As the wet’n’warm European winter continues, this Saturday morning turned into a bit of a trackwalk. While nearly 40 guys’n’girls walked a full lap starting from Breidscheid bridge, I took the easy option(!) and brought the kids along. I wanted to see Flugplatz…
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Last year I took some photos as the repair work began. At the time, it didn’t look like Flugplatz would be completely resurfaced, as they were patching up some parts of the track and replacing others. That plan has obviously changed:
The jump doesn’t appear to be drastically altered at first, but the surface is smooth all the way over the top. The two small peaks at the top are now one radius. Will this reduce the jump? My gut instinct is ‘yes’, but there’s only one way to find out, and we’re not driving it ’til March (at the earliest, I think!).
Perhaps even more important (for laptimes) is the quality of the repair work at Flugplatz, the exceedingly fast right-hander after the jump. The news is that the surface is silky-smooth with what appears to be a decent degree or three of cross-fall (camber). Of course, any changes to this section will impact laptimes massively, as the cars leave at full speed and stay on the gas for another 20 seconds or so. Which means 1 or 2kmh more exit speed can translate to a couple of car lengths by the beginning of Schwedenkreuz…
We continued the walk, while our boys took turns cycling and complaining about how far they’d walked (which was barely 1km by now).
Having cycled, walked and driven the track an uncountable number of times over the last decade and a bit, the steepness and high-kerbs of Aremberg never fail to amaze me.
I don’t remember seeing this GoPro graffiti last year, what about you? Foxhole and Adenauer Forst were the same as always:
They just seem so easy when you’re walking!
These orange posts might look innocuous enough, but I’m pretty sure these are showing the new line of either crash fencing or gravel trap. Remember; “The seven Nürburgring track alterations for 2016”. Metzgesfeld is due more fencing to protect the N24 campsite the sits behind it.
I left Diana, Ray and Rich to carry on the lap without me at Breidscheid. But not before we’d seen a few eery reminders of various crashes from last year… who can name the red plastic in Ray’s hands?
Tomorrow: BTG & Brötchen
