rental since opening. Walls were literally covered with broken body panels and wheels (some of those curbs are beastly).

 

Thats awesome! Even getting to experience different conditions, although unfavorable. I bet that was something to really take in. I doubt I can ever visit in real life but I have about 3000 virtual hours on Touristenfahrten in Assetto (video game).

Whats the fastest you drove?

 

I think the rain was kind of a good thing for this type of thing for a couple reasons:
1. traffic was way lower, especially first thing in the morning. Ive seen some videos on youtube mid sunmer where it's packed. With a fairly low end car like this, Id bet youd be spending a lot of time on nice days keeping out of the way of crazy fast passing cars. There were plenty of times Id drive for minutes on end alone without seeing another car.

2. It brings the speeds down considerably / likely makes a crash less deadly if something goes wrong. You get the feeling of being near the limit without having to go extreme speeds.

A bit embarrassed to say I have no idea.

Out on the bulk of the track, it took 100% of my focus to keep that thing out of the grass / wall. Like you (although maybe not that extreme, lol) Id driven it a ton on video games, so I was very familiar with the layout and corners. What got me were the slippery rubber patches from the ideal dry racing line (I almost wrecked it on one barely 2 mins into my first lap) - so I was putting all my focus into reprogramming my racing line thinking.. That was very foreign to me as I've never actually raced in the wet before - I assumed it would be just like driving hard on a wet street, but was very different. The areas outside of the dry racing line were like that, but the heavy rubber buildup at the corners was closer to ice than wet in terms of traction. As you have to pass over that dry racing line one way or another, you had to be super careful to pass over it (on both entry and exit) with the wheel straight or the car would snap around on you.

The long straight is the obvious place to push it, but you really can't on tourist days. You're supposed to be 100% out of the gas by the audi sport banner and they've got actual highway speed limit signs decreasing from there on (not that they strictly enforce it, but they could kick you out if you're clearly not following the rules). About 2/3 down the main straight you either have to exit or wait in queue to scan your ticket for another lap to continue straight so you cant go WOT down the whole straight.

So I focused on maximizing my speed on the last corner exit / up to the audi banner and managed to get it to 200 kph around there before braking back down. But of course in mph, that's not really particularly impressive - that's only like 120. It's a fairly low powered car though, so that seemed pretty decent.

 

Dang, meinen freund fahren nach das auto Nürburgring strasse, sehr goot Bumpin...

Okay, enough of the GI German, spent 32 months over there by Nuremberg at a old Luftwaffe Airfield 73-76 at Stork Barracks, Illeshiem. But enough of that.

You are not taking life lying down, made it across the water, sightseeing I suspect and it appears the Nurburgring course was a bucket list item, a high priority bucket list item, You are the crazy one of this forum. It was pretty thrilling reading your vivid description attacking the course, unloading susepension, rubber ice, varied weather conditions over 13 miles, jheesh, like we were with you. Congrats on the adventure vacation. The thrill of a life time, you are killing us Smalls...

You going to other famous German cities, sites, Munich, Garmisch, Neuschwanstein Castle (Walt Disney Castle modeled after this one) or the quaint small beautiful yet historically important town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber? I was rarely in the barracks like many GI's were. Always over to the Bahnhof, eine fahrcarte nach Ansbach bitte or other destinations. You going to France, England, Italy, Greece or ???

 

Seems like a really beautiful country all around. Ive probably spent too long in the middle of the desert surrounded by endless rows of stucco boxes - but it's very refreshing to see architecture pre 1998, lol.

Unfortunately this was a solo work trip, so I didnt have much free time. I took a couple extra personal days to explore a bit though:

-Dussedorf / winter market
-Stuttgart / Porsche and Mercedes museums (unfortunately Porsche wasnt doing factory tours the day I went)
-Sinsheim / Technik Museum (not planned, but I was driving by and spotted a full Concorde and Tupolev TU-144 bolted to the roof - so I had to stop in to look)

We do plan to visit as a family some day, so I tried to keep my sightseeing mostly to stuff only I was interested in.

Not on this trip unfortunately. We are planning a southern Europe family trip for next year though. We've hit the big spots across North America pretty heavily at this point, so we want to start venturing out a little more on future trips.

 

Hey Im just curious.. Which games are you familiar with that you drove Nords in?

 

I'd bet 99% of my time on that track was Gran Tursimo - I want to say 4 + 5, although the series numbers run together a bit in my head.

I couldve swore I played it on a fairly recent Forza too as I've bought every one of them. But I've definitely had a lot less time to play than I did back in the old GT days.

 

That is awesome!!! And definitely some neat perspective about the actual location (like weather and elevation).

Once in Vegas, I got to drive a Lamborghini on a race course (it as no 13 miles long). And then a year or two, I got to drive a Porsche GT3 RS (if my memory is right) around a course in Ohio called Nelson's Ledges. Both very fun! Both had a guy with you to instruct you on things to do. I admit, driving a car you are NOT used to, on a course you don't know is challenging for me (more about the car than the course). They tell you to mash the gas and then slam the brake, sure you are in straight aways, but not used to that car, it can be concerning. I only got three laps on both experiences. But the time I was in the 3 lap, I started feeling more comfortable, but my time was over. I would have loved a 4th lap.

 

Just curious, do you remember which track / company?

We usually go out there once or twice a year and that activity is one of my go-to stops each time. I love the new(ish) dedicated Speed Vegas track, but nothing beats the older lead/follow convoy one on public roads out through red rock canyon (still no idea how they kept that open as long as they did).

They did offer that here (and required it on the higher end cars), but I intentionally picked the car below the threshold for it being mandatory. Ive had mixed experiences with them in the past, so I enjoyed the lower pressure of being able to figure things out at my own pace.

I think some of it is driven by the very unusual setup of this track though being somewhat open during tourist days. As long as you have a card with purchased laps remaining, anyone can drive practically anything at any time here. You could do a lap or two, then exit straight onto public roads to go grab breakfast a few miles away, then right back on the track (after scanning your card) to lap some more. So that makes the instructor piece more challenging to do if someone isnt planning to do constant lapping.

I totally agree on those experiences you mentioned. Oddly enough, I felt the exact opposite here.

Usually at the ones like you mentioned in Vegas, the car is the main attraction and is often very different from a normal daily driver type car (sometimes much more so with the ultra exotic stuff). In this case, the car was nothing particularly special.

They use fairly low trim 1 series BMWs with 'stage 2' engine tuning and track suspension / brakes / tires. My daily driver GTO is significantly faster in a straight line, and my vette would walk all over this BMW on the track (not on the drag radials of course though, lol). So getting comfortable with this car only took a half a lap or so to feel out the limits.


The thing that I really struggled with was the track. It's very old and condition seemed much worse than the newer stuff - especially on the two concrete carousels where it feels like youre driving over railroad tracks while on them. Lots of bumps, spliced in pavement sections, paint-graffiti on the road, etc that make it tricky to judge until you're right up on top of them.

​​​​​​I 100% know what you mean. I typically do 5 laps per car at those places for that reason, especially the layouts where the first and last laps are only partials due to pit location.

That was my favorite thing about this 'open' track setup is that you could go as much or as little as you wanted (at a fixed cost per lap of course). They just asked that I either return it by 1 for their afternoon rental session or to let them know as early as possible if I wanted to keep it for the day (as they didn't have this specific car booked in advance but could get walk ins).

I'd originally planned to only do 2 for the experience but ended up going 3 more with a break in between for mental cool down. Frankly I could've kept going all day with enough break time, but had to get back to work stuff that night.

 

Going through some of my pictures from the trip, I ran across this elevation map of the track shown at an automotive museum in the region. Does a nice job showing how drastic the height changes since this is nested into the hillside.

Hard to get a feel for it in person at the actual track due to the large size and all of the trees/foliage.