Day Three (Part Two): Driving the ‘Ring in the sunshine...
We arrived at the entrance to the ‘Ring 15 minutes after leaving the Welcome Centre. In stark contrast to yesterday, the sun was shining, the tarmac was dry and the carparks were overflowing with cool cars and standard cars alike.
Leaving the cars basking in the sun, surrounded by the sound of revving engines and the smell of hot brakes, we went and bought some lap tickets. Doz paid for four, putting them on my Ringcard, and Matt bought a further four. I immediately gave Doz a crisp €20 note in return for one of the newly purchased laps and headed off out with Matt and along for the ride. Paul had already disappeared in the Maxima with Doz, leaving Nat chatting to people in the car park.
With the track dry, grip levels had rocketed and so had my confidence. Unfortunately, with the track dry, the number of other cars on track had also rocketed, which meant that it wasn’t really possible to do a fast lap as we had to keep getting out of the way of faster cars. On the plus side, it was like being dropped into the middle of a real life version of Gran Turismo. Sun shining, on-track graffiti flashing past, loads of people lining the popular corners, it was the most fun I’ve ever behind the wheel. We’d crest a hill, foot hard down, and looking in the mirror, realise that a Porsche GT3 RS was approaching much, much faster than we could ever hope to go. Move over to the right, indicate and in a flash of colours, not one but four Porsche 911s came blasting past. I’ve never been a fan of Porsches particularly, but the noise of four of them jostling for position was incredible, like an off-beat roll of thunder, enough to raise the hair on the back of your neck. The sight was so amazing that when the roar of their exhausts faded, I realised I was bouncing the BMW off the limiter, being so mesmerised by the Porsches that I’d completely forgotten to change gear. We sat there, giggling like schoolgirls as fast car after fast car overtook us.
It was soon afterwards that we realised we had left a half full crate of beer in the boot, which could be heard sliding around, banging into the side of the boot. Not that it slowed us down. At least, not as much as some of the other drivers out there! When we reached the Karussell, we couldn’t drop in thanks to an M3 that was all over us. It was quite a sight looking down on it as it dropped in next to us though.
As we crested the final corner and hit the finish straight, we soon discovered it wasn’t going to be possible to beat the speed attained in the wet along there as people in front of us were slowing down and coasting to the exit. We realised why when we saw the traffic backing up onto the straight! Matt had timed the lap, from bridge to gantry, and it was exactly 13 minutes. Not bad for an elderly BMW with a boot full of beer and a novice behind the wheel. Once we’d made it back to the main car park, we caught up with Paul and Doz and realised that they’d had a similar experience to us, and had also loved every second of it. Doz wanted to go out in the BMW, taking Paul as a passenger, while Matt took Nat out in the Maxima.
Handing Doz the keys to the BMW, Jonny and I took the beer out of the boot, and I went and got a coffee from the vending machine (it seems amazing coffee was available from almost anywhere in Germany. Tea was not). We tucked the beer into a bush and wandered around looking at some of the awesome machinery in the car park. Doz hadn’t been out for long when an announcement came over the Tannoy. The track was closed because of an accident. Immediately, my mind sprang to the worst possible conclusion, that while trying to race Matt, Doz had overcooked it resulting in a long tank-slapper that ended in an orgy of Ferrari, BMW and armco. Doz has no fear. Or no brain. I’m not sure which. Anyway, he drives hard. He’s a good driver, but he definitely drives harder than I do, which is probably why I thought the worst.
Jonny and I stood by the entrance to the track, watching cars coming off, waiting to spot the Maxima or the BMW. No sign of them. A couple of recovery trucks went off up the track, closely followed by a doctor in a Golf. Still no Maxima, still no BMW. We stood there, joking about how bad an accident Doz had caused and how much it was going to cost him. As we did, the Maxima exited the track. Still no sign of the BMW. Visions of having to cram six of us into the Maxima for the 12-hour journey back filled my head. Fortunately, it was around then that the BMW exited, unscathed and containing two fools grinning from ear to ear.
I felt I should apologise to Doz for my lack of faith but it turns out that I wasn’t too far off the mark; he jumped out of the car telling tales of overtaking slower cars while sideways, giggling away with Paul at the memory. We’d had to park in a car park opposite the blocked off main entrance and as we waited for them to recover whoever had crashed, it rained a bit. As soon as it did, most of the Porsches seemed to drive off. The track ended up being closed for around an hour though, and by the time we got back into the main carpark, the ground had pretty much dried.
I wasn’t going to go for another lap, but the first had been so much fun that I handed Doz another €20 note and off I went again, this time with Doz along for the ride. In the meantime, Paul was driving the Maxima with Jonny along for the ride. This lap was very similar to the first, featuring being overtaken by much faster cars and laughing a lot. A few highlights included watching a GT3 drop into and fly round the Karussell from above; moving over for an Audi R8 being chased by a 911 Turbo, only for them to be held up by a Vauxhall which hadn’t noticed them. The R8 was so close to the Vauxhall, I thought he’d hit it. It sat on his bumper all the way round a bend before the Vauxhall finally moved and the R8 and 911 disappeared. I ‘dropped the hammer’ (as Paul constantly said) at the same time as they did, and it was hilarious to see just how quickly they left us. We also came around a bend to find a man standing on the apex waving a yellow flag. I only just managed to avoid him. When we got back in, we found that Paul had also encountered the yellow flag man, but as he was being overtaken at the time, he couldn’t move over and he didn’t manage to avoid him, clipping his flag and no doubt having a barrage of German swearing fired his way.
As I went to the horrendously over-priced gift shop and bought a couple of t-shirts for my sons and a sticker for the fridge, Doz and Matt used up their final laps. After a final, delicious, cup of coffee, the others came in and Matt finally bought and applied the Maxima’s badge of honour:
And so, we returned to the hotel, incredibly happy. And also hungry. We decided to take a stroll up the road to the same restaurant we’d eaten in on our first night. We sat there for quite a while, drinking beer and talking about just how epic the trip had been. When we’d all finished, we returned to the hotel bar for a few more beers. We didn’t realise what time it was however, as we weren’t in there for long before the lovely barman told us we couldn’t have any more beer. I would like to point out that this was not because we’d had too much, but because it was late. Doz not like.
So we all retired to bed for a few hours sleep before the long drive home the following day. Not knowing how long the journey was going to take, I’d booked a late channel crossing, which meant that we didn’t actually have to leave Nurburg until midday. All of us were glad of that, as it had been a long day and none of fancied being up at the crack of dawn.
Day Three (Part One): The Welcome Centre and the Oldtimers Festival.
There were three good things about waking up this morning. One, I didn’t have a hangover, which was surprising. Two, I could hear the roar of various cars being pushed to their limits. Three, it wasn’t raining and there wasn’t too much cloud in the sky. All of these bode well for getting in some dry laps today, which should be much less scary and much more fun than the wet ones we did yesterday.
After getting up, I went down for breakfast, only to discover (after wandering around the breakfast room being stared at by other guests as if I was about to steal their bratwurst) that none of us were in there. We’d agreed to meet at 9:30. I checked my watch. 9:15. Maybe I’m too early. I rang Jonny and, when he answered, asked where he was as it sounded a bit too windy to be his room. “On top of the castle with Paul. Doz is walking up here now.”
Great. I skipped breakfast and went down to the car park to do some ultra-zoomed filming of them waving at me before jumping into the BMW to go and pick them up. As there had been no sign of Matt and Nat, we decided to pop down to the Welcome Centre to spend some of the money we’d loaded onto our RingCards.
A quick note about RingCards. You purchase them from vending machines dotted around the Welcome Centre by choosing how much you want on it and feeding that amount into the machine. It then spits out a card. If you need to add more to it, you can at any time by sticking it back into a machine (or even by handing it over to one of the people wandering around with handheld machines). It is the only way to pay for stuff in and around most of the Welcome Centre and it also acts as an admission ticket in various places. There was a sticker on the machine that said we wouldn’t be able to purchase laps of the ‘Ring without a RingCard. Naturally, we assumed that we would have to pay for the laps using the card too, so we all loaded them up with 50 – 70 Euros. When Matt and I arrived at the Nordschliefe and bought a lap each, it turned out we needed the card to act as an entrance ticket but we couldn’t pay using the cards. Hence going back to the Welcome Centre to try and spend what we’d got left on them!
When we arrived, we headed into one of the clothing / souvenir shops that were dotted around and Jonny started looking at the overpriced clothing, trying to decide if his new wife would be angry at him for spending money on a t-shirt. While he did that, Doz made friends with a dummy.
Just after I’d snapped his pic, he decided to hold the dummy’s other hand. Which promptly fell off. Onto a wooden floor. The resultant noise alerted the hovering shop assistant to the fact that his dummy was being molested and we beat a hasty retreat, without making any purchases.
We popped next door for a cup of coffee; the Germans make fantastic coffee which is available all over the place, even the vending machines make an amazing cup. Unfortunately, the tea is beyond awful. Having spent a few Euros, we wandered around the centre for a while, poking at all of the expensive cars:
All morning, we’d been able to hear the screams of engines being thrashed around the F1 circuit (which is directly behind the Welcome Centre) and we wandered out onto the footbridge connecting a couple of the buildings to have a look. It was the Oldtimers Festival in full swing, and when we had a look, there were little old Fiats being hammered. We figured it was as good a way as any to pass some time so we went to the front desk and bought a ticket each to the Festival.
While we were buying the Festival tickets, Doz and Paul realised that there was a karting circuit within the Welcome Centre and decided that they wanted to have a race. We had just about made it outside the main doors when we got a phone call from Matt, who apologised for oversleeping but promised to come down and join us immediately. Two minutes later, Matt was with us and was heading off to buy a Festival ticket. The karting circuit wasn’t due to open for another hour or so, so we walked around to the F1 track and spent a couple of hours walking around looking at the Oldtimers…
We grabbed a bite to eat from a little cafe in the middle of the paddock (much to Jonny’s disgust, the Germans don’t seem to go in for ‘dirty burger vans’). It was our first go on German fast food, and while the fries were nice, the Currywurst was pretty bad. Not as bad as Jonny’s bratwurst though, which he couldn’t eat. It didn’t help that Doz was telling him what was likely to be in it (cow’s lips, gums, eyes, etc). Standing up to go and watch some racing, I experienced a moment of fail. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but the upshot was I landed on my back, hard, iPhone skittering away across the tarmac, conscious that many German conversations had just stopped and that I was being stared at. I’m not sure if people just don’t fall over in Germany, or whether they had never seen a fat man trip before and were shocked by the novelty, but the silent staring really helped me feel like an idiot. I beat a hasty retreat. It was only a few minutes later that I realised I was in quite a lot of pain. My stomach was pretty sore. I checked it out and wasn’t too surprised to see a small red mark there. I’d clearly hit something on the way down. It was only when I went to bed that I realised that the little red mark had developed into an angry red bruise. With hindsight, I should have taken a photo, because it was awesome. This was taken three days after it happened:
Anyway, once I’d gotten over the indignity of falling on my bum, and once the others had stopped mocking me, we wandered down to the trackside seating to watch some Formula Fords razzing around.
As it happens, Formula Ford being driven by amateurs is boring. Even Paul, describing the manner in which he hoped they’d crash to enliven it a bit; even that got old. It didn’t help that beyond the F1 circuit, we could just see a tantalisingly small section of the Nordschliefe, and every so often would see and hear the V12 bi-turbo Mercedes flash through the trees. We soon decided that enough was enough and we went to do some karting.
So, we moved back to the karting centre where Paul and Doz had to purchase terrorist style balaclavas before they were allowed to borrow a helmet. Matt had brought his own helmet. Jonny and I didn’t want to do it. I was still sore from falling over, Jonny was just miserable.
Much to my surprise, Paul turned out to be a bit of a karting hero; he thrashed everyone else and came within 1.5 seconds of the all time lap record. He was lapping people left, right and centre. When he got out, I told him I was shocked he was so good at karting and he replied “Yeah, I am”. Both a hero and master of understatement.
When the analysis of the times was complete, someone pointed out that the ‘Ring opened for public access in under twenty minutes, so we decided to get back to the hotel, grab Nat and more cameras and things, and then head off for an afternoon of thrashing the cars – this time in the dry.
Today started when we met for breakfast at about 9:30. After eating our fill, Matt and Nat went to get ready and Doz, Paul, Jon and myself wandered down the road to a viewpoint to watch some cars being tested. There were a few interesting things being belted around, including a Mercedes V12 bi-turbo that sounded evil on the overrun. The majority of the cars going by were pretty mundane however; people carriers and hatchbacks featured heavily.
When Matt and Nat were ready, we drove a few kilometers down the road to the next village to find the garage offering ‘Ring insurance. Once we’d finished there, we drove back to the Nurburgring Welcome Centre, bought a RingCard each (essentially a cash-card that you preload with Euros and use to buy things in all of the shops around the Nurburgring complex), wandered around a few shops and then visited Ringwerk, the museum.
We were all expecting to see a few cars on plinths and some engines on display in there, but it turned out to be a brilliant mix of cool cars and interactive displays.
As we walked through the museum, we passed through areas dedicated to various types of turbo, gearbox, suspension, engine, energy-saving technology, etc; all of which had interactive displays to help explain how things worked. And to play with. We eventually reached the motorsport area, which featured an 8-player game allowing people to race trucks around the Nurburgring, including a truck cab mounted on hydraulics which reacted like a real truck while you were playing the game.
Paul and Jon queued to have a go in that while the rest of us wandered around, and while Paul was playing the game, we discovered a room marked RingBus. Having no idea what it was, but seeing a show was about to start, we had a look inside. It’s a ride modelled on a tour bus that has large screens surrounding three sides. Once seated, we took a computer generated ride around Nurburg and eventually the ‘Ring itself, getting more and more manic, while the entire thing was bouncing around on hydraulics. It was fun, if a little silly.
After our thrilling tour bus ride, we had a look around the F1 section, which had a brilliant exploded model of an F1 car on display – one that you could touch and get as close as you liked to. It was interesting seeing just how much carbon fibre is used on a modern F1 car, and just how small the clutch is! There was also a pair of model F1 cars linked to a racing simulator. As Matt and Paul wandered around the F1 model, poking and prodding, Jon and Doz climbed in and had a race, proving that Doz plays more Xbox than Jon.
When we’d finished in the Museum, Matt, Nat and Doz popped down the road to the nearest small town, Adenau, to do a bit of shopping. Jon, Paul and I went back to the hotel, grabbed recharged camera batteries and went to find a suitable viewpoint ready for us to drive the ‘Ring in the evening tourist session.
Having been tipped off to a good place the night before, we parked up in a layby and walked up a hill to a vantage point looking down on a series of corners. As we set the camera up however, it started raining. Hard.
We sheltered under a tree, wearing Semperit caps and trying to keep as dry as possible until the others arrived. When they did, Doz stayed with Jon while Paul, Matt, Nat and I got in the cars to go and do our first lap of the ‘Ring. We had been feeling slightly nervous before the rain started, but the prospect of a wet lap made the ‘Ring’s fearsome reputation seem all the more real.
It was about at this point that we realised we had no idea where the tourist entrance to the ‘Ring actually was. We followed various signs and had various conversations with German security guards before eventually arriving at the entrance. Nat went to get a cup of coffee while we bought a lap each and summoned the courage to queue up for a lap. I was driving the BMW with Paul as passenger, while Matt was following us in the Maxima.
There weren’t that many cars going on track, a combination of a midweek session and heavy rain seeming enough to keep the crowds away. Holding my RingCard against the sensor, the barrier lifted and suddenly, we were accelerating out onto the main straight. I will admit at this point that I was pretty terrified and was driving like a grandma popping out to get her pension from the Post Office.
However, I kept at a pretty slow speed and, having no idea where the track went, just followed my nose. Everything was going well until we came into the series of six corners where Jon and Doz were waiting, filming. I flashed my lights at them and then realised I was carrying a little too much speed for the next corner, which tightened more than I was expecting. As I backed off the accelerator, the back end went light and the car slid sideways as I dialled in some opposite lock and corrected it. As this happened, Paul started shouting “no, no, no, no” and I had images of a dented piece of Armco and a large bill. However, I held the slide and carried on fine. Afterwards I found out that what had felt like the beginnings of a huge accident was, in reality, hardly any angle at all – Matt hadn’t even noticed it from behind, although Doz was kind enough to say it did look a bit sideways. Tiny slide though it was, it was enough to amp up my terror level a notch and have me drive even more carefully!
The rest of the lap passed uneventfully, both of us being very careful about watching our mirrors and getting out of the way of faster cars. It seemed that no sooner had we started, we were on the final straight. By the time we were back in the car park, we found out that about 18 minutes had passed! A pretty slow lap!
We all got out of the car and immediately realised that we wanted to do that again, and faster this time, so Matt and I bought another lap each.
This time, Paul passengered with Matt and I drove alone. I put some driving music on the stereo, queued at the gate, and then we were off on our second lap. This time, I held back along the initial straight to give Matt a chance to put some distance between us – I didn’t want to fall into the trap of trying too hard to keep up with him and end up crashing!
After we’d realised that the track, although to be treated with respect, wasn’t going to kill us, we had both gained some confidence and we both drove harder, although I did keep the speed down through the corners as some of them were fine but some were really slippy – and I had no idea which was going to be which. I found that the Semperit tyres afforded good levels of grip, even on soaking wet, slippy racetrack – and at sensible speeds, signalled their intention to run out of grip nice and early. The EBC Brakes were just phenomenal. They’d felt good on the road, but on the track they seemed to offer infinite stopping power with absolutely no hint of fade, no matter how hard I stomped on them.
The only bit of the lap I really remember was the Karussell, which was an amazing experience. Dropping into a banked section of track like that felt like nothing I’d done in a car before, and the angle allowed you to really hammer through it much faster than if it was a normal piece of tarmac.
The second lap felt much better than the first, but again, it felt like it was over before it had begun. This time, it transpired that we’d managed around 15 minutes. We would have liked to have gone out again, but were conscious of the fact that we’d left Doz and Jon standing on the side of a hill, so we went and picked them up before driving back to the hotel to freshen up before dinner.
We’d booked a table in the Pistenklause restaurant, in our hotel, whose speciality dish is a great fat steak served raw on top of a 500 degree stone slab. You cook it yourself as you eat it. It was delicious, although the heat given off by five of the stones was immense and we were all sweating by the time the meal ended! If you’re ever lucky enough to visit the Nurburgring, we all highly recommend going for dinner at the Pistenklause.
Tomorrow, we’re going to have a look around the Old Timer festival which is being held at the F1 track and hopefully we’ll get out for some more laps.
Today started at 5am, when I was outside waiting for Doz to arrive and packing the BMW. After that was done, we were off to pick up Jonny before driving to meet Team Maxima at Watford Gap services.
We arrived shortly after 6:30, with the others arriving a couple of minutes later. We were greeted by a green looking Paul stumbling from the back of the Nissan before rushing off to be sick. Something to do with real ale, apparently.
After Paul had brushed his teeth and we’d stocked up on coffee, we were off down the M1 and M25. Apart from a small delay at the Dartford crossing when I missed the coin basket and had to scrabble for more change, we had no mishaps or delays and arrived at the Channel Tunnel terminal about an hour early. Some more coffee and some banter about the BMWs gearknob with the security man who was swabbing the steering wheel and we were on the train.
I should mention at this point that taking 2 walkie-talkies in each car will result in an escalating patter of banter that willvery quickly assault the boundaries of taste. In fact, taking 2 walkie-talkies in each car will very likely also have the result of two childish men talking to each other in childish voices. In the same car. Via walkie-talkie. Still, I laughed. Some of the time.
Once we were into France, we hit the motorways and kept gong for mile after mile of featureless landscape until France turned into Belgium and became even more featureless. It was around then that someone called for a toilet stop. And that was when Doz discovered that service stations on the continent sell beer by the six-pack and, Doz being Doz, he just couldn’t resist that siren call of lager.
If you have ever had the good fortune to meet Doz, you will know what a lovely man he is. If you have ever had the good fortune to meet Doz while he’s under the influence of a few beers, you will know just how quickly he goes from being lovely to being highly annoying. That being said, you may understand why the prospect of driving Doz and beer across France didn’t fill me with joy. He drank four of the beers within an hour and gave the other two to Jonny and Paul, leaving me, plodding on towards Belgium, stone cold sober, having to deal with Doz giving Jonny massages and singing along with the national anthem. Which was only playing inside his head.
Happily (for me), Doz appears to suffer from a weak bladder and those four beers had soon filtered through his insides and were announcing their intention to reappear at any minute. So, after the whining got too much to bear, we pulled into yet another rest-stop. At this one, we all popped to the loo and visited the shop to buy various bags of sweets. Once we’d done that, we were off once more.
A pretty uneventful hour or so went by during which Doz fell asleep and the rest of us listened to various music and amusing podcasts. Finally, after a quick dip into Holland, we went past a small shack by the side of the road – a small shack that had a couple of green and white VW Passat’s parked outside with POLIZEI written down the side. A discussion broke out about which country we were in, but no sooner had it started than we went past a WELCOME TO DEUTSCHLAND sign.
Around then, Doz woke up needing another toilet stop and we started getting close to an empty tank in the BMW (around 480 miles from home; not a bad distance on one tank!) so we decided to refuel at the next opportunity. That turned out to be a little petrol station on the side of the autobahn. We filled the tank, bought drinks, spent 50c on going to the toilet and marvelling at the amazing self-cleaning toilet seat, and then we were off again.
With just over 130km to go, we hit the road once again, only to come to a stop pretty quickly in a massive traffic jam which seemingly appeared out of nowhere. One second, we were trundling along the road at 80mph, the next, we weren’t. At first, we assumed that it was rush hour traffic, as it was just after 5:45pm, but when everybody shut off their engines and people started getting out of their cars to go for a little stroll, it became apparent that we might be there for some time. I jumped out of the car to grab the video camera charger as we were low on battery, and as I opened the boot, without warning, everybody suddenly started moving again. Grabbing the charger and getting back in the car, we pulled off and within a minute, it seemed as if the traffic had completely dispersed leaving no sign of any traffic jam behind.
As we followed Jane the sat-nav’s directions however, we discovered a possible reason for the jam – the road we needed to take was closed by a POLIZEI car parking across it. We drove past the exit and Jane adjusted her skirt and spat out an alternative route; one that required us to do a loop-the-loop on a strange cloverleaf junction. As we drove around the first leaf, Doz and Paul in the back were bickering and getting louder and louder as Jonny was concentrating on where we had to go. Unfortunately, the incessant chatter from behind proved too much for poor Jonny’s nerves and he snapped like an axe-wielding maniac. I nearly crashed as he roared in my ears for the children in the back to be quiet.
After a few seconds of stunned silence, the children in the back started snickering like, well, children. Those few seconds were long enough for Jonny to convey where I needed to point the BMW however, and we were very shortly back on track and thundering down the autobahn.
Eventually, we left the motorways behind (the first time since Shropshire and in almost 12 hours that we’d driven on a single-carriageway) and started to drink in the beautiful sights of rural Germany. Lots of greenery, lots of wooded areas, and lots of horses. Which pleased Paul immensely, for some odd reason.
Picking up the signs for the Nurburgring, we drove through several little villages and along lots of awesome hairpinned roads until we reached Nurburg itself and drove straight past the sign for our hotel. We did a quick U-turn and soon pulled into a car-park full of various Porsche and Ferrari beasts. We parked both cars next to Italian exotica, which amused us slightly, before checking into the Hotel-am-Tiergarten and taking a wander down the road to a viewing point overlooking the track itself.
Unfortunately, although we could hear the tantalising screams of various engines as we were checking in, the track had been closed by the time we got to the view point. Still, it afforded us a view of a section of the track and made us realise just how narrow it really is. And how little run-off there is if the worst was to happen.
Feeling suitably nervous, we jumped back in the cars and popped back down the road to the visitor’s centre to find a cash-point. After parking the cars up, we wandered around the centre, looking in quite a few closed shop windows at various cars gleaming on plinths. I felt like a 6 year old in a toy shop. Eventually, we found the ATM and got the cash we needed, so we headed back to the car park at the hotel before going out for dinner at a restaurant a short walk up the road.
After dinner, we returned to the hotel and the Pistenklause bar/restaurant where we had a couple of beers while trying to decipher the signatures that adorn the walls and ceiling of the entire place. There is so much memorabilia in there, it’s easy to lose track of time while looking at it all. Oddly enough, we bumped into an old acquaintence in the bar and had a chat – turns out he’s an instructor at the ‘Ring now.
After beers, we left the bar to go back to our rooms, but not before Doz, Paul, Jonny and myself popped back to the car to grab some chargers and stuff and spotted a heavily-disguised BMW 6 series in the car park… That led to a 20 minute discussion over what the differences between it and a current 6 series were.
However, we’re all now tucked up in bed, and after breakfast in the morning, we will be organising some insurance for the cars before spending the day wandering around the museum and soaking up the petrolhead atmosphere. Then, in the evening, we’ll be off out on the ‘Ring for the first time – assuming it opens!
I’m simultaneously excited and nervous. I can’t wait though. Whatever happens, it should be fun. Unless I crash.
We’ll update Facebook throughout the day tomorrow, with another big update tomorrow night, if I get time.
Having been promised swanky new tyres by the folks at Semperit, we needed somewhere to fit them. Step in Ability Tyres in Telford. I’ve been using them for years now and was sure they’d be able to help. Sure enough, Kevin offered to take delivery of our tyres and to fit them and balance the wheels for us, for nothing more than a sticker on the car and a mention on the internet.
I turned up at Ability’s door at around 5pm yesterday, and almost before I knew what was happening, the car was up in the air and the wheels were being whisked off. A quick coffee in the waiting room later, and they were all balanced and shod in lovely new rubber.
This morning, Matt and I took the BMW and a set of wheels for the Maxima over, and once again, by the time we’d had a drink, they were ready to go. Once we got home, it was just a case of bolting the new wheels on the old Maxima:
Quick, efficient and friendly, if you’re in the Telford area and need tyres, tracking, exhausts, MOTs or servicing carried out, go and visit Kevin, Kay and the lads and they will make you happy. For more details, check out their website: www.abilitytyres.co.uk
Now that the lovely new brakes from EBC have been fitted to both the Nissan and the BMW (yes, we finally found time to change them!) and both cars have been driven around for a while, we felt it was time we did a bit more testing to measure just how much better the fully bedded in brakes were, compared to the standard parts that were originally on the Nissan.
Back at Doz’s farm, and with the same course marked out, Matt gave the Nissan repeated 40 – 0 mph runs, as before. After driving around with the brakes for a while, the results were no surprise to any of us, but they mean I get to make another pretty graph:
As you can see, as the brakes warmed up, the performance increased. Obviously, once they reach the optimum temperature, they’ll stop getting better, but we didn’t see that with the limited runs we performed.
Subjectively, now we’ve been driving the cars around for a while, the new brakes are amazing compared to the old stuff fitted previously. Before, the Nissan suffered from brake fade and neither car had particularly impressive stopping power. Now, the initial bite from the pads is excellent and rather than having to keep increasing the pressure on the brake peddle as the car slowed, the pressure remains constant as the brakes do their work. Stopping distance has improved, yes, but the really important thing is how durable and consistent the brakes are. Driving the cars hard for a distance reveals that the brakes’ performance is excellent, all the time.
This means that confidence in the car is stepped up several notches – the last thing we wanted was to be piling into the Karussell and to have the pedal sinking lower and lower as the heat caused the brakes to get worse and worse!
Obviously, the real test will come when we are piling into the Karussell, but from what I’ve seen so far, I highly recommend them – so much that I’m going to be buying them for both my Peugeot 306 GTi and my Nissan 200SX.
If you live in Rugby and read the Rugby Observer, you may have noticed a photo of a lovely looking couple sitting atop a ropey looking Nissan. That was Matt & Nat, who managed to get themselves a little piece in the paper… Apologies for the iPhone camera quality.
We also managed to get a little piece in the Shropshire Star, but they didn’t bother with a photo and managed to get half the details wrong, so I didn’t take a picture of that!
As we’re getting really close to going, I put a cry for help out on Facebook and Twitter yesterday, basically asking anyone that could offer us any form of discount on tyres to get in touch.
That plea was spotted by the fabulous folks at Semperit tyres who promptly sent me an email and offered to make sure our cars were safe and legal with some new rubber. A fantastic offer that we snapped up!
I wasn’t familiar with the Semperit brand, but as part of the Continental group, I knew they would be high quality. A quick Google revealed that to be true and that Semperit make tyres that are very highly regarded on the continent. Although relatively new to the UK market, they’ve won awards in Germany – and the Germans have a reputation for having very strict quality and safety laws.
This offer represents the last major hurdle for us – I was getting really worried that I was going to have to drive around the ‘Ring on ditchfinder specials. With Semperit’s offer however, I’m looking forward to having a much higher level of grip letting me brake later and corner harder than otherwise possible. I absolutely can’t wait to get them fitted.
If you want to find out more about Semperit Tyres, and find a stockist, check out their website: www.semperit-online.co.uk
