Well, when it comes to late Nürburgring reports, this one takes the biscuit! So here goes. For many years, we had talked about watching the Nürburgring 24 Hours, accommodation had always been an issue, but now Martin (Texas2201) has a house 10 minutes drive from the Nürburgring circuit entrance, there were no more excuses. We flew Leeds - Düsseldorf on the Thursday. Picked up our hire car and drove straight to Adenau, in the hope of catching the pre race parade. Unfortunately, we were too late! But this is what we might have seen! We headed off to Martin's house. Did I mention our hire car? VW Golf (...or similar!!) I give you the Citroën C4 Cactus, I can never understand why people go out and buy an ugly car, some design expert at Citroën thought it would be a good idea to stick some pieces of plastic on the side of a car (No offence if you own one of these cars!) Stefan and Dick made the journey down from Sweden, Stuttgart meets Norfolk Friday, we picked up our wristbands, these allow you access to most places during the weekend, at around 60 Euros each, they are reasonable value. Our usual favourite tour of the pits, similar to a VLN weekend, just everything is a bit bigger. The Bugatti Chiron, named after Monaco's very own Monaco GP winner Louis Chiron. Presumably built because the Veyron wasn't fast enough! Possibly the only car with a speedometer which reads 500km/h The Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus (SCG) - Special prototype rules at the Nürburgring allow this car to compete with the established sports car manufacturers. The team is funded by James Glickenhaus, a film producer, financier, and director from New York. They seem to a have a decent set up With approximately 180 entries, the 24 Hours has room for budget teams Former DTM Champion Volker Strycek had a family entry in the race As always, big wings aplenty
Mercedes were one of the favourites for the race win, they had arrived in force Subaru were present as ever, with their factory STi entry Gerrman TV presenter Tim Schrick was one of the Subaru pilots BMW M6 GT3 - BMW had won the last VLN round prior to the 24 Hours, so they were hot favourites, right? Lambo Porsche official entry, the factory had sent Le Mans winner Nick Tandy to name but one, still rumours of a mid-engined GT3 911 persisted, but for this event it would be the classic rear engine layout The Bentley Boys were in town. Another British Le Mans winner, Guy Smith at the wheel
World Touring Cars were on the support package A familiar name to rally fans, Sebastien Loeb is now in the trucking game! Rubber problems for the Swedes! Sabine was having a guest drive in a Chevy! Not the sort of power she is normally used to though
Classic support race is always good for a variation of cars Plenty of MKII Golf GTI in Germany still Volkswagen - Audi
We decided to watch the classic race as the cars joined the Nordschleife. So far, we had enjoyed good weather, but the clouds were forming as we walked into Nurburg village... We didn't have to wait long for the rain They let the cars out behind the pace car, we were taking shelter under the beer trailer, worse places to be! The rain eased slightly, not exactly what we had hoped for, but that's motor racing spectating After 6 laps behind the pace car, we made our way back to Martin's house, time for a hot drink
Friday evening, the rain had stopped, which left a tricky, partially damp track for the final Top 30 qualifying session for the 24 hour race Spectators arrive up to a week before the race starts, in order to get a good spot, quite often assembling elaborate structures to watch from VW Grill
Saturday was race day. WTCC was run prior to the 24 hours. I have 'borrowed' the race photos from various news feeds
Falken Motorsport Porsche team pose prior to the race The number 9 Mercedes was on pole Civilised fans waited patiently for the race to start! The start of the race was held in dry conditions, we caught the first few laps at the new circuit Sabine was having to quickly adapt from a front wheel drive WTCC racer to her normal GT3 car Thousands were camping out in the forests
What happened next took everybody by surprise, we were still at the new circuit following the race on the big screen, when all of a sudden the race was red flagged. Anybody who has ever watched a race on the Nordschleife, will know that a red flag situation only happens in a serious situation. This is what we were seeing on the big screen, there were cars going off everywhere, the sun was shining at the new circuit, so we couldn't work out what was happening A freak ice storm was causing chaos for the drivers (who were all on full racing slicks). Pieces of ice, the size of Maltesers were falling from the sky! All hell was breaking loose! The 4WD support vehicles were coming into their own
A couple of clips showing how crazy things got when the ice storm hit A reminder just how vast the Nordschleife is, and how the weather can change on one side of the circuit to the other Worth watching the first clip in full, just to see how the conditions got worse and worse and worse.......
The race was stopped after just 50 minutes, and did not restart until around 8pm. We decided to retreat to Martin's, watch the live link coverage and have a few drinks.
Out of the dark came light, and with it the realisation that Mercedes were dominating the event BMWs only real chance for victory ended when their front running car got tangled up with a slower car after leaving the pits, nobody was at real fault, just wrong place wrong time!
By Sunday afternoon, most of the spectators had drunk all their beer, and many had gone home Lambo was still lapping Many battle-scarred cars were abandoned after crashes during the night, always likely to happen with such differentials in speed and ability on an event like this The Green Hell was really living up to its name, a big clean up job to follow for somebody You never have to go far to find beauty though (my comfort break view!) We have grown used to Mercedes teammates going wheel to wheel in F1 over the last few seasons, but we didn't expect the same situation at the end of a 24 hour race at the Nürburgring. Here's a reminder of what happened on the very last lap - Fair but firm? Mercedes took an historic 1-2-3-4 result, also the closest ever finish to the race at 5.7 seconds The wining crew of Bernd Schneider(D), Maro Engel(D), Adam Christodoulou(GB), Manuel Metzger(D)
Monday, we had a bit of spare time before we caught our afternoon flight from Dusseldorf. I had heard about a museum at Spa Francorchamps, there is a museum, but it is located just a few minutes from the Spa circuit entrance, at the historic and beautiful setting of the Abbay de Stevelot The motor museum is small, but well worth a visit, there are other exhibits besides the motor museum, it would be good to spend a full day there at some point in the future. Here are a few photos I took Link to museum, for anyone interested: http://www.abbayedestavelot.be/en/musees/spa-francorchamps-racetrack-museum#.WGquWOSmmM8 .
Finally, we headed for Düsseldorf, we decided if we made good time, then we would call at Classic Remise in Dusseldorf to finish our automotive weekend off in style. Judging by the amount of navigational aids, Peter had made his mind up we were going to arrive early! The usual variation of vehicles on display, all (or most) of which are for sale TVR End of report. Thanks for reading. Now time to start planning the 2017 trip. .
