There’s nothing quite as exciting as kicking-off the new season with one of the biggest weekends of the whole year. Thanks to the unusually long winter break, that’s almost exactly what happened this year.
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Easter has been a 4-day extravaganza of Nurburgring Nordschleife terroristenfahrten for as long as I can ever remember. The weather normally alternates between early Summer and late Arctic winter. This year we got both of those extremes in one weekend…
CarFreitag
Followers of the BTG facebook page will know exactly how this very cold and wet day went, but let’s put it all in one place. First of all, I had to pick up “my” car for the day, the RingTaxi.de BMW F80 M3 and drive it just 5 minutes to the entrance. Thanks to the Brunnchen road being closed from the autobahn side, and the incredible 10km queue from the B258 side, that took nearly an hour.
The blue route was how we got from RingTaxi HQ to the Nordschleife entrance. The arrows (sorry) show how the traffic was flowing towards Brunnchenn. The video below gives you an idea too…
The weird thing was that of the estimated 15000 cars (!) queuing that day, nobody was queuing to get into the Nordschleife car park. Mental. Here’s what the carpark looked like:
Despite the rather low numbers of cars on track, and NOT A SINGLE REDLIGHT CLOSURE ALL DAY, there was still plenty of action. TouriTobi was at Kallenhard (and yes that’s the same car crashing at two locations).
Nick from Auto Addiction channel was at Brunnchen 2 (of course):
And “rallyeoberehe” had the foxhole covered. Including the luckiest Lambo driver ever…
That Fiesta crash? There’s an onboard too…
Yes, he hit the kerbs and lifted. Yes, he’s wearing a helmet. No, his passenger isn’t wearing one. But he does have a laptimer running. I don’t think I need to say much here, I just hope the driver can find the strength to look back at this and laugh in a few years…
SATURDAY
After the awful weather of Friday, Saturday dawned sunny and dry with steel-blue skies over the castle. I was excited, and I wasn’t alone. For the first time, the Nordschleife zufahrt started to fill up.
But as traffic built up, it soon became clear that the new car park system had practically eliminated entry queues, but significantly increased exit queues…
Good for the roundabout outside, and the surrounding roads, but not good for those wanting to exit the Nordschleife.
Easter Sunday
After the balmy sunshine and short-sleeves of Saturday, Sunday started decidedly chilly and wet. Theo (the boss of RentRaceCar and RingTaxi.de) allowed me to give away a FREE ring taxi in the BMW M3:
Before I’d even finished the video, Hugo and his girlfriend were waiting in the ringtaxi office! I think he was quite happy with his prize:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BDdENaxKpXH/
The weather improved for a few hours in the afternoon, and more fast and sunny laps were had by many. But the rain came again about 4pm and the Nordschleife quickly emptied again. At RingTaxi, we packed up, refueled the cars and washed them for the third day in a row.
Easter Monday – the anti-climax
Monday is always the quietest day of the Easter weekend. Most people have spent their budget, burnt through their lap tickets, and are keen to start the long journey home.
The weather didn’t help. Horrendous rain, some sleet in the higher points of the track and a strong wind that threatened to blow away anything not tied down.
Then, out of nowhere, came the knock on our ringtaxi door and the sorry news that the Nordschleife was closing for the whole day. It was barely 12pm, but with several hard crashes already cleaned up and the wind threatening to create even more, the management took the brave decision to call it a day.
Hard news for those who’d been planning on doing their driving on the ‘quiet’ Monday, but there’s no such thing as an easy Easter at the Nurburgring.
