Rain, 6 laps around the heaven, Road trip to Suisse

I woke up at 620am, and saw that it rained over night. Scary.  Nordschleife is a dangerous track when it's wet.  Actually it's dangerous even when it's dry...

Rain

I went down to have breakfast and I was on my way to get the Suzuki Swift Sport from RaceCarRent at 730am.  On my way, I hoped I get to do few dry laps.  I was at rent race car at 800am. Heide was very helpful. After waiting for few people, she set me up in 10mins, and off I went.

I arrived to the track around 845am, and without loosing any time, I drove right  to the gate for my first lap.  My dreams were coming true! Oh my God I was excited.  I watched myself drove to the gate, show my pass to the Course worker and drove through the cones to access the track. I was in heaven.

Heaven

They say Nordschleife is very slippery when it's wet.  They are right.  Between the bumps, low grip and endless corners, this track is sure a tough one.  Actually, the toughest off them all.  It is so slippery, and you're going so slow, you think "hold on a second, this is not right, I can go faster". But you can't. You understeer, immediately.  Or have a massive crash.  I've seen about 6 accidents, and at least one of them was a wreck.  As they say, respect the Ring.

Computer games and simulations help in regards to memorizing the layout.  But that's it.  The track is so narrow, and the bleachers are so close (read: no run off area), you can't drive as fast as you can in any game.  In regards to bumps and crests... Pacific Raceways has 2 bumps (turn in of 3b, braking zone for 5a), 2 corners with bumpy surface (8 and 9), and 1 crest (turn 7 apex).  A little exagration, but the whole track surface of the Ring is bumpy, with many crests...  Such a sensation.  But the king of the corners is the Karussel.  Every track rat has to experience this amazing corner.  The banking, bumps, the way car jumps and sounds...

The turn 1 at Pacific raceways is a blind turn.  God knows how many blind turns (and pretty dangerous ones as well) the Nordschleife has.  Even though I knew all the corners (by that I mean their order of appearance, and their approximate speeds), it was still scary. Eventually, the track dried out and I got to experience some dry laps.  This was kind of lucky actually.  In one day, I got to see how is it to drive on the Ring both in dry and wet conditions.

Here is a statistic to show you how tough the Ring is:  Pacific raceways is a 2.25 mile road course with 13 corners. In other words, you have a corner every 0.17miles.  The Nurburgring is 12.93 mile long and has 154 corners. That means a corner every 0.07miles.  That is like having 31 corners in Pacific Raceways.

One note for future: I'm and will always be an advocate for manual transmission. But, there is a risk of getting used to it. The little Suzuki I had today was great in many ways, including the gearbox.  But the brakes were soft and brake pedal travel was so much, making heel&toe downshifts difficult and as a result not very smooth. Last thing you want in a demanding track with bumpy surface. Next time, I shall get an auto.

I left the ring around 1130, but truth to be told, I could stay the whole day, and the next day, and the next....

Road trip to Lausanne, Switzerland

I was on my way to Switzerland around 1215 after dropping off the car.  The road (412) was passing near the track, so stopped at 2 spots to take some pictures.

Surprise: Switzerland also has derestricted freeways.  But it was a toll road, and it was ungodly expensive....$40.  What do people do for a living here!?

Ford C-Max

Willkommen

Arrived to Frankfurt, Germany around 8:30am.  Immediately rushed to the rental car company (sixt). And immediately got disappointed, because I reserved a BMW 1 series hatchback but I'm told there wasn't any available (then what's the point of reservation?). I asked for a 3 series, but that wasn't available either. So I decided to get a small car, but they didn't have many options. They suggested the C-max, which, I remember from Top Gear to be a small car. I was very tired and hungry, so I accepted so I could get going.  10 minutes later, I was looking at my rental. My memory betrayed me... It's small, yes, but not a car... It's a small minivan, hence why I could only manage 119mph (downhill btw) with my foot buried to the carpet. Schnell! Schnell!  But it gets about 30mpg (if I behave), and that's good since the gas is $8.5/gallon.  Anyways it is awesome that one can rent a manual gearbox car here.  Although the pedals in the C-Max are not designed heel and toe in mind, predictably.

Driving on the autobahn is also an experience to have.  Not only there are derestricted stretches where you can go as fast as the traffic safely allows, but also views are amazing, and it is such a pleasure to drive with people who obey the traffic rules, and respect each other.  No one drives slowly on the left lane. No one tailgates you. No one passes you on your right. If, due to a road work, the left lane is ending, people don't try to drive till the lane closure to cut you off, they just move to the middle lane right after seeing the lane closure sign. Lastly, no one holds the steering wheel like an orangutan. Oh, almost forgot. I over took a police officer at 119mph, legally.  Different feeling!

Lost

The gps in my rental was in German.  Now, I do not know German.  I tried to change the language, but no such menu was available in the infotainment system. It wasn't a huge deal, after few minutes, I figured out how to use it. But then, gps couldn't find the address I was trying to go.   I thought maybe I was missing some German characters (like ü, "beta") in the address I have.  I found a Sixt representative, and he was helpful.  First of all, he set the language to English.  But weirdly, it can only be done using the car computer in the dashboard through the steering wheel mounted control stalk... Weird. Anyhow, he couldn't find the address either, so he put something close by.  Now, the funny thing is, I was intended to go to Nurburg (or Nürburg with correct German alphabet). But the area is also called Nurberg.  And somehow I remembered this as Nuremberg. And amongs all the possible directions and distances, Nuremberg is at the opposite direction with similar distance (200km vs 185km). So after about 2 hours, I got suspicious.  Especially seeing Munich and Berlin signs were very awkward.  Eventually, I thought of using the "point of interest" feature of the gps, and get everything sorted out. I should've thought this before of course, but being tired (10 hours of sleep in 2 days) got the best of me. But at the end, I got to drive more on the amazing autobahn, so nothing much to complain there!

Finally

As I drove close to my destination I got more and more excited.  Seeing the first road sign for Nurbergring was a moment of joy (and relief).  After few miles on B roads, I made it!  As you approach to the legendary track, you see museums and test centers of European car compnies.  Seeing the BMW M test building was an especially special moment for me, since I have owned two M cars in the past.

Eventually I found my hotel, and settled in.  I spent the night thinking about tomorrow, and watching YouTube videos of Nordschleife laps...