jshudson

Fantastic experience, Keep us posted with updates and pics.
I now have a new major objective (Nurburgring) for my life and it has moved to the top of the list

Larry Cable

Do you know how to go about hiring a guide in advance ... going there on 7/31!

Larry Cable

its well worth it ... see avatar left

buttons123

Mike,

The car looks really good and it's so classy in white. Got mine coming in March '09. Could be white again!?


Are you using some of those routes I gave you?


My Martini baby is in having a RMS leak done and having the 111 point check to extend the warranty for another year.


Also needs new tyres so I have the full deck coming Wednesday and I've gone for the MPSC Version II's that Michelin have launched for your new model. What have they put on yours?


Leaving on Thursday for the RMA track day at the Ring on Sunday 12th and I'll take a nice leisurely route down, really looking forward to this day.


German GP in the morning and then we're on the Nordschleife at 1.30pm till 7.30pm only 50 or so cars!!!!!!!!


Are you still booked to do this? If so, hope to see you there!


Make sure your motor is run in, I'm itching for a passenger ride in it and you'll want to use all of it for this day.

buttons123

Last year at the Manthey Porsche day

_rocket

Do you know if the existing vacuum system and hoses/connectors can be updated to Gen-2 and if so, are you having this done as well?
Secondly, is the Gen-2 seal itself still the same or has it also been redesigned?

cello

Doing it right !!!!! Your car is beautiful - Congrats, best, & GL !

buttons - very cool 'karousel' pic.

mike: get one of those done for the garage wall ;-)

carrering

Thats the understatement of the millenium. Next you will have to visit every year. After that, you start looking for real estate. Then you move out there and ship your porsche back to where it belongs. Then you want an RS for a stable-mate and possibly a boxster set up for some experiments on the ring that you would wouldn't dare try in a new gt3. oh whats that? a condo with a 2-car garage only minutes from the entrance.... damn. yeah this is the beginning of a very expensive trip. i'm in the later stages of this. I'll let you know how it turns out.

my belief is if you go to europe to pick up a gt3, forget everything else about europe. just go to the ring and stay there as long as possible. everything else you can do without the porsche. besides paris certainly isn't going anywhere.

TeamDrugMoney

Larry, Let me ask around as to who is the Best. Sabine told me a story that there is a guy who is a DJ who advertises he is a Ring Instructor. She tells me he is less than knowledgeable. So I guess the story goes you must watch out who you get.


Hey, I did use some of the route and found your info very helpful. Many thanks for that. We kinda ran out of time down there and had to make adjustments as we went along. The Alps are just so beautiful!

The GT3 came with Pirelli Corsa PZeros. I am not familiar with them, but they are serving my purpose for now. Are these good tires? I am trying to not approach my limits as the car and the track are new to me, plus runoff area is obvioulsy limited here.

I am totally looking forward to the RMA time, and will be at Spa on Tuesday with RMA also. I do now have the break in mileage all behind me, so some good laps coming up for sure. I think I have about 40 laps at this point, how about you?

Ummmm..... I have already had these thoughts, uncontrollably. There is a guy and his son who are here that bascially just shipped his car over here with Colorado Plates, and when he is done will just ship it back. Hmmmm........ Could make the better part of the summer that way.

TeamDrugMoney

Wow, just don’t know where to begin. I got here at the town of Nurburg Saturday afternoon. A little background is that you can go on track during “touristfahrten” times, which means if you have a roadworthy car you can pay the “toll” and get on. It is 22 Euros per lap and with the exchange rate today that is about $30. You can buy a yearly pass and can also buy laps in bulk at a discounted rate. What you get is a credit card that you hold up to the gate and it keeps track of your laps. The other way to get on the track is by booking a track day with a company. It is more pricey this way, but what you gain is unlimited laps, less closures due to accidents (which happens often) and the ability to run the full straight by the opening for the pit lane as opposed to coming in to run your card through for another lap.





So we drop our bags in our hotel room to get the stuff out of the car and head over to take our first lap. The paddock area is jammed with people, drivers going out on track and a lot of spectators.There is a huge range of cars, from a Lambo to a Volkswagon. We will get to that later.





So we drive up towards the gate and some guy stops me. He asks what the license plates are for. Now there was some talk about whether or not you can get out on the ring with the Euro Delivery plates or not. I thought the worst was about to happen. So I answered to the guy that the plate was for the registration and he was satisfied with that. The license plate issue never came up again. That was a close one, but I think the guy just didn’t know what the plate was. You can see by the photo below where cars are coming in and out. I was heading to the right where I got stopped.

TeamDrugMoney

So we get out on track. Now I watched what I could on YouTube and tried to play some GrandTourismo, but didn’t go crazy with all this. I at least recognized the first 1/5 of the track, which helped some. It was quite an experience as I come from a culture of Porsche Club of America events where they protect you from people of other abilities while out on track. Not here! So it is basically a free for all. There is one major rule, only pass on the left. So when you want someone to pass you, just put your blinker on and away they go. BUT, if there is room around you they will just pass. Nobody has to wait for a passing signal! Now the saving grace it that generally you should assume that the person you are overtaking does not see you. If they don’t they can obviously run into you as you try to pass them. So this makes the car overtaking the other somewhat cautious and keeps the chaos somewhat reasonable. This seems to keep some of the motorcycles in check also.

This is all cool, just keep to the right and all will be good. I took it pretty slow and am glad I did. There are some turns at this track that will put you into the woods in a hurry. So now lets add motorcycles into the mix. They are out here also. How about campers, umm YUP! If it is road worthy and can get through the gate, it can be on here! I have even seen a large full size bus, but with a car behind it with flashing yellow lights. If memory serves me right, this is one of the first things I passed.





The track itself is very intimidating at first. It sure does take a while before you learn it. I had 5 or 6 laps in on Saturday and I would guess another 10 to 12 in on Sunday. I would say that towards the end of Sunday I was able to get into a pretty good groove. The track is intimidating at first, but do not let that keep you away. If you cannot manage traffic and are not an aware kinda person, don’t come here! Take a BMW Ring Taxi ride and call it a day. This place is somewhat dangerous for sure. Play it safe and you should be fine. There is just a lot going on!

So if you stay here long enough I bet you will see it all. Here is a sample of the things I saw. I was behind a motorcycle that was taking a corner with quite a lean to him. I am not sure what it was from, but sparks were flying, guessing it was hit protective gear hitting the ground. I saw a Nissan car almost spin out right in front of me. I did see 4 other 2010 GT3’s here, and a comment from a regular was that he was surprised just how quickly they are making it to the track. I saw the BMW Ring Taxi drifting around a corner for the passengers. This was done in the area that was highly visible to spectators. I was passed by the famous Ring Mini. I saw a biker leaning on the guard rail in the gravel pit with his bike obviously on the ground. Supposedly he was ok, but took a tumble. Today I was following an Audi station wagon that was doing a pretty good job until he almost lost it right in front of me. There must have been about 15 of these cars out on track with happy couples driving around. You could tell that since they were open cockpits that the wives were anxiously looking around at the traffic passing them up. The problem was they were very slow and you had to be cautious about coming up on one of them. Keep in mind there are a lot of blind turns here. There are no flaggers out there, but when something does happen they send someone to stand in advance of the event to warn people. Somehow it all works! There are flaggers during track days with a company.

TeamDrugMoney

So despite all the chaos, this place is relatively safe if you are cautious. As much as there is a certain feel of the Wild West here, somehow it all works. The bottom line is you will never experience a track that has so much to offer. There is just about everything here, and it just keeps coming at you. After about 15 to 18 laps you get the feel for the rhythm. I don’t know how to explain it, but this place is just awesome. The Ring just has such a feel to it. I think for me the part that draws you in is just how intricate it is. It is Watkins Glen X 15. It is just so hard to compare it to anything as what can match 72 turns in 13 or 14 miles, or whatever it is? I hope that later this week I can try to explain just what is going on here. Maybe some others can add their comments. The important thing to keep in mind is that if you are a track junkie in any capacity you must figure out how and when you are going to get here!

Keep in mind you can rent cars to take out on the Ring. Do not rent a regular car from Hertz or whatnot. A lot of people get in trouble with those companies by doing that. There are several companies that are more than willing to provide you with a “track” car and even guide service.

So basically my approach to learning the Ring went like this…. I did some YouTube to get somewhat of a feel for the track. If you come here thinking you have it memorized through whatever reason, DO NOT GO ALL OUT IN THE BEGINNING! The elevation change and off camber stuff will bite you! I had a brand new GT3 out there and wanted to bring it back in one piece. This and self preservation kept my testosterone level in control. I felt like an idiot being passed up by all the little cars, but that was totally cool with me.





The bottom line, you must make this trip a priority at some point!


There is a gas station just around the corner. My hunch is that if you had one gas station to be at to see fine cars, this is the best one in the whole world! Obviously this track is well known and a lot of nice cars come here. There were two guys yesterday with green GT3 RS’s. Oh, some guy busted up a GT3 RS yesterday here. It looked to me that he pinned a BMW against the guardrail at their final resting station in the gravel pit. Not sure how bad it was, but seemed ok. Get this, the guy called RSR Racing (just around the corner) to rent their GT3 for the next day. He was asked what he is driving now and he said he had a GT3 RS. They asked him why he didn’t want to drive that and he said because he just got into an accident with it, but is here for 2 track days and just wanted to get out on track. Hmmmm, just busted up his own car, but still wants more. Now that’s the spirit!

There are two other items that come to mind, elevation change and the weather. I really wish there was a track walk during my stay. The elevation change is noticeable in the car, but can only imagine what it is like when you are on the track walking. The highest part is something just over 2000 feet and the lowest part is just over 1000 feet. When you go through Fuchsrohre the elevation change is amazing.





The next issue is the weather. I heard people say that it can be raining on one side of the track and sunny on the other. This seemed kinda bizarre, but is it ever true. When I was doing my laps with Sabine we drove through sun, then overcast, then rain and only to return backthough cloudy skies again. Then on the next lap it was just about the same thing. It is just so bizarre here!

About Sabine Schmitz, she is the most awesome person to go around the Ring with! I spent about 3 hours with her on track on Monday and we had a great time. She keeps it safe, but most importantly makes sure it is fun! She is just so charming and pleasant. I did most of the driving as she was introducing me to the Nordschleife. However, she did some hot laps in my car and WOW, does she know how to drive! I am sure she was keeping some in reserve as it was my car. At first I was scared ****less, but quickly remembered just how proficient she is. She was telling me all about her races and where she had problems at during races on the track, and how some other famous racecar drivers get around the Ring. What a great opportunity! As you can see I had her sign the inside of my front trunk, or as Henry would call it, the Bonnet! By the way, also met fellow Rennlister Henry, AKA YearOne. One heck of a nice guy and sure can drive his GT3!








I will post more as things develop. I had Sat and Sunday on the nordschleife during Public time, yesterday as a training day from 8 to 5, then public time in the evening. I will stay here to take advantage of the Public time Wednseday nihgt. Then I will return here on Sunday for a track day, full course with RMA, then off to Spa on Tuesday with RMA. I will probably head down to the Black Forest region during the later part of this week to do some tourist stuff.

Hope you guys enjoy this!

911rox

Amazing write up TDM... Keep it coming.... Sabine rocks!!! She certainly seems to know NBR backwards...

Stay safe...

NJ-GT

I'm drooling by looking at a picture of Sabine at the wheels of a 2010 GT3.

Perfect !!!

TRAKCAR

Thank you very much for sharing and taking the time to load the pics and postings!

That would be the highlight of any one's Euro delivery; You must know people :-)

I am sure many are very jealous right now. I personally can't wait to do this myself..