nowata

Has anyone on the 993 page driven the 'ring? My wife said i should do this before they close it or i die. not sure what she has planned for me, so i'm thinking of next spring. i found this rental agency.

http://www.rent4ring.de/en/info/rent...eife.html#c172

i'd be interested in your experiences and suggestions.

MartinC2S

I did this 2 years ago and while I didn't rent from these guys I would highly recommend the experience. I rented a prepped scirocco for 6 laps and had a blast. I think most of the rental companies are fairly similar in price and service but differ in the cars they offer.

kjr914

If you've never driven the ring, most won't rent you a higher end car (or say they won't). I did rentracecar.de and got the bottom of the line Suzuki Swift with about 125HP. It was stripped out a bit, with a single hoop roll bar and some stickier tires. I borrowed a helmet, but it wasn't a requirement...I felt safer...I AX with a helmet in a parking lot, so it seems I should wear one on the Ring...YMMV.

Caveat: I've done a bunch of AX and a few track days., but I didn't have time to do the research and learn the track, nor do I play video games...in short, I was well behind the game the minute I pulled out onto the Nordschleife.

I pushed the car, and a 125HP Suzuki Swift was more than enough to get "The Experience". Seriously. More car would have allowed me to do dumb things. I did 4 total laps, 2 back to back and then HAD to take a break. Beware of dive bombing motorcycles and Porsche GT3s in the corners. And there are Sunday drivers as well as flying GT3s...makes it all that more gripping.

Summary: HELL YES!!!! Worth every penny! And I'll try to get back there each time I go to Europe!

Van1

Did one lap last year in my BMW X1. Very intimidating track but it was a fun drive. Well worth the 26 Euro it costs to do a lap.

Kein_Ersatz

Will be there Oct 11th for VLN race and will go out Sunday the 12th if weather holds. FWD is your friend at the Ring, 200HP or under is more than enough for newbies. RSR (Ron) and Rent a Race Car DE (Theo & Heide) are both great to rent from. Learn the track before you go (PS3 GT6 or X Box Fonza, or watch hours of videos), it will pay big dividends. Practice Sim with a slow car (GTI / Scirocco / Clio). Stay at AM Tiergarten for the whole experience. Weekday evenings are better than weekends for open track less crowds. 4 Laps will be enough first time.

Sunday Lap in Rent-A-Racecar Scirocco After VLN ace in April 2014

NYC993

Planning to do this next Sunday...

Juha G

I agree with everyone else advising to rent a low hp car! You will get so much more out of it with a 200hp (or less). You can focus on the track and things don't get out of hands so easy.

Everyone is also telling to watch hours of videos and practise on simulators...I think it's a waste of time if you've never been to the ring before. I know 90% of the people don't agree with me but I still think it's much better to drive the track slowly a couple of times and then start increasing the speed as you get more familiar with it.
If you are a decent driver and you don't need to focus on the car (this is where a low hp, easy to drive car pays off), you can drive 95% of the track just based on what you can see. Then there are the blind corners for which the only way to learn is to drive there. Pick up speed little by little trying to memorise where you can go flat out and where you need to lift a bit (with a sub 200hp car you can basically stay flat out most of the track).
The elevation changes, changes in level of grip (as you move 1m away from the line) etc. are something that you will not learn from the simulators.
and there are over 80 corners so before visiting the track , you really won't know which corners to focus on and memorise... that's why I think it is a waste of time.

Not trying to brag (just to prove the point) but I never did any simulators or tried to memorise the track and my 9th lap ever on the Norsdschleife was a 8:46 BTG with a 190hp E36 BMW.
I have raced a similar car for 6 years so it was really easy to drive the track with that car. I think my first completely blind lap was 9:30 or something in that neighbourhood. The second lap was already sub 9min. And that is solely because 95% of the track you can drive by just looking ahead but the rest 5% (blind corners) is you can pick up a lof of speed when you know how to drive them. They are quite quickly memorised.

On the other hand, I don't think I would've driven much faster with a 400hp GT3... It's just a whole other world on that track with a fast car.

I also drove a friends Megane RS CUP with 265hp. It was much faster (8:29 BTG) but not as enjoyable to drive as the lower hp BMW.

So bottom line: No need to memorise the track before hand, just get a low hp car and take it easy! you will love it!!!

I think simulators are a good way to enhance your driving, but only after you have already driven on the track. Then it is nice to drive the simulator as you have real experience from each corner etc.

I am travelling right now but when I get back home next week, I can post up a lap with Jesse Krohn behind the wheel of my friends RS megane. Jesse holds the current lap record for the VLN 24h variante (GP track + Nordschleife) in CUP5 class.

Neil Perry

Hi
I did it last year, 1st Driven around the track in a 997 GT3, that was a blast and a great way to see the track.
I then did 3 laps in a hired Suzuki swift, it was plenty good enough. I have raced karts for about 12 years and moved onto a Suzuki swift and twin turbo RX7 in Australia, the Suzuki was not a let down. Plus it was the only right hand side drive car and on a new track a plus for me.
Actually it is quite intimidating the Nordschleife is interesting with bikes and cars of all powers and drivers of all abilities. I used Rent4Ring, Ralph Beck, great guys and very helpful.
Interesting when to get back to the shop they check for mechanical over revs and get you charged every time you do it, could work out more than the hire, luck would have it I was a very good boy

Good Luck

Ewok

Definitely learn it in a video game or films first. It will take many hours.

But if you're not already familiar with it, you're not obsessed with it, are you? And if you're not obsessed, why would you do it? Just 'cause it's cool?

If you are obsessed, then you should do it and you'll love every minute of it.

Toga

I would just add, if you have the opportunity, go first as passenger with someone who knows the track; You'll enjoy that for sure, and it will help you stay humble while you bring your own car (or rental) for the first driving experience.

Vandit

I did Rent4Ring back in fall of 2012. It was a Suzuki Stage 2 half day (6 lap rental). It was great. I only did 5 of the 6 laps and got refunded 1 lap because it started raining before my first lap and by my 5th lap it was getting pretty scary to be out there on semi-slick R888 tires. It was still a blast, and while the rain meant I took it even slower, it also meant the track was fairly unoccupied. Even then, I still spent a bunch of time driving in the rearview mirror to make sure I wasn't blocking all the faster cars. The elevation changes are dramatic!

destaccado

I haven't rented from rent4ring because the last time I was looking their car selection was extremely limited. It looks like they've expanded it a bit.

I am familiar with RSR Nurburg and rentracecar.de and while I would rent from either again -- I would look at rentracecar.de about 10x before I looked at RSR Nurburg once. This is simply because I felt more like I was walking into an independent shop while RSR feels like you're walking into a dealership with heavy marketing... Rentracecar also has slightly better prices as well.

- I don't really agree with driving the track on a video game first. I had a blast without doing that and I doubt you're attempting to set records. After my first time there I did a bunch of video game laps and honestly it's so far away from driving the real thing unless you're doing hundreds of laps and able to memorize the entire track it seems like mostly a waste of time for what you're looking to do.

- I mostly went with the lower horsepower cars (VW Scirocco) mainly due to the insurance deductible. A wreck costing me 6000E would be a ****ty day but I'd probably laugh about it afterward -- wrecking a Porsche and owing 5x that would have me crying on the side of the road.

- Try and go to the public evening sessions. The weekend public sessions are incredibly busy and you'll spend a lot of your lap on the right side of the road with your blinker on as guys in GT3s and other exotic cars blow past you. The night session is long enough to do 4-6 laps with short breaks and nowhere near as busy.

NYC993

Did this today.

I also took the ring taxi, which I highly recommend. If you go by yourself perhaps can use other company that does this in 911s. M5 is nice for a group since it can fit 3 passengers (you pay for a ride not per person). We hit 140-150mph in a 5 door luxomobile.

As far as renting the car, that's really fun, but it's not like DE where you get to push the car a bit more. Not knowing the car and the track and all these GT3s and motorcycles flying around you make it a bit intimidating first few laps. By the time you start getting hang of it, it's done. I rented suziki swift (the cheapest they have) so it was pretty slow, but you can still get it to 100mph on the straightaways...get passed by gt3s doing 160.

Also if the weather is nice, should plan a whole day as the track gets busy. It closed 4-5 times today for 20-30 minutes each and it takes a while to get on and off the track. But it's fun hanging out at the track (gt3s, 993s, 964s ferraris, R8s etc.).

So bottom line your wife is right.

SeaJeff

+1 on the ring.... sure, I played it in Forza but getting out there phyiscally with the masses was simply awesome. Almost as cool as the end-of-restrictions sign on the autobahn.

The track is long- 22km, and I remember asking myself around the 15km mark if I was still on the first lap. The sheer number and diversity of the turns was wild. But the ring was only a part of the whole Nurburgring experience.

We stayed at Hotel Am Tiergarten and enjoyed dinner and a few drinks at the hotel's restaurant Pistenklause which was all decked out in racing history. We sat next to some AMG test drivers in their racing gear. While our hotel wasn't in the main racetrack, it was not far away from some awesome vantages. When we pulled up to the hotel the receptionist motioned down the road- pointing to the track. We walked down a short road and spent an hour watching an "industry test day"- everything there- lots of Pcars, bmws, minis, and a mustang cobra in camo. Lots of noise, lots of speed.

After watching we drove over to the Nordschleife entrance for the evening mid-week tourist day. I had my family with me so I only paid for a single lap (about 30 euros). Still, a pretty decent crowd, all sorts of cars. Wow, what an experience! It was on my bucket list and held up better than most of the things on it!