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Nürburgring (6-9 April 2007)
Happy bunnies all around

Intro

Trips
Trip 1 (Easter 2002)
Trip 2 (May 2002)
2002 24H (June)
Trip 3 (June 2002)
Trip 4 (July 2002)
Trip 5 (August 2002)
Trip 6 (August 2002)
Trip 7 (September 2002)
Trip 8 (September 2002)
Trip 9 (September 2002)
Trip 10 (November 2002)
Trip 11 (March 2003)
Trip 12 (April 2003)
Trip 13 (Easter 2003)
Trip 14 (May 2003)
Trip 15 (May 2003)
Trip 16 (June 2003)
Trip 17 (July 2003)
Trip 18 (August 2003)
Trip 19 (August 2003)
Trip 20 (September 2003)
Trip 21 (November 2003)
Trip 22 (November 2003)
Trip 23 (November 2003)
Trip 24 (February 2004)
Trip 25 (March 2004)
Trip 26 (April 2004)
Trip 27 (April 2004)
Trip 28 (May 2004)
Trip 29 (May 2004)
Trip 31 (July/August 2004)
Trip 32 (August 2004)
Trip 33 (September 2004)
Trip 34 (October 2004)
Trip 35 (October 2004)
Trip 36 (October 2004)
Trip 37 (November 2004)
Trip 38 (November 2004)
Trip 39 (November 2004)
Trip 40 (March 2005)
Trip 41 (April 2005)
Trip 42 (April 2005)
Trip 43 (April 2005)
Trip 44 (May 2005)
Trip 45 (June 2005)
Trip 46 (July 2005)
Trip 47 (August 2005)
Trip 48 (August 2005)
Trip 49 (August 2005)
Trip 50 (August 2005)
Trip 51 (September 2005)
Trip 52 (October 2005)
Trip 53 (March 2006)
Trip 54 (April 2006)
Trip 55 (Easter 2006)
Trip 56 (April 2006)
Trip 57 (May 2006)
Trip 58 (June 2006)
Trip 59 (July 2006)
Trip 60 (August 2006)
Trip 61 (April 2007)
Trip 62 (April 2007)
Trip 63 (June 2007)
Trip 64 (August 2007)
Trip 65 (September 2007)
Trip 66 (November 2007)
Trip 67 (May 2008)
Trip 68 (May 2008)
Trip 69 (June 2008)
Trip 70 (July 2008)
Trip 71 (September 2008)

The RingBunny
Who's the RingBunny?
Full laps
Bits and pieces
Guest producers
RingBunny R-rated *

Ecurie Europe
First pics
Videos

Sabine Schmitz
Intro
Guest commentator at 24H
Video: 24H-rennen lap
Meets Jeremy Clarkson
Video: Inside the Ring Taxi

Odd bits
The Ring in print
Preparing for the first laps
24h 2006 torrent
Søren having fun with his M3
Ringers quiz 2002
Make a donation
Site stats *

Jørund Seim
Intro
Video: Lap of Legends
Video: Hire van

Links marked with a * require a password.


Saturday

Saturday started with a 7.30-ish breakfast to enable us get to the track early. With the track already open we went straight out for some laps. Matt was in the A3 while I followed in the Ibiza. Johannes joined the convoy in his Golf.

Naturally the first lap was followed by another one. This time I started off at the back of the convoy, but moved up to Matt's rear bumper at Hocheichen.

With the track nice and grippy (and nearly deserted) I headed straight out for yet another lap. A Swiss Elise was closing slowly up Kesselchen. Slowly enough that I decided to let him by after Maddock Bend. Mr Elise then proceeded to drive right up my arse with me indicating right all the time. Dunno why really: if you're following somebody that closely, you'd better be damned sure of what the guy in front is going to do. Anyway, with the tyres, brakes and the rest of the car warmed up I decided to step up the pace a bit, which resulted in us driving in tandem again after the exit of the Karussell. From Hohe Acht on it was no contest, of course: the snaking course from there to Eiskurve is Elise territory :-)

Afterwards there was time for some carpark chat with the usual suspects. Jocke had guided a Brit boiker round. Matt then took a girl for a ride; I followed him out with the boiker bloke in my passenger seat. I followed Matt for a bit, but at Hocheichen decided to bugger off at my own speed. The biker seemed to be enjoying himself, and made no pre-barfing noises. On lap two my biker passenger, though new to the Ring, predicted correctly what a Brit Honda Integra would do when he screamed up Döttinger Höhe in front of Mario in his "I kissed the Nordschleife" Barchetta and us: crash at one of the first corners. The Integra made it to the entry of Hatzenbach, but stuffed it into the wall there. Mario had already pulled over and as the crash didn't look too severe we continued our lap.

We then had some drinks in the Grüne Hölle restaurant, where we had a quick chat about F1, rally, MotoGP and other things that were petrol-related. To round off the full-service guided tour I then snapped a picture of the biker standing in front of the large Nordschleife map on the ticket office while he was holding a Mars bar: the Mars bar was apparently an office joke :)

The carpark contained a mixed bag of old and new, and some evidence of the unforgiving nature of the Nordschleife too. The old Ford seemed to be in decent nick under the (probably deliberately grubby) exterior. It was pulling away from me on the uphill stretch from Schwalbenschwanz to Galgenkopf at one point...

Whoops Carpark maintenance Bonnet vent

My biker friend had a waterproof navigation system on his tank bag.

Waterproof navigation system

Meanwhile Stelvio had been promoted to biking god after showing another boiker the way round. Niek made an appearance in something that eclipsed Matt's once-regular Scooby costume: an Orange County Choppers T-shirt... Of course he tried to hide it, but it's difficult to compete with a 1/160s shutter :-)

Niek proudly modeling an OCC T-shirt

Tony and Claire were still (again?) at it.

T+C

Of course Matt couldn't resist a little challenge and had a go at Tony (in his rather flashy leathers).

T+M

With the track currently closed I quickly snapped a picture of a sewerpipe sized exhaust on something Japanese before going back to the B&B for a shower and a quick nap. Refreshed I went to Hocheichen to take some pictures. When I was parking my car Jochen pulled up in his loaner car, on his way to another photo location.

Sewerpipe exhaust

Stelvio was getting his knee down and his lapcount up.

Stelvio

Tony was trying to colour the track black, one stripe at a time.

Tony

Bob and Dave were out there too.

Bob and Dave

Taxidriver Bob had a passenger on board who was trying to hail another cab.

Bob

Did I mention all the TVRs that were circulating? Here's another one, with a rather cute plate.

TVR

911s look nice in black :-)

Nice

Temperatures were dropping a bit, which prompted me to get back to the car and do another 2.5 laps.

It was really getting chilly now, which allowed the car to cool off quickly, and which resulted in me taking Ben around to warm up a bit.

I spotted a weird-looking contraption on the back of the Viking syndicate's 318is. At first I suspected that they were pulling a miniature caravan when nobody was looking, but it turned out to be a bracket for a transponder. The duct tape remains instilled doubts about their faith in the retaining qualities of the bracket :-)

Transponder bracket

Lasse borrowed my new tyre pressure gauge to check on the tyre pressures. A bit later in the weekend Fabian gave them some tips on which tyre pressures to use on their tyres. Given Fabian's speed in his E30s, it's probably good advice :)

Pressure check

Cookie monster made another appearance. Despite the cold he still had his mouth wide open. I suspect the poor monster hadn't had a cookie all day.

Hungry Cookie monster

Ben was hearing things in his rented Ringhaus Golf, so the Ringhaus mechanic went for a little testdrive. There didn't seem to be much wrong with the car, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

Quick checkup

When Bob was near I made sure to innocently ask the question how much traightline speed an Elise could possibly have. About a minute later I found myself sliding into the passenger seat of Bob's slightly tweaked Elise. Well, maybe it's been tweaked a bit more than just slightly, as he dropped an Audi TT engine in there, and tickled that a bit so that it produces about 250bhp. Which is quite spectacular in a car that weighs next to nothing.

Bob made short work of several TVRs. The acceleration of this Elise is stunning. It's hard to describe without resorting to lots of well-worn cliches, but it felt similar to the tuned GT2 that Ulf had borrowed in 2003.

The only giveaway in the interior was an extra gauge to tell turbo boost pressure.

All in all a very impressive lap: one that I won't forget in a long while. If only because I think I've never grinned so much for so long during a lap.

I now understood Matt's permanent grin when I took his picture going through Brünnchen :)

Bob

Bob and Dave made their way to the Northloop photoshoot, and Matt and I went to the Chinese restaurant in Adenau (reservation courtesy of "Jochen from Quiddelbach", as he's known to the restaurant staff). Matt was driving, and we stopped by the Ringhaus to pick Ben up. Ben paid his fare by getting us our yellow flags. I'd noticed before that a trackside photographer who's waving his arms instead of taking pics doesn't seem to have much of an effect on some drivers/riders. I'm hoping that waving a big yellow flag will improve things. I'm also hoping that I'll be lugging the yellow flag along without having to use it much.

Anyway, at the restaurant the place of honour was reserved for Jochen. From there he could witness something really scary: Ben hooking up a device to his laptop by means of, yes, a wire. Mr. I-don't-do-wires was actually using one without somebody putting a gun to his head. I wonder what the world is coming too.

Wired Ben

One the waiters kindly took the customary group picture. This took a while, as it wasn't quite clear what button to press. In the meantime I stuck my camera up and took my own three-quarter-group picture.

Three-quarter-group

The food was nice, as usual. People shared different plates, as usual. Matt stole some food off several plates, as usual.

Caught in the act Yummie

Robin wanted his own group shot, but found that his camera could do with a bit more wide-angle.

Another group shot

Tall tales were told, also as usual, and a merry time was had by all, also as usual. It's a pity that I can't repeat everything I hear at these dinners, so I won't mention [censored]'s encounter with the [censored]. I also won't mention the attempted blackmailing by B?? of E?????, when he found some compromising pics on E's memory card.

Smile no comment

Of course the attending photographers showed some of the day's take. Jochen was the only one paying attention, though.

Smile

There was evidence that proved that a photographer sometimes needs to brave all kinds of resistance to get to a good spot. Jochen was carrying the better part of a tree on his back, and he didn't even notice.

Tree

The gents on my right had ordered some kind of menu, which included a fancy desert consisting of two fried bananas and a single scoop of icecream. Not wanting to be outdone most of the rest of the table ordered the same desert, but insisted on getting two scoops of icecream.

Icecream

Years ago most Ringers (including those on this very table) wouldn't classify anything before midnight as "late", but the terminal disease A.G.E. was definitely grabbing hold of the majority of us. Hence we all paid our bills and went back to our respective lodgings by 22.30...

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