I’d like to think that by sharing these videos, somebody, somewhere might put down their stopwatch and decide NOT to go chasing a laptime in the middle of an incredibly busy Sunday of Nürburgring Touristenfahrten.
Stickers, Ts, Hoodies...
These bikers were not alone in crashing at the Nürburgring this weekend. There were so many crashes, oil spills and general craziness that it felt like the track spent more time shut than open.
Both of the following videos were shot from Wehrseifen, and both the result of a biker riding way too fast to stop and turn before the notorious hairpin began. But there were two very different results…
The first one, above, looks worse than it was. While I wouldn’t trade places with this CBR rider, I’m happy to report that he was up and walking by the time I arrived in the yellow light zone.
YELLOW LIGHT ZONE = SLOW DOWN!
Yes, it’s a trap! I lured you here with a crash video, and now I’m going to force you to read some safety advice!
For THIS accident, the yellow light was shown at Metzgesfeld 2, marshall point 104. Nearly 1km away from the accident. The next yellow light isn’t until Breidscheid Bridge, marshall point 118.
YES! This means you have to drive SLOW for a loooooong way. For me, in the RingTaxi, that meant driving in the middle of the track, with the hazards on, nice and easy, while people queued up behind me and got annoyed they were being ‘held up’.
NEWSFLASH: there’s no trophy at the end of a TF lap. So just back off and wait to see why there’s a yellow light.
I drove slow all the way:
- Metzgesfeld 2
- Kallenhard
- Spiegelkurve
- Drei-fach-rechts (miss hit miss)
This is NORMAL behaviour!
EDIT: here’s the red s2000 that got banned for ignoring the yellows:
What’s not normal is to try and drive fast when you’ve just seen a yellow light or yellow flag. These guys will tell you all about it. I’m not going to point fingers, but stating some facts, there was a yellow light being shown at marshall point 139 Steilstrecke because at 148 Hohe Act there was a crashed Opel Speedster. When I went through (slowly, blinkers flashing) there was a yellow flag and one crashed car. Somehow, that developed into this:
Oh well, you came for the bike crashes, so here’s the other half of the original post. Here’s the nuisance biker that I personally had to avoid about 3 times.
I literally have NO IDEA how he didn’t crash this weekend. And this video does NOTHING but reassure me that BMW’s ABS technology on motorbikes is nothing short of WITCHCRAFT…
Before the next 24 hours is up, I’m sure there’ll be plenty more videos online, and we can revisit that simple notion that
YELLOW MEANS SLOW
