Another long delayed trip report from me! For many years I'd talked about going to the Ring in November and watching the Rally Köln-Ahrweiler. My previous plans were scuppered by Covid, so 2022 was the year. The rally has been held since 1971, the traditional starting point for many years was the town of Mayschoß, which is about 20 miles north of Nürburg, hence the rally has always used some of the roads local to Nürburg, including sections of the Nordschleife, driven in the opposite direction! Following the terrible floods of 2021, which badly affected Mayschoß, the event had a new starting point and base at the Nürburgring pits. I flew into Düsseldorf with Paul, where we met up with Stefan, who had flown in from Stockholm, we hired a car and drove to the Ring. We arrived in town on Friday afternoon and headed up to the circuit to see the start of the rally, there was a stage held in the dark, right next to the new circuit. Enough text, lots of pics to follow! Saturday morning, we awoke to perfect weather A fantastic mix of rally cars for us to enjoy, the main event is open to both modern and classics, but there is also a classic 'demonstration' class as well. The Ring Mini (or at least, one of them) 4 wheel drive, Honda powered Stefan was happy to see this Saab 900 Turbo Interesting chase car was this Saab 9-7X, rarely seen in Europe, they were produced in Ohio, USA, built on the same platform as the Chevrolet TrailBlazer, from a time when GM owned Saab.
Lots of E30s to keep me happy! Dutch preparation comapny MATS were runing these 2 cars https://matsvdbrand.nl/ We watched the cars join the Döttinger Höhe from a service road, as they set off in the opposite direction on the Nordschleife
Noooo! Never mind, It'll fix. Driving the Ring in the opposite direction isn't as easy as it looks: Car no. 1 was driven by Georg Berlandy, a former 11 time winner of this rally - Incredibly, all previous 11 wins were recorded in classic Opels. This year, he'd opted for more modern machinery
Final result, win number 12 for Georg Berlandy https://www.ewrc-results.com/final/79442-adac-rallye-koln-ahrweiler-2022/ .
Sunday happened to be the last Touristenfahrten day of the year. Another Hyundai Taxi lap, it would be rude not to! Our driver Marc with Stefan, Paul and myself I used the excuse that it was my birthday, to get in the front seat 20.8 kilometres & 73 corners, this place never disappoints. Prepare for takeoff! The weather was perfect all weekend, temperatures were up to 13 degrees. I think we chose our year carefully to visit in November! Good to see some older cars out on Touristenfahrten. ... and the new stuff Beer & Pork Knuckle at the Lindenhof, highly recommended.
In car film from the Ring Mini, this is one of the stages we watched, I think we're up on the banking on the left at about 2min 10secs, just before he joins the Nordschleife:
Our weekend trip was at an end. As we were going to Düsseldorf Airport, we took another opportunity to call in a Classic Remise There were all types of interesting things to see, even before we got inside.... I believe this is a Citroen DS Coupe Le Thimme Ready for restoration?
