Monday

After two laps we returned to a carpark that was still mostly empty.

A familiar car was spotted: the 911 Compressor that used to be Pascal's. The car was looking freshly washed and in excellent nick.

Tony and Claire were about somewhere too, but they were nowhere to be seen.

To give you an idea of exactly how quiet it was: there was a Ferrari 430 Spider in the larger carpark with no-one looking at it. Actually, there was no-one there, period. Not even Ben was considering it as his next DRT.

With nobody around I was glad that I had bought the Ringbunny for its annual pilgrimage.

Matt couldn't resist playing with Tony's boik. Twisting the handle produces lots of noise.

Ever the gentleman, Tony helped Claire reverse. Why don't they put a reverse gear on boiks?

A few minutes later I witnessed something so shocking I'm not sure I should include it in this trip report. At first I thought I was hallucinating, but the hallucination assured me that I wasn't. The hallucination was Ben! Awake! Alive! In the carpark! And it wasn't even 10am! Let's face it, Ben doesn't do mornings. It's a bit of a law of nature, like apples falling on your head or bathtubs overflowing when you shout "Eureka". It's a fairly traumatic experience when such axioms get overthrown. Anyway, when I managed to stop shaking I took a picture with Matt's watch in it (the main hands on UK time) to have some proof.

The explanation turned out to be much simpler than time machines, broken alarmclocks or aliens (be they from Breidscheid or elsewhere): Ben only had access to the Ringhaus car (by this time I'd lost track of when he was driving what) in the morning. Priorities :-)

The last time I'd taken Tony for a passenger lap was way back in 2002. I still remember mentioning that the brakes were on the way out when we pulled away from the barrier :-) We did two laps, wearing away quite a bit of rubber, especally from the front tyres.

Shortly afterwards the track closed. Time for some more carpark wandering. I spotted a familiar Cobalt Blue 964RS: the last time I saw it, it was at Rennsport for a service, while I had my brake pads changed on the Ibiza. The car has been tweaked a little, with a bit more power, bigger brakes, and a front splitter to name just a few mods.

While I was taking the picture, a grey 993Turbo from Puerto Rico (of all places) rumbled past, sounding mighty impressive.

His thunder was well and truly stolen when the driver of the orange 911 returned and fired up the engine. The older car sounded so much better that it was a good thing that Tor Helge wasn't there to hear it: he might have been tempted to try to buy the car on the spot.

By now the weekend was winding down a little, and people were starting to leave. This included some now familiar faces.

Caz's plate:

Tony's plate:

Meanwhile Steve was talking to his wallet. I'd never seen three O2 XDA Execs (or identical but differently branded units) in the same place. It really is a neat gadget.

When the track opened again I took Steve out for a couple of laps. The Ibiza is no CSL, but Steve seemed to be enjoying the ride nevertheless.

Lasse showed up, but he wasn't amused as he'd lost the key to his rental car. After searching left, right and center the key was still nowhere to be found. With a bit of help from Soren who insisted that they also look in the little pocket that Lasse was sure he hadn't put the keys in, the keys finally turned up again.

To lend my tyre pressure gauge to Soren and Lasse I had to do a bit of digging myself. I knew I'd put it in a more accessible position than underneath all the crap I was lugging around, but I didn't remember where. So I ended up taking most of the crap out anyway...

As a pizza-less weekend in Nürburg isn't a proper Ring weekend, I'd suggested meeting up at Giulia's near the Breidscheid exit. The scenic route of course included the Nordschleife. However, after doing a single lap (with Soren riding along) the track was closed and we ended up having to take the open road to Breidscheid after all.

We rearranged the furniture a little to make one large table, to give Tony a better chance of showing off his multi-coloured T-shirt once again.

Meanwhile Lasse and Matt were reviewing some of the weekend's pictures.

The group shot was again taken by holding up the camera, pressing the shutter release and hoping for the best.

Ringers tend to be a bit competitive (some erring a bit on the compulsive side, even), and after winning the "stuff a Grillhaxe down your gullet" competition Matt was ready to take on the competition for the "slide a pizza down your throat" competition. We definitely need to organise a competition between Kim, Jeppe and Matt.

Outside several fire trucks came by, entering the track at Breidscheid. We figured we might as well have coffee, then.

Back in the carpark I noticed that Bob was starting to run out of space for his track stickers. Most of the windshield frame is already taken.

Very cool was Dave's Stelvio decal. I think I know a few people who'd like one too...

Not wanting to walk hours to get to a decent spot for picturetaking I decided on Quiddelbacher Höhe as my next stop. Shortly after I'd arrived the competition arrived. I think I had them beat as far as the size of the lens was concerned :)

Quiddelbacher Höhe is normally a good spot to capture wheelying boikers. For some reason most of them kept both wheels firmly on the tarmac. It does make you appreciate the occasional bit of showing off all the more.

Some more pics (the entire collection can be found on my fotopic site, space permitting:

Dave and passenger giving me some hard stares...

I think I need an even bigger lens. This guy is looking at the wrong photographer :-)

The End :-)

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