Sunday

Figuring that there would probably be long queues at the petrol stations I filled the tank before going to the track. As has been so often the case this year, the track opened late. This meant that instead of steady trickle of traffic going onto the track, a load of cars and boiks gathered until the carpark overflowed, only to cause immediate congestion when the track opened. I'd invited a customer of Job's to come along and I was very glad to have some company during the 15 minutes it took to get from the carpark to the barrier. By this time there was already a queue of cars forming that wanted to get off the track...

Kees was going out in the 944S2 at roughly the same time, and I backed off a little on the straights to go round together. Traffic wasn't too bad, and the long queue on Döttinger Höhe gave us a chance to talk about this, that and quite a bit more.

On the way to the barrier I exchanged passengers: the new one was called Clive, and it was his first trip. On this lap Kees was leading the way and I was following him. A Caterham was behind us, but he didn't seem to want to overtake us. As a result we did the lap in a 3-car convoy. It was great fun to see the effects of driving different cars: Kees was on R-compounds in a car with a nice front-back weight distribution; I was on street tyres with the engine somewhere behind the rear axle. Thanks to my power advantage I managed to stay with him during the entire lap. Together with the lap I did following Paskal this was certainly a highlight of the weekend.

During the short break following those 2 laps (that took about an hour to complete) Jon (from the USA) came into the carpark in the MC-Car that was screeching loudly. He'd lost powersteering at the end of the lap. Of course there was the usual amount of uder-the-bonnet-peering, but nobody could find something obviously wrong. The most likely conclusion was a knackered power steering pump.

Next on the agenda was a lap with Kees in the S2. Kees said he was a little rusty, but it didn't show in his driving.

It was surprising how little ground much more powerful cars gained on a stretch like Kesselchen. I'd expected Evos and GT3s to pull away much more decisively there.

As is usually the Kees, uh, case, it was a smooth and quick lap. Apart from the passenger seat seatback that was jammed in a more than upright position. My hat off to Juliet that she managed to spend so much time in it without taking a sledgehammer to it.

For some reason the queue before the track exit had almost completely disappeared. Naive little me figured this would be a good time to do another lap. Anders D. was coming along for the ride. On the way we witnessed a new highlight in carpark behaviour: somebody decided to stop in the middle of the roundabout to unload a boik from his trailer. The marshalls weren't best pleased with that.

In the carpark across the road I met Lothar, my Porsche mechanic. He was driving a customer's car to show him round the Ring. It's certainly very convenient to have your car serviced by someone who actually understands how you use your car from first-hand experience.

Thanks to the single width access road and the traffic jam in the roundabout it took about 10 minutes to get close to the track. Until now I've been quite happy to park across the road, if only because it reduces the chance of people banging into your car, but if it takes 10 to 15 minutes to get out I might have to look elsewhere.

The lap itself was nothing special: traffic was reasonably busy, but not unduly so. Apart from braking a little too late for Metzgesfeld and turning in a little early for Schwalbenschanz it was a decent lap. Coming round Galgenkopf we noticed that the queue was back again.

I dropped Anders off in front of the Grüne Hölle and went to Quiddelbacher Höhe. From there I hiked to Fuchsröhre to take some pictures. The light was nearly perfect when I got there.

Unfortunately, a Leon crashed right in front of me within minutes of arriving there.

A little later the track was closed because of several crashes. When the track opened the light was crap as the sun was now reflecting off windscreens and bonnets.

After a little while I hiked back to the exit of Aremberg, only to find that the track was closed again. The marshalls had their work cut out for them: a Pug 306 and a GT2 had crashed, creating a big mess and damaging quite a bit of armco. To clean up the track they called in a special sweeper vehicle.

When it opened again I got some nice tail-shots, apart from the incidental head-on shot. I was glad to see the MC-Car going round again, with Jon (from the USA) behind the wheel). Jon (from the UK) was using all the available tracktime too (he needed it in his Golf 1.4).

Did I mention that I like GT3s?

Or that I like well-prepped 993s?

Next stop was Aremberg, to give my new 24-70 lens a workout. Within minutes of setting up a guy with a big-ass lens (looked like a 600mm) came along. It didn't take him long to conclude that this spot wasn't particularly well suited to his glass.

Anybody mention GTRS?

Morty was out there too.

So was Jon (from the USA) in the MC-Car.

Of course, within a minute of putting my camera back in the bag a Volkswagen Mondeo or Ford Passat missed the braking point spectacularly and plowed through the gravel trap at speed. It gave the armco a firm tap with its left rear, but the driver nailed the throttle and drove on without losing much speed.

To round off the day I took some shots at Schwedenkreuz.

Back at the carpark across from the Zufahrt chaos still firmly ruled.

I finally caught up with Steve Richards (red 911) and had a quick chat. After an afternoon of hiking I lusted for a cold drink, and in the Grüne Hölle I met M3 John and his mom, and Kees and Juliette, the Bad Dragon, and Paskal. Outside Ulf T. explained that he'd been to the Ring for the first time in the 1960's, and that there was talk about shutting down Touristenfahrten then too. Very interesting to hear about his experiences in various cars.

I'd decided not to do any more laps myself, but I was happy to go for a passenger lap with Bob in his green Elise. It's been lowered and tweaked, and very successful in slalom competions. It also feels right at home on the Nordschleife.

Of course there were several yellow flag situations. The warning lights next to the track were very useful too.

The waiting in the queue at the final straight was straining some of the cars. Earlier in the day I'd seen an Audi with smoke coming off the brakes. Now we were next to a Scooby with smoke coming out of the bonnet vent.

Definitely a nice lap to round off the day.

To continue the trend of opening late and closing early, an announcement through the loudspeaker confirmed our fears: the current closure would be the last of the the day as the track wouldn't re-open.

Some brave soul was doing some shade-tree mechanic's work: he trusted his mates enough to balance the car on a tiny little jack while he stuck his legs underneath it.

Robin provided some more carpark entertainment by demonstrating that you really need two spaces to properly park an Exige. It does make it a lot easier to get out of the car.

Often you can see camouflaged testing vehicles from certain manufacturers at the Ring. Porsche was there too with a new car. The design hadn't been finalised yet: the owner was able to start it with a remote control, but it didn't have central locking yet.

Dinner was a bit disorganised, but with a few phonecalls I found out that birtdayboy Anders could be found at the Zur Burg. Naturally some of us went to wish him a happy birthday. Juliette had even brought a card for us to sign.

Kees held a little speech to congratulate Anders.

Dinner was looking more and more disorganised, to the point that there was no dinner at all. By now I was starting to get really really hungry. At least I wasn't the only one, and our end of the table ordered some food. Before it arrived I admired Anders D.'s new mobile phone logo.

The arrival of the food interfered a bit with downloading the day's pictures to my laptop. There really wasn't room for both the food and the laptop. Remembering an old Commodore 64 program that optimised your furniture arrangements I came up with a solution: just put the plate on top of the keyboard of the laptop. People without a laptop ahd to eat the oldfashioned way: with their plate on their lap.

Of course there was some kind of mixup that resulted in 2 or 3 people having to share one small cup of fries while I received a nice big plate with lots of fries. (I did refill the smaller cup a few times from my big plate.) The Schitzel was very good though.

After dinner I managed to silence the Swedes with my slideshow, but in due time they all recovered and continued to drink beer :) Patrik told me that Morty's oak green 964RS was his old car. It's a small world. Upon seeing a 964RS in oak green I was more than a little surprised, as to my knowledge that colour was never available on the RS. Apparently this was one was a bit of a mistake, but since the original buyer thought it was a nice colour for the car anyway, he took delivery anyway.

Despite the good time I was having I decided to head home at a half-decent hour. I could have stayed much longer to talk with Jon (from the USA), Matt, Kees, Juliette, Anders, Anders, Janne and the rest, but sometimes it's better to get a good night's sleep.

The drive back was very relaxing. I'd almost forgotten how nice it is to drive a 964 on clear roads. Even without trying you make good time, and it's not tiring at all. Thanks to the progressive springs the ride is more comfortable than the Ibiza's.

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