Just after coming back from Japan in June, returning to work wasn’t gruelling, but there’s always the helpless reminiscing about the great country no matter how many times I go back, its always an unforgettable experience.
I felt, however, I needed to do the trip that has always been within arms’ reach; the one any car “enthusiast” must fulfil as a rite of passage. Germany. Nurburgring in particular, but I wanted to ensure I got to see as much of the country as possible within a short span of time. Fortunately, I have a buddy who has featured on the site in previous posts (Luke) who has ventured twice before, so he had the Ring experience under his belt and was pretty keen on getting back out there this summer just gone. We planned the trip for about 6 nights, cramming a decent amount of highly car-related activities in. Not gonna spoile whats to come, but Nurburgring was just the beginning…
We picked the hire car up from the airport in Cologne, and made the drive down to Nurburg, home to the infamous Green Hell. It was really odd seeing the circuit, initially, as we were just rolling along the country road that lines up parallel to the Dottinger Hohe (the longest straight on the track, where we have all gone off at the end of on Gran Turismo). Luke was like, “See where that Audi gantry board is, that’s the home stretch”, and at first all I could do is replay memories in my head of watching replays of the virtual version of the Nordschleife, trying to work grasp my bearings. It was pretty nuts at first. Then it just kept getting nuttier, as the villages you drive through are littered with so much serious metal, you don’t know where to look.
A quick walk through the ‘ring`Boulevard’ where there’s a few manufacturer dealership/showrooms, a go-kart track, ‘ringwerk’ museum, a handful of giftshops, and a tattoo parlour. We then made our way back to the hero-hirecar which we spent hours debating over whether it was the update 184-bhp model or not. Turns out, it was, according to the VIN plate. Bit disappointing to be honest as I expected a bit more out of the tune-up Mazda made. Not complaining though; its boot was big enough for my camera backpack, a duffel, and a mini suitcase. Oh yeah, and it drove spektakularly.
On the Thursday we landed, practice for the VLN 4 hour endurance race was already in progress, so we headed to a couple corners where you can park up and spectate till your heart’s content, watching the beast-mimicking GT4 & GT3 cars blitz by, before we drove to our airbnb.
志向 