I will drive that track one day

 

What a great thread!! Nice driving Larry!! This is something I have to do....Note to self... add the Ring to my bucket list.

 

Sign me up.

 

Jim, your camera work is very good. Were you holding it in your hand?

 

lol, hell no. its just a suction cup camera mount on passenger side of windshield with an extension arm. the arm acts as a great damper so it doesn't shake all over. the track as you know is extremely rough and it even holds up well in the karussel!

 

That does look a bit "hand held" but it's just the way digital stabilization works -- it creates a "buffer zone" around the four sides of the picture and then literally moves the image it records to absorb vibrations and small movements, then it slowly, smoothly, re-centers the image. That re-centering process creates the appearance of hand-held movement.

 

We are blessed in Three SPecial types of people here.
One is someone like Larry who are just great drivers Bob R.
We have people who give us information that is almost vital sometimes, like Mjones
and then people Like Carrering who would loan somebody Like Laryy his car.
I have received so much guidance from here, and people who will just give you the keys
to their car, for letting you go out for a spin!
We are blessed (I am Blessed) to have people like this on this board and what I consider a
fraternity!!

 

^ +1
Also, thanks for the video info guys.

 

Late post, but my thanks to Larry, Jim and all others for welcoming me to Group 9 and hanging out for a few days at the Ring. Had a good time, another round of sectional training proved more helpful (and even more fun at times) than I had originally anticipated. I can't say that the graded exam lap with cold tires first thing in the morning is an easy exercize, but at least I had a clear lap.

Special thanks to Jim for offering me to drive his RS in the Kesselchen section:



Beautiful car, though I found steering feel too remote to be immediately confidence inspiring in the fast bits. Maybe it's me, or the MPSC tires or the stock geometry. Just not what I was expecting from the wider front track.

I've posted videos and data for two laps, the 7'44"90 exam lap and another one in 7'49" in traffic. Interesting to see where time is so hardly gained or easily lost. And still so many things to work on.

DISCLAIMER: these are "standard" Racelogic Bridge-To-Gantry times, the Bridge GPS point is too late, and the Gantry end point is too early, so you have to add a few of seconds to transpose in real BTG terms. Easily visible on the videos. Can be fixed using different coordinate files, but not after the fact.

There are also more "scenery" pictures here:



To those interested in tuition at the Ring, I also recommend giving consideration to Scuderia Hanseat. It is a bigger machine, 300 cars, GP track + Nordschleife, it's more expensive too, but resident instructors in each section make the feedback more specific and precise than a lead & follow set-up which has limitations. Depends also on how you learn best. Two courses a year, one in May (weather is a gamble), one in September. My advice would be to do Hanseat first once or twice, then pile up laps using open pitlane private track days or courses like these. There's no ideal solution to suit everyone's taste.

On the topic of shipping cars, I can just share my experience in shipping two cars - one of which is my yellow GT3 - from California to Europe. Everyone I spoke to in the business does NOT recommend Ro-Ro unless you ship a boxmobile, chances of damage and abuse are just too high, starting with the proverbial ground clearance of GT3s. Shared containers are far cheaper than some of the figures mentioned in this thread, to the tune of 1200 to 1500$ one way (depends on oil prices and lanes capacity) + insurance (0.5% of insured value if you negotiate). It's however not always a picnic, a no-hassle turnkey service will probably cost you more for piece of mind. The container holding one of my cars ended up transiting through ... China, custom clearance in Europe can be a fun experience depending on the country, etc ... And then there's getting insurance coverage.

 

The Scuderia Hanseat school sounds great. Are you going in September? I'm thinking of signing up. Jean Claude, thanks so much for the rides in the sectional training and advice. I could have sworn you was at the same corner entry speed on Angstkurve in the RS as you were in your car though. From my perspective you seemed plenty comfortable in the car immediately

 

No, I am travelling a lot late Aug and Sept, and if I have an opportunity to, I want to focus on open pitlane days to pile laps and get consistent with the stuff I learned. Try contacting them to see if they still have room, but normally they are sold out long in advance. It really is a good course.

 

WOW- I want to go.!!!!!

 

Great to see you guys had a great time over there! Also cool to see info on this thread of how to send your car over there!

I'll have to put the BMW school on the list of things to do some day!

 

ze_shark, thank you for posting!

 

I've done Scuderia Hanseat a couple of times and have friends that have done it 6-10 times.

It's a big event, 3-400 cars there and a big gala dinner at the end. As well as the NS and the GP track together (ie the VLN track) you get to use the facilities at the skid-pans etc.

It's a great way to learn the track and you get immediate feedback for every corner that you drive as they have instructors at every corner.

They only have one english speaking group though, which gets booked up early so if you wish to go, book early.

The only problem with these courses is that they help you with every specific corners, but do not help you learn the whole track or really get the 'flow' of the course, since it's stop start doing one small section at a time. I would personally recommend someone did quite a few full laps there in a slow car to start with, to start to get a feel for the course, before using Scuderia Hanseat or the BMW course to refine specific areas.