On Thursday morning I woke up extra early to pick up a friend and head to Germany. Our destination was the famous Nürburgring. I'm not sure what it is but when you get in the vicinity of the circuit there is something in the air, you just know you're getting close. All of a sudden you see Porsches and other special cars driving through the twisty roads that surround the circuit.
First we headed out to the village Nürburg itself and from there we headed out to some cool photo locations that surrounded the track. Our first idea was to check out the entrance of the Nürburgring and to see if there were any cars that were going to hotlap the circuit. Unfortunately, as you can see in the opening picture, there weren't any cars because the circuit was closed. It looked like a testday for some manufactures like Mercedes and BMW.
In the city of Nürburg itself you can find the BMW test center, this is where they prepare the ring taxi. The car they use is a BMW E60 M5, it will cost you 195 euro but you will be driven by experienced racing drivers. I tried to get inside for better pictures but the lady at the frontdesk didn't let me in unfortunately. Better luck next time.
Here is a few of the bend at Pflanzgarten. It amazaed me at how much writing there was on the pavement. After inspecting the site a bit better, it seemed that you could climb over a fence not higher than my hips. After climbing the fence you could easily find your way onto the circuit. I guess during racing days the audience get up at night and paint their best wishes or whatever they fancy on the pavement.
Here we see some of the cars that were doing their rounds. In the front we see a Alfa Romeo. It looks like a Alfa Mito. In the back we see a car that is much more interesting, it's the Lexus LF-A. This was the only time I got to see it, the other pictures I took right after this one were all blurry. What I can tell you is that it sounded great.
It is really cool to see these kind of cars in real life, normally you would only see them in spy shots taken by ‘experts'. But on a ordinary day you can see and hear them run yourself.
There were a lot of BMW's on the track, we even saw some of them when we visited the BMW test center. The drivers were really pushing the cars to their limits.
The red R8 had a tough time keeping up with what seemed to be a S5. Maybe it was because of the driver or the black Audi has something different under the hood. Could it be the Audi RS5?
Here we have the price list for the 'touristenfahrt' on the Nürburgring.
This is the long straight at the entrance of the Nürburgring. You get real close to the cars when they go past you on full speed.
This car got me puzzled at first, but after looking at the car without the camera in front of me I recognized it as the McLaren MP4-12C as featured here by Andy Blackmore. I even got a small video of it going past me on full throttle, just listen to that sound.
Because it was BMW month, I was trying hard to find some BMW's on the parking lots that surrounded the circuit. This was the only one I could find.
I had a lot of fun visiting the circuit and I will be doing it more often from now on. So if any of the readers have some dates planned, share them with me and maybe I can join you and take some pictures.
-Jeroen Willemsen