Monday

After unloading all this (I helped by carrying a Martini bottle) we went in convoy to the GP track to watch a bit of the bike track day. We spotted Bren, Mike Frison and some others, and I got my camera out once more. I think I even managed to pick Bren out, but after two laps the fun was over: two bikes had run into each other and crashed, with consequences severe enough that the doctor had to go along to the hospital, so end of session. Just when I had found a good spot to take pictures (no fence in the way). Ah well.

With no more bikes coming past, I started looking for other things to photograph. Can anyone tell me which corner this is?

The stands gave a nice view onto T13. It's a long way away, but I took some pictures anyway.

At the Ring I started with a lap to see what the track was like. At Wippermann Sabine overtook me in the Ring Taxi, so I made certain to keep her in shot through Eschbach as best I could. Which was a good thing, because there she put one or two outside wheels (definitely the right rear, maybe even right front) in the dirt throwing up a big roostertail of dust :-) Upon returning in the car park she waved me over and told me she needed new glasses today. I said I noticed her moment at Eschbach. She then reminded me of my promise to copy my Schwedenkreuz moment for her. I then told her I had her Eschbach moment on tape >:-)) At which point traffic behind her was getting annoyed (can't figure why, looks good from behind if you ask me) so she drove off with a wave and a big smile.

Lunch with John B. and Paula was next (thanks again). Horst von Saurma-Jeltsch was sitting at the table next to us, preparing to take an AC Schnitzer out for Sport Auto TV.

After lunch I did a spot of car park copying, adding the camcorder footage to the bulletcam footage on John's tape for him to take home. Starting this was delayed as I came into conversation with some countrymen of mine who were doing a private training on the Ring. Which in and of itself isn't all that special, but they were doing the training with an instructor who'd instructed me on my day in Lelystad. One thing led to another, so we had quite a long conversation, involving the Ring in general and where to turn in at Eschbach in particular. She likes to turn in on the dot in fast cars, and at the sign in slower cars. I might do one of her trainings myself next year. She certainly knows how to drive, and she knows how to make jokes too :)

Then it was time for another special passenger lap, again in a GT3: this time the yellow one driven by Anders. There must have been some sort of jinx, because we encountered almost as much traffic as on my lap with Ulf :( Still, I enjoyed it immensely, particularly because it's not just really fast, it's smooth too. And I liked Anders' footwork on the downshifts. Really quick. The difference between the street tyres and the R-tyres is quite clear, even from the passenger seat.

After some more laps I noticed that Tobias needed lots of hands to free his beached 911. With a bit of lifting and some pushing we managed to free it. Niek had told me I should really try to get a passenger lap with Tobias, so when I spotted his empty passenger seat I asked if I could hop in. I could and I did, and the next two laps were really special. It's an older 911 (pre-964), but it does have a 964 engine in the back... Also, Tobias really knows how to drive it. On the first lap we were supposed to be filming yet another GT3, but the camcorder kept switching off. It was my job to push the red button on the back of the camera. Yeah right, as if I can see the back of a camera that's mounted on the rollcage behind me :-)) Anyway, it's a Sony, so I managed to find the button anyway :)

I won't bore you with details of the first lap, but I still can't imagine we were going so bloody fast in a 911 of that vintage. It speaks volumes about Tobias's car control. Really impressive. The second lap was even more entertaining: Tobias was chasing one of the local regulars in his GT3. And catching him up. Wow! Hatzenbach was entertaining, Flugplatz really fast, Mutkurve was taken flat at awe-inspiring speed, right on the limit. I usually don't applaud people's driving while in the car, but this time I did. Then came the Karussell which we entered at a speed that gave me some doubts. And rightly so, as we had some oversteer in the first part, which was more or less solved by adding some power. However, this increased speed a little, which didn't combine well with the tightening at the second part of the turn, so we popped out. At speed. Quite sideways. And Tobias caught it: large correction to the right, small one to the left, and we were traveling in a straight line again. There were some harsh metallic noises upon popping out of the Karussell, so Tobias sensibly slowed down to feel if the car was alright. Magnificent save, that one...

The remainder of the day was a bit more sedate: Ulf couldn't fit my scheduled rerun of the heavy-traffic lap on Friday in (no problem; I count myself lucky already :) ), so I did a few more laps myself. My confidence level was going up again, and the laps with Anders and Tobias inspired me to do some more real driving (Christer would have enjoyed it), as opposed to just taking the car round.

Slight bummer was another parked car incident: this time some numbnuts managed to hit my right rear wheel arch, resulting in a 3cm scrape down to bare metal :(((( And this time the alarm didn't go off, so I'll have to pay for it myself. At times like that it's great to have people like Anders around, who pointed out that doing a 360 at Schwedenkreuz and bringing the car home with just this little nick wasn't too bad a deal.

And he's right, so I cheered myself up with a last lap, trying to make it a good one in terms of lines and accuracy. Judging from the video that worked pretty well and resulted in 9.18 BTG. Not all that fast by objective standards, but very satisfactory for me.

Having done a good lap I felt it was time to start heading back home again, so I said goodbyes to the familiar faces I could find (Tobias, Anders, Ulf, Thorsten, might there be a trend here?).

The End

Summary of the weekend: 1 loss of control, 23 laps, 250+ pictures, 5 fantastic passenger laps, 3 great social nights, 5 hours of VHS footage and 4 DV tapes to sort out, will be back despite the 1 loss of control.

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