Sunday

I gave Tijs a lift to the track, which was quite foggy at the time. No ThoRSten around, of course ;-) By 8.30 the track was dry and clear, and ThoRSten was there to make the most of it.

Early in the day I met Robin I. who had digitised the 24h-lap with Sabine commentating. He immediately offered a passenger lap in the Elise. It was interesting to see some left-foot braking in action. I quickly returned the favour and took him with me on my own warm-up lap, which was quite reasonable thanks to the info gleaned from passengering with Robin just a few minutes ago.

Then it was time for my most impressive passenger lap ever. During the Swedish Weekend 2002 I had parked next to Ulf, hoping that a bit of his speed would rub off on me. As I've gotten faster since previous year's Swedish Weekend I figured it works quite well, so I did it again.

As it happened I had just returned from my warm-up lap when Ulf came back to his car. Of course I asked him if there was any chance of a passenger lap. I was extremely lucky that his passenger seat was unoccupied this early in the morning, and that he didn't mind taking me along.

The lap that followed was stupendously fast. Lots of horsepower with plenty of of torque combined with an excellent driver will do that for you. The tyres were squealing even more than on a SquealMobile lap. The approach to Schwedenkreuz was done with about 260 km/h. All the braking was done after the crest, resulting in lots of squealing under the brakes, to be gradually replaced by squealing from the cornering force. The fast left before Metzgesfeld was really really fast. The acceleration out of Bergwerk was breathtaking. Karussell to Hohe Acht was scarily fast, and I discovered some new bumps. I'll try to keep the description of this lap short, but it's not easy... I was blown away by the speed Ulf reached before Hohe Acht. Braking for the second left-hander after the Karussell felt like braking for Aremberg. In short: WOW! And the weird thing is that I felt completely at ease, talking to Ulf about the ceramic brakes, the suspension setup and various other things, while hurtling round the track at speeds I'd never imagined possible. Thanks very much Ulf, and I still owe you a big beer.

Back in the car park I managed to pass a small group of Ringers without noticing anybody because I was still very much re-living and re-enjoying my lap with Ulf. After a short report on what it is to be in a GT2 that's driven in a way most people can only dream of, it was time to do some driving again.

We went out in pairs: Euan took Ben and I would try to follow behind with Birgit. A very nice and (for me) fast lap followed. Euan was clearly faster in the twisty bits, but the traction and torque of the 964 helped to win back some ground into the straighter bits. I managed to keep Euan in sight all the way round, thanks to a yellow flag situation in Brünnchen. Notable moments during the lap: my brake pad wear warning light coming on before Mutkurve. Naturally I explain to Birgit that the red light that's just come on is only telling me that the brakes are worn, so she doesn't need to worry. I'm glad she took that very well :-) Hohe Acht was entertaining too with the back stepping out a little more than usual, but thanks to the new suspension it was easily caught. BTG including a closed T-13 and the yellow flag at Brünnchen was 9.28 minutes. Section times suggest that it would have been only just slower than 9 minutes on a clear track. That's about 15 seconds faster than I was last year.

I then did another passenger lap with Joerg. Laps in Elises are always fun, particularly with the roof down. This lap was another example of such a lap.

While walking back to my car I met Tobias (Swedish Weekend 2002). He had managed to get a Jahreskarte with the same issueing date as last year and was looking forward to doing lots of laps in his slate grey 911. Around the corner I spotted some cars I don't see every day: an F40 and a couple of Lamborghinis.

Then it was back to Sliders for a shower, on to Ring Racing to get the front pads swapped and the rear pads checked. At Ring Racing half the Ringers present this weekend turned up: Rene, Anders, his Silver 993RS mate, M3 John (with a very mean sounding M3) were some of the familiar faces. In short order my pads were swapped for the princely sum of 15 euros. The guy doing the work didn't mind my looking at what he was doing, which is nice. He also only replaced what needed to be replaced, which is nice. Then he took off the rear wheels to check the rear pads, which is nice. He then told me how long he thought the rear pads would last, which is nice. Even better is that he didn't express that duration in something useless as x-thousand kilometers: he used the much more practical "20 to 25 laps" :-)

We also had a discussion about brake upgrades, but I managed to stay strong and told him I'd be happy to discuss that later, but that my bank account had suffered enough already this year.

Back at the Ring things had gotten quite busy, so I was content to chat a bit, sit in the sun (terrific weather), go for a proper passenger lap with Robin (who dealt with some of the twisty bits quite impressively), and walk around denying people passenger laps on the grounds of unbedded brake-pads :(

To laze away some more time (and to enjoy some more sun), I headed out to do some spectating at Schwedenkreuz. You never know what might happen there... Anyway, Jeppe and Jon tagged along. Kim joined us a little while later. It was interesting to see the speeds some people carry through Schwedenkreuz. Many of the Swedes go really fast there. One of the regular 964's was fastest though. Euan seemed to have gotten used to the 968CS by now, as he was one of the faster guys coming through. After a little while I decided it might be a good idea to stop being lazy and take some piccies.

Going back to the car park I took the shortcut from the B-258 to Nurburg. Near Hatzenbach a bike had just crashed big-time. The rider was unhurt but jumping up and down from disbelief and fury. Apparantly the bike was brand new. Now it was a heap of broken plastic, bent metal, a few liters of leaked fluid and a couple dozen of loose bits lying all over the place. He had some trouble understanding what had happened, as he hadn't been going fast, "only" 100km/h... There was nothing much that I could do except add to the confusion, so I continued on my way to the car park. There Esther was severely disappointed that the track closed right after she'd been strapped into Adrian's Caterham.

When the track opened I went out as a passenger with Euan. Who has gotten seriously fast by now. Christer was waving us so that he could attach himself to our rear bumper. Euan performed some very fast overtakes, particularly into Adenauer Forst, which caused at least 30 seconds of me giggling. All the while Christer was tagging along faithfully at a respectful distance (very unlike Christer). Coming up to Hohe Acht we saw Tijs waving his very yellow coat to warn us of a crash. A 944 cabrio had crashed hard. 4 or 5 cars (including Niek's) were already parked at the side of the road, so we decided to keep on going. Euan picked up the pace in no time, which saw us at the gates again to do a second lap before the track could be closed.

Some more carpark chat at the end of the day resulted in putting a face to the name "Kees". Then it was time to go to the Pistenklause for dinner with Ben, Birgit, Matthias, Mark, Claire and Euan, and a whole bunch of Dutch people (including Laurens and Esther) at another table. Lots of fun was had, but our table decided to quit while still standing. With the exception of Euan of course, who had mosied on over to some Swedes at the bar :-)

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