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Touristenfahrt

Nürburgring Carbon Club. How to make friends and influence people.

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Parent Category: Nurburgring
Created on Thursday, 28 June 2012 16:44
Last Updated on Thursday, 28 June 2012 20:11
Published on Thursday, 28 June 2012 18:12
Written by Dale

Last year Lindner and Richter, the dynamic duo behind NAG, revealed another scheme to make Nürburg into a Monaco-wannabe. The über-exclusive Carbon Club Card (read the german blurb on a PDF here) is a €6900 season pass with a couple of interesting additions, including 'exclusive access' to the Nürburgring Nordschleife and GP circuits.

This week business in the village has been slow. The Nordschleife was shut for public sessions on Monday and Tuesday. And when the gates did finally open on Wednesday it was only from 1830 to 1915. Same story tonight (Thursday), technically it's one hour of opening, but the gates opened at 1830 and were due to shut at 1915. 

carbonclub2
The track was open for one hour for one Carbon Club member. He spent half of it eating a cheeseburger. 

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Track closed after 10 minutes tonight.
These reduced opening times are so that Carbon Club members can get some exclusive track time for their €6900. The plan was the NAG would sell 'only' 150 of these exclusive passes, raising a cool €1,035,000.
 In reality I would be very surprised if NAG have sold anywhere near that number, and in fact I spoke to an inside source who claims some were handed out to certain motorsports heroes and celebs for free, to gather momentum. Whether or not that's true, for the few people who did spend the money, there's a contract to be kept and NAG have to fulfill it. The PDF you can read above talks about 20 such exclusive entries, and a monthly 2-hour session on the GP track too.

So last night and tonight 200+ regular customers crowded into one overflowing car park, as the single Carbon Club member who showed up spent half of the exclusive time eating a tasty burger. When he did finish, he stuck a couple of laps in (driving the white LFA above) and parked up again. Tonight he was joined by a lucky driver in a white Lambo who also did a couple of laps. While hundreds of 'commoners' looked on enviously.

I don't blame the members who paid their €6900, if you've got that kind of money, it's a no-brainer. But for a company that right now desperately needs the support of its fans, I think it's a big, fat, fail.

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+1 #1 Corné 2012-06-29 05:31
It is "business models" like this that puts companies in trouble. They probably lost more money in that hour then they made with the membership of that member. Say for example a 100 people could have done 3 laps each in the exstra hour that amounts to a 7,800 Euro loss, compared to the membership fee of 6,900 Euro. Makes you think... :-?
 
 
+1 #2 veejay 2012-06-29 07:47
Incredible
 
 
#3 Prawn 2012-06-29 15:06
So, are you saying that if a carbon club memeber turns up they shut the track to the public for an hour? Unannounced? That's how it reads, but that just sounds crazy :S
 
 
#4 turbobungle 2012-06-29 17:57
No, I think it's a Pre-arranged time, even so, these blokes really don't know what they are doing, do they? Such a shame.
 
 
#5 turbobungle 2012-06-29 17:59
Saying that, I would love to have a supercar and the 'ring to myself so you can't blame the people (2 people?) that have bought these passes
 
 
#6 AGT 2012-06-29 19:37

A cheeseburger, yesterday.
 
 
#7 Mikeymann 2012-07-07 13:04
Wow, And now the Richter Lindner pie in the sky is vaporising, we still have to wait a year for this nonsense to expire? Or do you suspect that are they still being sold, Dale? Surely there must be a way to cancel or vary the contracts? Or does N GmBH not want to?
 
   
   
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