The web server holding my earliest postings into an uncaring universe quietly expired a while ago. Rather than replacing it, I'm posting the content so it will live on forever in the cloud, polluting my little corner of it. Enjoy.
Finally lunch time. We were just past the entrance to the track, and nobody was allowed to go backwards. So we got to do a full lap of the track, albeit at reduced speed. Here's where
my hundred plus viewings of the Derek Bell video driving a lap of the track paid off. I actually recognized all of the turns and was able to give a running narrative to Chris as we drove. Of course it helped that we were taking more than 15 minutes to drive it as compared to the under 7 minutes that Derek did. Even so, Chris was very impressed and so was I.
After lunch we got started on our first section. Hatzenbach is a series of downhill lefts and right that keep getting tighter as you go along. A tricky section. Its easy to get up too much speed going downhill and
get way out of shape for the final turns. Car geeks that we were, Chris and I brought a Nady communicator to facilitate the learning process. And a communicator was needed because we were wearing helmets, unlike most of the Europeans and a lot of the Americans. Wearing a helmet was probably a good idea anyway, since for maximum fun we were driving our Z3 with the top down.
True motorsport bliss.
With Hatzenbach, the pattern was set for us. One of us would start driving, dutifully following the prescribed 1 car length distance behind our groupmate. The navigator would give a narrative of the upcoming turns, landmarks for turn-in, where the apex was, expected gear at speed, track-out point, etc. The driver would do 2 runs and then we would switch drivers and repeat the turn instructions. After the 2nd run, we would switch drivers again. But this time we would let the car in front get away from us, get some distance down the track. Now we'd
put our foot into it, driving the track at speed, still with the navigation beta being repeated in our ears.
This usually resulted in us bursting out of a blind turn at full tilt and finding the previous car about 10 feet in front of us at a
much lesser rate of speed. Once we were last in line and gave the group a huge lead through a very fast section. Flying around the last turn at a high rate of speed we were quite surprised to find the entire group of cars stopped just around the bend. This led to an effective demonstration of ABS,
very large eyes on the part of the group, gales of laughter from the interior of the Z3, and another checkmark against "those Porsche guys".
 |
| one of the most famous turns in the world |
|
From Hazenbach, followed the Quiddelbacher-Hohe, a high speed jump immediately followed by a double right hander that could be taken flat out. And so it went, section by section. Severe lefts and right, usually after a crest of a hill, flat out downhill sections, straight jumps, jumps while turning, flat out kinks, 40 mph hairpins, you name it, its on the Ring.
 |
| Finding the line through the Karussell - Reed and George hold a show and tell |
The end of the second day we got about 90 minutes to put it all together. And after a couple of laps, it did come together. That night both Chris and I were able to do complete laps in our head, hitting the turn-ins, apexes and track-out of each turn. I could even tell you the color of most of the dots where they marked the track. The next morning we got 2 hours to play before the graded laps. And play we did. We had so much fun, that
we completely toasted the brakes on the Z3. Just boiled that fluid. I guess we forgot to ask the rental agency to flush the brakes and put new Super Blue brake fluid in. An oversight we'll be sure to correct next year.
 |
| ABS on NOW! - the end of a section |
Finally lunch time. We were just past the entrance to the track, and nobody was allowed to go backwards. So we got to do a full lap of the track, albeit at reduced speed. Here's where my hundred plus viewings of the Derek Bell video driving a lap of the track paid off. I actually recognized all of the turns and was able to give a running narrative to Chris as we drove. Of course it helped that we were taking more than 15 minutes to drive it as compared to the under 7 minutes that Derek did. Even so, Chris was very impressed and so was I.
Comments
Post a Comment