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Nürburgring (14 September 2008)
Biodiesel: unsuitable for track use

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

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As the trusty Ibiza is going to a new owner in a few weeks, I figured it would be a nice gesture to give it a proper sending-off by doing a Ring trip. Adri was happy to join me on the trip. The primary purpose of this trip was to get some laps in, so we set off at a rather indecent hour. It was early enough that Adri got stopped by the police for an alcohol test a few minutes before arriving: maybe they thought he was on his way from something instead to something :-)

Anybody awake yet?

Of course there was hardly any traffic about at this hour, and we made good progress in good spirits. As usual, we stopped off at a petrol station just before the border to fill up the tank. As usual, the attendant of this particular station wouldn't have lasted more than 5 minutes in a more service-oriented society, but in the Netherlands being rude to customers is considered normal behaviour. I guess it's time to give up on this Gulf station (on the A73 near Venlo, southern direction) and find a place that actually appreciates getting good business. But I digress.

The sun was up by this time, and the weather was looking excellent. It was going to be a busy day.

Sunny weather

We were expecting a bit of fog, but were confident that it would burn off quite quickly. Shortly after getting on the B258 the first wisps of fog descended upon us. The ambient temperature had been dropping quite rapidly for a few minutes too, bottoming out at near freezing.

Fog Brrrrr...

Close to the Ring the fog was getting a bit denser, with the sun disappearing altogether.

Fog

The little climb to the Nordschleife entrance brought back the sunshine. The board near the gate told us the track was closed because of fog. I guess many people had expected this, as the carpark was still reasonably quiet. Or it was because it was only 8.40am. Still, my favourite parking spot was already taken by a Scooby that had overtaken us on the A1 a bit earlier (nice sound, BTW).

Early morning in the carpark Blue Scoob

A leisurely carpark wander didn't turn up any familiar faces, so we headed into the Grüne Hölle restaurant for some coffee (to be more precise, Adri had coffee, I refused to be extortet. Prices have risen beyond merely stupidly expensive to a level where "ridiculous" doesn't begin to cover it, IMHO. Pardon the rant, I digress...).

The track was still closed when the coffee was finished.

Track still closed

Some cars were held together with duct tape.

Tape-car

Others showed signs of hard use: scratches and a sheen of oil covered most of the backside of this otherwise lovely Elise.

Hard use

The 964 generation of 911 Turbo still looks the business. It even looks good on the more modern "wrong" wheels.

Porsche Turbo

A GT3 mk2 was on a visit from the USA.

American GT3

White is en vogue again for cars. Somehow, to my eyes at least, it looks a lot better on a 911 than on a Merc. But that might be due to my inability to disassociate visions of yellow taxi signs from an otherwise very impressive car.

White Merc vs white GT3

A quick glance at the information board told me that fog wasn't the biggest issue delaying the opening of the track. Apparently there was a big oil spill from Wehrseifen to Breidscheid. About 80 liters of biodiesel had somehow spilled.

Track closed due to oil spill

Stelvio had asked in the office if/when the track was likely to open, and was told that it wouldn't open at all for boiks today, and it was unsure if/when it would open at all today. I certainly felt for Stelvio, who had driven all the way from Italy for what was most likely his last trip of the year. Fingers crossed the track will open for boiks on Monday... At least he was very happy with his new boik. It was parked on the other side of the restaurant, but as a more or less identical model was parked right next to us I decided to take picture of that one instead of walking all the way to Stelvio's own boik ;-)

Stelvio's boik. Well
not really, but close enough

By now it was a little after 10am, and a rapidly filling carpark combined with uncertain opening and the certainty of a busy track should it open saw us deciding to bugger off and head back home again. Which is exactly what we did, after capturing what looked like a pitot tube on the roof of a Focus ST and a pair of lovely speed yellow GT3s on compact flash. Speaking of speed yellow GT3s: Anders, you really should make time for at least one Nordschleife visit in 2009... ;-)

Dunno what this is Pair of GT3s

Oh, we did take some great scenic routes on the way back (after waving to Ed while passing through Breidscheid), so the morning ended on a positive note :-P