1st trip to the Ring - any advice please?
 

Me and few mates are off to the Ring on the 26th Sept for the first time.

I'm looking for any advice at all, from most cost effective route, good places to stay (hotel or campsites etc). Any advice on do's and donts, and just any advice in general. All will be much appreciated :)

Jeff

I would do some research first

Ben Lovejoy's Nurburgring Nordschleife website
:: northloop.co.uk :: we're not playing games :: nurburgring galleries and more ::

What I learnt quickly is you must assume everyone has more talent than you do, don't be a hero and you should be fine!

Good place to stay just down the road from the Ring

***onRoad Cafe*** Nederlands

Also would echo the above except i wouldn't assume that people overtaking do have more talent. I've been over taken a few times to find the overtaker beached/crashed just a couple of corners later. Let them go as you don't want them sliding into you!

Obey the rules and you will be fine. If you aren't obsessed by time (reccommend not taking a stopwatch) then be sensible on the straights.

What you find is that people will brake from 100mph to 60 for a corner they could have taken at 80. Those already doing 80 will rip round the corner because they've had time to plan and not panicked about the corner. Any loon can go fast in a straight line!

5t.

Don't time yourself.

Thoroughly check your car before you drive there, and then check it even more when you arrive.

Oil, filters, pressures, levels, tyres, brakes, suspension the lot.

No one likes blowing a tyre up on one of the infamous cambered corners, or blowing an engine up because all the oil dived to one side leaving the engine sucking up nothing up but air.

The Smacs are doing a ring trip in October and have been before, there is too much info about the ring, Northloop appears top be an excellent site with regards to the Nurburgring.

Thanks for the nice comments about Northloop. The web site will give you a reasonable amount of info including route to get there and accomodation recommendations. Join the forum and read the Frequently asked question section, that should give you the rest you need. If you still have questions post them in the open forum we will of course help, it's what we are there for.


Last weekend was a really bad one over there so I REALLY would recommend you do plenty of research before going

One of my all time fav you tubes: How not to start your ring session...

YouTube - 7 second 'ring king

Make sure you have sound!!

anybody heard about it getting closed down within 5 years??

we are going over next easter :D

Thanks for the advice, i'll leave the stop watch at home.

I've already had a look at the safety video on the nuerburgring.de site to get an idea of the basic rules.

I'm not driving the pug there and back as it'd be murder in the bucket seats all that way, so I'm trailering it there (and back hopefully :D )

I'll be more than happy to 'slowly' start to familiarize myself with the circuit as I dont fancy sticking it into a barrier or worse!

Really looking forward to it... but not on the 26th of Sept as originally planned :D

Just registered on Northloop, loads of great info on there. Last weekend does sound very grim indeed :( Two wheels round there sounds like russian roulette!

I think the trip is going to need a little more planning specially with the dates not matching, which has now been pointed out to my mate who was 'organising' it :D

Absolutely itching to go now though!!!

What happened 'last weekend'?

On a more positive note, if you run over any kerbs, then Id suggest stopping where its safe and checking your sump. Some kerbs are high enough to damage them and cause terminal oil leaks, which can be terminal for motorcyclists. If you spill any fluids: stop and see that you flag down oncoming traffic.

Simon

While I agree with your comment about stopping immediately it is safe to do so if you think you are leaking fluids (remember your safety first, then flag to keep others safe). I have to disagree with your comment about the curbs. I have never heard of a car suffering sump damage from riding curbs. I have nailed pretty much every curb round there for 500 odd laps in the 205 and never had an issue, nor have I heard of anyone else having one for that reason ;)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...00/Pug/1-1.jpg

The ring
 

Watch out for one of the local ladds in a mini van he be very quick:lol1: he passed me as i was passing a 911 and i wasn't hanging around [so i thought] and if you get a chance take alook at the van. Main thing relax enjoy. You will love it. Up untill i went my Scooby was up for sale,Now i'm keeping it as i had so much fun and found out that my car is fantastic :lol1: enjoy mate!!! as others have said ben lovjoys site very usefull :)

Watch the left hander it will catch you out ;)

Cheers, nice to hear some positive replies as well as the cautionary ones, keep 'em coming (thats both types as all is welcome).

I'm still a little confused on what is generally the best thing to do about insurance as it appears that unless I get specific insurance on top of the normal insurance I have on the Pug (or any car by the looks of things), I wont be insured? So do I need specific insurance or do people treat it like a uk trackday where a lot of people generally dont bother with trackday insurance?

I'm going to post up on NL tomorrow I think but a bit wary as it seems rather a tight knitt community...

I should have made that clearer. Ive seen it twice: the inside kerb at Aremberg. If Id spent more time composing my post Id have said 'riding over high kerbs', not 'riding kerbs', which of course, wont do any harm.

Simon

This thread is giving me naughty subliminal messages of what to do in my little 205 GTI when it comes to stage doo ideas :cuckoo: :lol1:

Check your docs basically. I've never taken out specific insurance for the bikes but I did make sure my accident/health insurance covered me (figured bike might be last issue on my mind if i came off)

If it says no nurburg or no "derestricted toll roads" then you aren't covered. However when my mate binned his bike he just said he'd had a crash in Germany, they never asked for more info and paid up.

Also the Mini is rather famous in the Mini World. Known as 'Ring Mini' it is actually a 1.6 Honda Civic motor!

Estate english

plenty of vids around the web too.

5t.

Kerb: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...7/IMG_6237.jpg

Too much kerb: http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y19...s/IMG_2049.jpg

Ring mini: YouTube - RingMini @ D16 at the Nürburgring (Nord)

Not done the ring myself - And might be useless suggestion. But if you have an Xbox 360 or access to one and Forza motorpsort, do the ring several times in various cars to get an idea of the track and its turns. I know its not going to be anything like the real thing, but probably give you a head start.

I can understand why you'd think that, but my experience of playing TOCA and going round Donnington for real are quite different LOL

As it happens I'm already playing Forza (not because I want to practice to do it for real, just like the game :D ) but I dont expect that to help in the real world... just look at that weapon that was a legend on Colin McRae Rally and made a right t*t of himself on national tv in the real thing :lol1:

I think there will be sections that I recognise because of it (and Felly's On Track dvd etc), but then the same could be said for any racing game/dvd and real circuit etc...

The ring via video game is ok for telling you which way the track goes but obviously it doesn't show you elevation changes nor the lumps and bumps of which there are many.

I had to learn it the hard way, but many use games to help. Just remember one thing. If you touch the grass on a game you can sometimes get it back. Do it for real and you end up with a written off car and a large armco bill.

not unless your name is mike rainbird:D;)
astraboy.

Well I've been maybe 4 or 5 times since around 2001, usually long weekends. I'd say that playing something like GT4 IS useful. The track is so long that to turn up 'green' and try and enjoy driving it is not going to happen. It's like when you have to take an unexpected cross country detour and have no idea where you're going. The first time I went, it was literally like that for me. The 'Ring was nowhere near as widely known about, and the only game that had it in was called GP Legends on the PC. That was a hardcore driving sim and no good at all for learning the track. Just before the third time I went out, I bought a PS2 and GT4 a couple of months beforehand and after sessioning that over and over, I think it improved my 'Ring driving an awful lot. Not as in making me necessarily faster, but much smoother, and there were no surprises. You can concentrate more on the traffic because you have a better idea of the circuit. IMHO it's no fun driving a fast car around too slowly because you're ****ting yourself LOL

Anyway, apart from that I'll say the same as everyone else, take it easy, forget timing yourself, it's not that kind of a circuit IMHO - the fun is in stringing it together and feeling like you've had a good workout by the time you hit the final straight.

The ring
 

I just watched youtube mini and thats blue. The one i was on about is grey/green van fiberglass body space framed and a 2 litre type r lump. Anyone else seen it?? Realy nice fella drives it and he just loves showing people around the track. :lol1:

Use lots of lubrication

Well, I'm getting fairly good on Forza, and yes I suppose in having a rough idea of whats coming up will help a little but in terms of surface changes, camber, gradient etc in the real world I'm not so sure. The first time I went down/round Craner curves at Donnie I couldnt believe how steep it felt compared to what I'd seen on screen etc
I've played Forza using the force feedback wheel and it was pretty tricky, and it did feel like there were bumps and camber changes etc that you couldnt actually see on the screen, but still...

Im kind of expecting to spend more time worrying about whats coming up behind and not holding people up to begin with, I'm sure after a few laps I'll start to relax a little and get into the swing of things.

Also, I wont be in a 'fast' car, but it handles really well, so I reckon thats the best way, dont think I'd have been as keen to take the Scoob if I still had it.

We talking beer (night before) or oil? :lol1:

The 'Ring Mini fella has more than one Mini. His tool of choice is a blue 'van' (actually a Clubman estate with the rear windows plated over). I think that his website URL (off his sun visor, from what I remember), is: Home.
I dont think that it has an A-Series in it though, from the noise it made when it last passed me!

Simon