Sunday

We had a leisurely breakfast and a long chat about softballs versus hardballs and the resulting bag of loose screws, and of course I had to admire the latest addition to the household: a little piggy.

By now the sun was shining in earnest: time to head to the Eifel. The drive along the Rhine was very scenic with lots of nice views of river, vineyards and castles.

At the Ring carpark the sun was shining nicely. A bit less amusing was a big-ass Öhlins truck that took up most of the smaller carpark. They probably figured that if BMW could mess up the place with their big trailer, they should be able to achieve the same level of popularity.

Some people hadn't slept in (like me), and they were getting some shut-eye in the sun.

Bren seized the opportunity to have one of the Öhlins techs have a look at his (ahem, Suz's) boik. The shock hadn't had much in the way of service in a long while, and the friendly guys from Öhlins did a free rebuild on it.

The peace and quiet in the carpark was repeatedly shattered by a very loud and very annoying car alarm. It insisted on going off every 2 minutes for some unknown reason. A lack of attention maybe, or a tough childhood?

The wear pattern on Bren's (ahem, Suz's) tyre showed clearly that the Ring is a clockwise circuit.

A quick wander round the carpark is always good for some entertaining pictures. The combination of classic lines and modern rims on this Porsche was interesting.

Parking is still a serious challenge for some people.

Not everybody would manage to bring their car home in one piece...

A British group of Pugs had found their own solution to the overcrowding of the carpark by parking three rows deep behind each other.

In the Grüne Hölle (I think I spent more time in there in one weekend than I did in the whole of 2004) I learnt that Kiki still couldn't get the "Joystick" out of her mind, despite Ben explaining that it had something to do with antiques dealers. I also learnt that Jeppe had managed to lose Kurt's 20-lap ticket, with 17 laps still on it. Not good. A bit better was that Kurt had found it in the meantime. Of course I reminded him that he should have gotten a Jahreskarte, given the amount of laps he was doing... And to forestall any devious schemes involving compensation in beers, I texted Jeppe with the good news.

After a few more text messages and a bit of shouting through open car windows, most people moved to Barweiler for lunch. The food was excellent, and I learned a few more things about BMWs, which tends to happen if you're sitting near Tijs.

I gave Matt a lift back, dropped him off at the roundabout, and drove straight to Quiddelbacher Höhe to take some pics together with Jeppe and Jochen. Nürburgring GmbH had gone to town trying to ensure that nobody would go near the track by putting up some serious razorblade wire.

Within seconds of getting into position, we see Alex's 928 on the back of a recovery truck. Looks like yesterday's quick fix didn't hold very long.

It didn't take long to find that my long lens was fogging up, thanks to the wet circumstances of the day before. At least it forced me to be creative. Jochen got a great shot of the Ringtaxi with the rear wheels in the air.

Car Magazine was there too, with a still camera on the hood of a chase car.

Quite a few Swedes were doign their laps, including Christer L. and Tobias.

Hocheichen is the next stop, still with a lens that's too short. I'm trying to spot an Aprilia RSV Mille. Unless "Aprilia RSV Mille" is written in huge letters on the boik, there's not much chance of me spotting one. Luckily Jeppe is a bit more clued-up on boiks. After his explanation I at least knew what to look and listen for.

While I was keeping an eye out for the Aprilia, I spotted Lasse (cornering (rental-)stylishly), Ross (cornering leisurely), Stelvio (cornering determinedly), Jules (cornerling noisily), Dave (taking the Carrera GT line), Soren, and M3 John.

After a good long while we decided to pack up. Within 1 minute of putting down my camera the right Aprilia comes by. Bugger :(

The afternoon was getting on a bit, and traffic on the track seemed to be quieting down a little. Time to do some laps, then. To avoid the mess near the Zufahrt I entered the track at Breidscheid. If you didn't know exactly where the Breidscheid entrance was, you wouldn't have spotted it in a million years: it was completely blocked by doznes and dozens of pedestrians and boikers.

The first half lap was about as busy as the sidewalk at Breidscheid. Not all that much fun, therefore, particularly as I wasn't anywhere near fully at home in the 964 yet. The queue at Döttinger Höhe wasn't as long as it had been earlier, but still long enough to let the oil temperature rise enough to open the thermostat to the oil cooler. It was also long enough that the fastest way to get the temperature down again was to go for another lap. This time the track was reasonably clear most of the way. All in all a regular lap, perfect to get the tyres up to working temperatures.

The initial idea was to adjust the tyre pressures now, but spotting Jeppe and Soren in the 318is up ahead. Ah well, the tyres aren't all that how yet, lets tag along. Jeppe was getting some serious speed out of the poor 318is. He was carrying a bit more speed in most of the corners. Good thing there are some straightish bits too. Notably incident during this lap: in Pflanzgarten one of Ron Simons' Alfa 75s was creeping along at a touch above walking pace (but still short of running or cycling pace). Which isn't a problem in and of itself: everybody has to do his/her first laps once. What did pose a problem was that he insisted on being passed on the wrong side. An unidentified white E30 didn't have much chance of braking and went passed on the right side. With nobody behind me and a bit better brakes, I decided to slow down and sit behind him indicating left and flashing my headlights all the way into the parking lot if I had to. Luckily he got the message after a little while. An incident like this really makes me wonder how difficult it is to read the big-ass sign that spells it out in a gazillion languages: no overtaking on the right.

The next lap was even more entertaining: thanks to educating the 75 I came out of the gate quite a bit behind Jeppe. Good thing that the lap starts with a straight bit. I overtook him early on in the lap, adjusting my speed on the straights to enable him to keep up. It was good fun to go round the track in convoy like that. Wehrseifen was a bit memorable: I did my usual lots-of-weight-behind the rear wheels approach, by overbraking a bit before the right kink, and accelerating into Wehrseifen proper, followed by slamming on the brakes in earnest. It was definitely one of my better Wehrseifens.

The view in my rearview mirror was certainly entertaining: a big cloud of tyre smoke from at least two locked wheels (I couldn't see the rear wheels) as Jeppe came flying into Wehrseifen at a rather optimistic clip. The rear tyres were letting me know that they definitely needed to lose some air now, which I remedied on the cool-down run.

Coming back to the carpark traffic was turning into the usual mess. Not much fun if your car has a turning radius as large as my 964. Even less fun when people park in all kinds of silly spots, making it even more difficult to negotiate the bends. Luckily Ben saw an empty spot and managed to hold it for me while I made my way round the carpark to approach it in such a way that I would be able to get again without doing a 27-point turn (i.e. reverse-park). Thanks, Ben!

When the car had cooled down a bit it was time for some passenger laps. Ross had finally dug up the courage to go for a lap in the 964 with me, but as Kurt's brother Doug was a bit strapped for time, he jumped Ross in the queue. With the tyre pressures at reasonable values, it was a pretty decent lap. Exchanging Doug for Ross while waiting in the queue for the barrier went pretty smoothly, and at long last Ross had his first 964-lap with me. Now, the last time I had him in my passenger seat, the SquealMobile decided to play a new trick on me by letting the back step out in Spiegelkurve. The 964 showed better manners: the back wiggled a bit in all the usual places, but nothing too extreme.

After another short cool-down I went for another lap. This time I left the gates just a little bit ahead of Tor Helge in his yellow 964 RS 3.8. A truly wonderful car. Also a lot lighter than my C2 with electric seats, rear seats, aircon, and luggage. Not to mention that the 3.8 has quite a bit more grunt at lower revs. It sounds better too. Anyway, it wasn't long before I made room for Tor Helge. The rest of the lap goes in the "good memories" category. Though the 3.8 was consistently pulling away from me, the difference was small enough that I kept it in sight during the entire lap. The difference going up Ex-Mühle was very big though: I think Tor Helge gained 15 or 20 meters between Breidscheid and Bergwerk.

The next lap was entertaining as well: Ross came out of the gate ahead of me in his rental Mundeno. My first instinct was to follow him round with the emergency indicators on. Then I thought about those nasty rumours that claimed that Ross in a Galaxy was as quick as I was in the 964. Of course this is just an incorrect interpretation of the data, but it makes for a nice rumour. Anyway, since Ross was now in Ford's finest, I decided to overtake him on the straight, and he would no doubt be able to stick to my bumper like Ed sticks to kerbs. After being held up more than a little bit from T13 to Hocheichen, I didn't see much of Ross anymore until I sat in the queue at Döttinger Höhe waiting to exit the track.

By then it was high time to fill up with gas again. With the track closed again, Soren, Jeppe and I stood around in the parking lot of the Ed Tankstelle discussing the previous laps. According to Jeppe he thought after starting to brake for Wehrseifen that he could have accelerated a bit harder into it. Not long after he realised it was a good thing that he didn't.

Meanwhile Jules (stand-in bast*rd for the weekend) was busy filling up a borrowed Carrera GT. That car does look and sound awesome. Ah well, some guys have all the luck :)

After a little while we figured we might as well head to the carpark again. The weather took a turn for the worse again, and I decided to stay in Nürburg for dinner. Luckily Ben had booked a table at the Pistenklause. And not just any table, he'd booked a table with a 220V power supply near it. Under it, to be more precise. As I didn't want to shake my laptop to pieces, I had left it at Ed's place. Ben was kind enough to run a little slideshow directly off my memory card on his Vaio. Despite the functionaly challenged software he was using (it got confused by the separate thumbnail images Canon cameras generate, and it didn't know how to interpret the Exif rotation tag), it was nice to get a look at the afternoon's pictures.

A little later Jochen joined us, and when he learned that this table came with its own power supply he dived right in to hook up his own laptop (without classified desktop background this time).

Matt was leading the who-has-the-most-Visa-cards league by a big margin.

For some reason a phone lying on the table cannot be resisted by the average Ringer. Soren just had to have a look at my ancient T68i. Must be the cool 964 background pic on the screen :)

Despite a good variety of entertaining subjects I decided to leave early to get to Ed's place at a reasonable hour. The B-412 is a really nice road if there's not much traffic on it. It was still light when I was there. Good thing too, as I'd expect lots of wildlife to cross that road during and after twilight. The previous time I'd driven it was in the SquealMobile. Let's just say that the 964 is much better suited to overtaking other cars quickly.

On a quiet stretch of Autobahn I verified that the 964 would still happily do its top speed by bouncing off the rev limiter a single time in top gear. The worn rear tyres lower the top speed by about 3km/h according to the GPS.

Since I was relatively early and there was still a bit of daylight left I decided to take the back roads to Ed's place, courtesy of my navigation system. The first section is a glorious piece of road off the B-9 south of Koblenz. Lots of turns, lots of elevation changes, nice views, lots of trees, and a joy to drive in a powerful car with good brakes.

Before bed Ed and I watched some entertaining downloaded movies, featuring some of the most impressive aerobatics and air racing I'd ever seen. Even Bob Hoover would have been impressed, I think.

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