DN4 a 2 day trackday at the Ring - or "I'm in heaven"

DN4 - I have been looking forward to this for months - and praying the weather would hold :-)

Picked up the trailer and loaded the Lotus on it ready for the trip over on the Sunday, Track

Wheels and tyres (check), Jack (check), tools (check), spare tyres (check), brake pads (check), 20 litre Petrol can (check) less time off track:-), warning triangle, yellow reflective jacket (check) - all systems go!

Set off on the Sunday morning to catch the midday ferry - smooth journey down to dover with no traffic problems. However, the trailer was a bit "snaky" so when I got to Dover I had time to

loosen off the straps and move the Lotus forward by two inches and then secure it with the straps.

For the rest of the journey it was much more stable - cruising at 70mph and achieving 30mpg - excellent. The Rover is a good old bus and uses a BMW Turbo diesel engine.

Got to the Ring but it was too late to register so I went straight to Jochen and Sofia's. I had packed a nice bottle of Rioja a 2004 vintage that my son had bought me as a present. so we drank that with some food that Sofia had prepared, lovely. Then early to bed for an early rise to get down to the car park to register and get my transponder.

I was in the overflow car park so I found a good spot and parked the "rig" and unloaded the Lotus. I then went over to register and the "Mexican" and friend were still setting up - slackers :-). The lovely Hannah signed me in and got me my numbers, wristband and transponder.

What a field of machinery was here for the event - very impressive. The fellow Scot with the

Ferrari 308 GT4 - one of my favorite cars of all time was there. Photo from Frozenspeed site -

Jochen does take marvellous photos, really captures the essence of the event.

I tried to catch up with him over the two days but we were never in the same place at the same time!

Loads of people I know were there in their cars, but difficult to meet up with anyone? Either they were on track or I was............

Pulling in to go on for my 3rd lapping session I spotted Bruce at the entrance and gave him a wave. He had his helmet and asked if he could jump in for a pax lap or two - NP I said. we had to adjust the belts as the last person to use them had been very slim and small - probably my daughter.

Now - Bruce can talk - he would probably win the talking Olympics if he entered - lovely bloke and a volunteer Ring Marshall. With hundreds of laps under his belt in both cars and bikes - some of them painful. Here is a lap (the middle of three) with Bruce giving a running commentary. http://vimeo.com/26697626 He did talk through the whole three laps - at one point commenting that here we were lapping the Ring and chatting as if we were on the E40!

I then bumped into some of the Northloop guys and Floyd asked for a couple of laps, so I went and got the Lotus and picked him up and off we went. At one point he asked if I use the kerbs at the top of the hill after the depression in Foxhole - no I said "it unsettles the Lotus".

Then going into Speigel curve just before Miss Hit Miss I cut it to sharp and mounted the kerb! In 8 years of going to the Ring in various cars I have never touched that kerb! Floyd said I

thought you just said you didn't use the kerbs and then you go and use a kerb that nobody uses!

Here is the lap http://vimeo.com/26734984 How we laughed :-) but no drama really just a small sphincter movement..........................

There was sporadic rain but it was hot so it never settled and apart from some over exuberant Italians everything went well - as someone said "I have paid for all the track why are you in my way......"

Here are some more photos from Frozenspeed - excellent as usual and I like the new fisheye lens ads a new dimension to the pictures of your car. The guy in the Carrera GT was pedaling it really quickly and certainly knew his way around - you can see him flash past in one of the videos.

The last lap of the day was a bit traumatic - three cars were ahead of me in the queue a race

prepared MX5, Clio Sport and an E46 M3. They took off and I followed behind - some cars came

past me a Renault Megane 250?, Scirocco rental and the Italian 599 GTO (glorious noise) and a GTR.

I then motored onto Adenaur Forst where I passed a Cayman and onto Metzgetfield.

I was coming into Kallenhard when I spotted the E46 facing the right way but with his back

bumper in front of him! Everyone was OK and his two friends in their cars had parked up to help him.

Carried on and was getting into the "groove" and another E46 went past going up Kesselschen - noticed he had an attractive blonde passenger :-) dropped to fourth and was accelerating into Mut curve at just over 120 klicks - when I and the E46 had to do some very hard braking!!!

The rental Scirooco had lost it and ping ponged across the barriers and was broad ways across the whole track - three wheels knackered. front and rear bumpers off and damage to most panels...........ouch expensive and the 12000 euro excess!!!

This is the danger of the Ring - this chap had been driving like a cock every time I encountered him on the Ring - with the cars electronics saving him! Earlier in the day he and another Scirocco rental had come up behind me at the same corner two abreast and too fast - causing me to brake very hard at the next curve before Steilstreke or I would have hit them as they went passed me in the corner!!!

Once the electronics have given up the guy has no talent or capability to recover and this happens - no one was hurt - only his wallet - but he was lucky. The Ring is a very unforgiving "beast" and you have to treat it with respect. Here is the video

http://vimeo.com/27366264

So the session was red flagged and we all came off - parked up in the Grone Holle and bumped into Steve in his Manthey prepped 996 GT3 in white - lovely - he was with some HPC guys and one of them was the Cayman I had passed at Adenaur Forst. The Ring was closed and with two recoveries it would be closed for some time so I decided to go and load the Lotus on the trailer for the trip home.

I also had to take out the Vbox and cameras and give them back to Jochen/Frozenspeed - he rents the system out for 150euros for a half day and 250 euros for the whole day and as you can see from the videos it is a good system.

Then the boring journey back to Dunquerke and then home......it is always a low time to know you are leaving the Ring and probably not coming back for months :-(...............

Ring Trip with James in the 968CS

A good friend, James, called me a few weeks ago and asked did I want to travel with him to Spa and the Ring in his 968CS - of course I had to think about it for all of a millisecond :-)

So on the Saturday morning my alarm went off at 3.06am...........................my god thats early.

On the road before 4am and got to his house for 5am.........

so we caught the 7.20am train and were in Spa for midday - sharing the driving.

The 968 has adjustable suspension on the shocks and the rebound - so it was on "soft" setting for the trip over.

A friend of James was racing at the Spa classic in his race 944 - and we were stopping to watch - and be pit crew if needed. Unfortunately it pissed down with rain and his race was eventually stopped and cancelled after 6/7 offs.....very frustrating .

We carried onto the Ring and the rain dried out but we arrived too late for any laps. We both had an early night as we were going to get up for some early laps in the morning. Met up with Max in his GT3 and had some good laps on a virtually dry track. Max then headed off back to UK. Discovered he only

lives a few miles down the road from me!

The track was closed for incidents quite a few times but we got about 6/7 laps in total.

There was a classic car show near the TierGarten and I took some pictures. A lovely BMW3.0CS

which had been converted to a convertible - it was very well done. An original Lancia Stratos but I managed to loose the picture of that and a fabulous Merc Gullwing.

Here is a picture of me at the highest point of the Ring - Hoe Acht.

Went down the Pistenklaus for a steak on a stone on the Sunday and it was mobbed - some prat then put black pepper on their stone.....

The next day the 968 owner said I could do some laps with the car and Jochen did me a deal on a Ring card with three laps - great when a plan comes together :-) So I got three dry laps without incident - well!!!! almost..............

I came out of Karrousell and a car going round the outside clearly didn't see me and I had to go wide

and onto the grass not good when you are in someone elses car. no harm done though