Touristenfahrt

A Birthday Treat at the Nurburgring GP track

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Parent Category: Nurburgring

Created on Sunday, 26 February 2012 15:03

Last Updated on Tuesday, 24 April 2012 22:04

Published on Sunday, 26 February 2012 15:03

Written by Dale

Despite the bad weather, Nordschleife closure and the fact that his track car is still scattered around Europe in a million pieces, our friend Jens still decided to spend his birthday at the Nürburgring. And while Jens only came an hour and a bit up the autobahn, his friends  Martin and Kai drove all the way over from the UK and Switzerland, respectively. 

Luckily for all of us, the powers-that-be deigned to open the GP track for touristenfahrten. 

So even though the birthday-boy Jens only had his C-class daily driver to hand, we all met and headed to the GP track. For €40 per session (or €75 for two session), you can drive the full 5.2km Formula 1 circuit under touristenfahrten rules. No briefings, just common-sense and away you go.

We weren't the only guys on track... but as the video above shows, sometimes it felt like it. The session before ours only had this one BMW M3 rolling around. Our session consisted of just us (My RX8, Thorsten's MX5 and Jens's C-klasse) and one solitary Porsche Turbo.

With a 100% wet surface and not a single one of our cars on anything like decent rubber, it was a real skills workshop. While the Turbo pilot fastened up his flameproof underwear and switched on the PSM (Porsche Stability Managment), we got down to some very sideways and mostly slow action...

I said it on the day, and I'll say it again now. Driving a car like the Porsche Turbo on a wet F1 track is not half as much fun as Thorsten's MX5 on chinese winter tyres. Where the Porsche was reacting half to the pilot and half to the PSM all of Thorstens mistakes, epic skids and flicky-flacky linked drifts are the triumph of the driver, not the technology. That's also why my own Chinese-tyred RX8 had the DSC turned all the way off.

Wet weather, a deserted GP track and your own rear-wheel-drive sportscar. A great way to spend a Saturday morning!

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