The second Green Hell Driving Day was even busier than the first. Considering that Thursday was a bank-holiday in many European countries, where today wasn’t, I was quite surprised by that.
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The queues started nearly 30 minutes before the track opened this morning, and ED Tankstelle ran out of 98RON by mid-afternoon. I spent more time queueing in the RingTaxi than driving it on track (and considering I cut queues with official permission, whenever possible, that’s quite an achievement!). But I’m going to do a full story on the queuing later…
With the weather continuing to improve all the time, blue skies and mid-20s ahead, things might get crazier before they get better.
And talk of crazy, check this out:
It’s easy to imagine what could have been, what tragedy could have unfolded, but let’s not. Let’s be positive, reflective even. The guy on the bike gets another chance today, he gets to ride home to his family and friends.
And… just maybe he gets to pick a better time to ride the Nordschleife. Because even though I feel it should be his God-Given-Right to ride the ‘Ring whenever he chooses, practical experience and my own two eyes would tell me that wobbling around at 30kmh on one of the busiest days of the year is not the best way to do it.
AND THAT SUCKS!
Yes, I’m going to say it, the MX5 was clearly spinning due to lift-off oversteer. That condition was brought on by the driver entering the bend too fast to both turn the wheel AND lift-off the gas. And he lifted off because he mis-judged the speed of the bike, would be my guess, probably while thinking “Holy shit, that guy’s right on the apex doing 30kmh!”
That’s NOT the biker’s fault, just to be clear. I’m just pointing out how these shit-sandwiches get made, I’m not the one forcing people to eat them. That’s Bad Luck, Fate and Poor Judgement.
Also, I’m a big fan of Harrys Laptimer, and I’ve uploaded literally hundreds of fast laps on YouTube, but today I saw a lot of people doing silly things, and many of them had a smartphone and a GoPro in the car. Things like:
- Charging hard into slow-moving traffic
- Not slowing down enough for yellow flags and vests
- Deliberately not letting faster vehicles through, because they’re afraid they’d lose time on their BEST EVER LAPTIME.. (white Norwegian Polo GTi, I’m looking at you, amongst many others).
So with all that in mind, bikers dodging death, people being a bit silly on track, and the weather continuing hot and sweaty, let’s just try to play nice.
- Use your indicators correctly. If I look in the mirror and see an indicator to the left, I’ll move over to the right, and indicate right at the same time. People who insist on moving right with the left indicator blinking, you’re being silly!
- RESPECT the speed limits and safety workers! 30-50kmh might not feel fast after 250kmh, but it’s important to slow down properly, smoothly and safely whenever people are on the track.
- Bikers, use your mirrors. I followed a couple of guys today using the whole track with no idea about the queues of cars nearly running them over for km after km…
Just play nice. Drive safe, have fun. See you on track tomorrow!
