Nurburgring Easter 2007. My story... (WARNING: 100s of pics)
12-04-2007, 09:17 PM
#1
Nurburgring Easter 2007. My story... (WARNING: 100s of pics)
Well, this year was an interesting one for many reasons, but not least of all because it was my first without some form of Cosworth, but more of that later... 
I arranged for myself, and Nicole to go to our usual hotel in Herschbroic, one of the most beautiful locations within the Nurburgring circuit itself, and fabulous value for money with a friendly family whom speak perfect English.
I took all the deposits and forwarded them to Germany, and then 1 or 2 dropped out, creating an instant headache, especially for Nicole as her only passenger dropped out meaning, since she didn’t want to drive on her own so had to share a car with us instead, not a great start for her at all. Especially given it was all booked over 5months in advance... how much notice do some people need?
Anyway, this time we decided to bite the bullet, and instead of driving to the Euro tunnel as we normally do, we decided to sail... something I am not too proud to admit has always scared me somewhat... but they say, there’s only one way to conquer a fear and that’s to crack on and do it.. so Wednesday came and off we went to the ferry terminal in Hull.. All went well and we rendezvoud with other PF members at a service station on the M62. Spirits were high and it was great to see some good old friends, and also meet some new ones.
We got to teh terminal with time to spare. Jeeps... these Ferrys are HUGE arent they!!
I didn’t get many pics on the ferry as i was pre-occupied with getting drunk so I wasn’t as nervous, but here are a few pictures i did take.
The ferry sets sail. Those things sat on the back are articulated lorry’s!!
A floating car park. Hmm... How the hell do these float?
Our Cabin. This is a "Premier" Version. Hmm...
The bunch we are travelling with. All great people.
Some of the PFers having a great time on the Boat.
We set sail from Hull at 9pm UK time and landed at Rotterdam at 8am European time. I didn’t get any sleep at all as the constant throbbing and vibration of the Engine kept me awake. bad start to the drive, I was knackered, but still in high spirits as i just love driving in Europe. Its so less stressful than the UK, and only those who have driven there for any time will understand what i mean by that.
We drive through Rotterdam, Holland and Germany, finally arriving at Herschbroic Village around 1pm on Thursday and meet our hotelier Edgar. Its great to see him and fabulous to find he remembers many of our names. Nice touch.
The Hotel from above:
Edgar:
Edgar’s Dog. "Wolfie"
View from my room:
We all unpacked and met up with some of the other crew we had booked in with us. This is it, the fun really begins here... Within an hour we were off to the ring, led by me, the virgins were eager to lose their virginity and i was eager to get some laps in at the controls of the new girl.
Here’s a few of the people and their cars in our hotel, all PFers.
Sadly, the ring was closed until around teatime, but we did get to watch some serious new machinery being tested, such as what we thought was a new M3 and a new Mercedes. We were privileged to be stood beside the main straight as these things went passed us sat on their limiters in top gear. The sound of the air being displaced was tremendous, and really got us all in the mood for some serious action.
We all went up to the corner called showboat and watched the action for a while.
Them the camera's went away and we drove the ring for the first time of teh trip.
The look on the newbie’s faces when they came in from the first laps was worth the trip alone. I still remember the awe I felt just being at the place on my first tgrip, and indeed I still feel it a little each trip i do. Fabulous.
That night we went up to the museum / F1 Pits area and ate in the hotel there. Its one of the few places big enough to house us all and we managed to get half of PassionFord in there as usual.
Day one over. Phew.
Next day was the big one for us all. We got up at 7am, ate, and was at the ring for 8am. The place was already buzzing with activity and i set out to really make an effort whilst the traffic was low.
The car I took this year was a MY2000 BMW 323Ci SE.
She weighs in at 1430KG and has 170bhp so that gives her around 118bhp per Tonne. Not a fast car by anyone’s standards, but a far nicer chassis than any Cosworth, and that I figured, was the main thing in my favour. The chassis was totally standard and has done 102K miles. I shod her in some sexy Michelin Pilot sport PS2,s changed the oil and left for the ferry, so she had no special preparation at all.
Having only been twice, i was taking it easy all day but found even on the fist lap that i had far far more confidence in the cars abilities to do as I wanted than I had ever had with the Cosworth. The braking is better (STD brakes with DS2500 Pads fitted). The steering wasn’t as nice as its a bit light and lifeless, the traction was far superior on turn in and the rear axle was never delivered enough power to break the 255/35/18s free, so that was never a problem, but the power was poor in the uphill section, very poor indeed. I was getting quite annoyed in some parts, but it did, I must admit, force me to learn better lines and find better ways to approach these areas with more speed.
On the fast back 2km straight, the most the car ever achieved was a lowly 121mph. I am sure a decent Cosworth or M3 will be doing well over 160 1/2 way down there. My 121 was achieved at the braking point at the 2kms end after being flat to the floor until then. 
Some pictures of cars on the ring, including one of mine.
All in all we all had a fabulous time at the ring this year. I must admit now and apologise for something though.
This year i found that arranging it for 30+ people was a bad idea and I was starting to get strained with my phone ringing every 20mins and texts coming in asking me what we were eating, where, when, etc, and it started to get me down as I spent all day and night wondering where we were going to eat with so many peeps and what to do next day etc so I had to take a back seat and just do my own thing with my friends as it was affecting the holiday and my overall mood. I asked peeps to just do their own thing and everyone did, and had a far better time for doing so as well i am sure.
At least now I know my limits and I firmly believe that the experience is better in groups of 8 or so. As long as you’re all there together then you will have a great time, but more than a handful is impossible to coordinate properly in such a place. Lesson Learnt.
The above lesson was proved Friday night when we went to our first meal i had pre arranged with the teh kind help of my German speaking friend ON-OUJA (Brent)
Sadly, although teh booking was perfectly made by Brent, and they knew we were coming... the place was ill prepared for our table of 23 and simply could not accommodate us.
After leaving us all out in the cold for 20 mins, then seating 3 or 4 here and 5 or 6 there, we finally all found seats somewhere in the restaurant an hour later.. Well, when I say ALL, I mean all Bar myself and Dan. We were allocated 2 seats outside on the pavement on our own. To say I felt a bit down at this point would be an understatement. I was gutted beyond belief. The final cap came when the waitress popped out and told me we could now order, but they were out of PIZZA DOUGH!
I mentioned to her that I was pissed off, mentioned I had pre ordered this meal for my friends many weeks ago and mentioned I was pissed off again. I think she understood one or two words... We then left, and all got seated in a great little Chinese that Dan and Nick found down teh road. Thank god for you two lads as I was ready to get a cab back to the hotel and go to bed.
From there we went to a bar and all got well and truly hammered...
The pics below are random eating and drinking shots:
In the daytime we regularly ate at a little restaurant behind the Ring fuel station. Good food and good prices, you can’t really go wrong there:
When i wasn’t driving, and that wasn’t often as i got 37 laps in amongst our other activities, it was great to just chill out and take in some of the amazing sites that are to be found at the Nurburgiring on a busy day. The exotica and rare machines are overflowing as always...
On Sunday Night we went to the second restaurant i had pre-booked for us all. Th Piston Klaus. Sabine and Klaus Schmidt’s Restaurant. As well as eating great food, we took the opportunity to give Jay his birthday Cake that Kim, Stu and Nicole had bought the day before. I sadly didn’t get many pics, but here’s what I have:
On Monday, we decided to do something really unusual, so we went OFF ROADING. This was one of the highlights of the trip... we just hired an off-road Suzuki between 2 of us and went off roading for an hour. All for the bargain price of... 35euros per car!! Pics explain further!
After that I went back to the ring and did my last solid 2 hours of the week. My aim was to get myself and the car to do repeatable and decent quality 9:30s. I achieved a 9.21 of which i am very pleased.
That pretty much sums up the trip for me.
On Tuesday we left Edgar’s and had to say good bye to all our friends, both old and new. We got a collection for Edgar and a group picture as always thought, and even managed to have a little joke with him over how much we had collected. We hid a load of it under a cloth. The pictures should explain better...
And off we headed to Amsterdam for a short visit.
We all went in and had a few euros worth of peep show. What a letdown that was though!!
So there you have it.
Nurburgring Easter 2007 all over... roll on teh next one.
However, 2 things really brightened up my Easter trip this year, and neither was actually related to teh ring at all.
The first surprise was a good Customer of mine called Wim from Hollant called over to see me at the hotel, but i was extremely late ansd busy getting ready for the piston Klaus booking id made and didnt have time to give to him. (I didnt know who he was at teh time i must stress)
Anyway, Nicole got talking to him somehow and he had only delivered me a gift as a thank you for my services to him over teh years. How bad did i feel for not making teh extra 5 mins to talk to him. Sorry Wim. really.
My fabulous Gift.
I had to smile at the exclamations after teh size...
The second surprise was a great bottle of expensive Champagne from Tony NutsRus, again thanking me for something we had done businesswise.
Neither gift was necessary but your both gentlemen and i thank you from teh bottom of my heart for your thoughfullness and generosity. It was much appreciated and such appreciation makes me happy to go out of my way now and then to help people like yourselves out. It never goes unnoticed. thank you both.
Finally...
Thanks again to all who came and made it what it was. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did and i hope you are allready planning your next one. Drive safe everyone, and thanks again for a great great time.
I arranged for myself, and Nicole to go to our usual hotel in Herschbroic, one of the most beautiful locations within the Nurburgring circuit itself, and fabulous value for money with a friendly family whom speak perfect English.
I took all the deposits and forwarded them to Germany, and then 1 or 2 dropped out, creating an instant headache, especially for Nicole as her only passenger dropped out meaning, since she didn’t want to drive on her own so had to share a car with us instead, not a great start for her at all. Especially given it was all booked over 5months in advance... how much notice do some people need?
Anyway, this time we decided to bite the bullet, and instead of driving to the Euro tunnel as we normally do, we decided to sail... something I am not too proud to admit has always scared me somewhat... but they say, there’s only one way to conquer a fear and that’s to crack on and do it.. so Wednesday came and off we went to the ferry terminal in Hull.. All went well and we rendezvoud with other PF members at a service station on the M62. Spirits were high and it was great to see some good old friends, and also meet some new ones.
We got to teh terminal with time to spare. Jeeps... these Ferrys are HUGE arent they!!
I didn’t get many pics on the ferry as i was pre-occupied with getting drunk so I wasn’t as nervous, but here are a few pictures i did take.
The ferry sets sail. Those things sat on the back are articulated lorry’s!!
A floating car park. Hmm... How the hell do these float?
Our Cabin. This is a "Premier" Version. Hmm...
The bunch we are travelling with. All great people.
Some of the PFers having a great time on the Boat.
We set sail from Hull at 9pm UK time and landed at Rotterdam at 8am European time. I didn’t get any sleep at all as the constant throbbing and vibration of the Engine kept me awake. bad start to the drive, I was knackered, but still in high spirits as i just love driving in Europe. Its so less stressful than the UK, and only those who have driven there for any time will understand what i mean by that.
We drive through Rotterdam, Holland and Germany, finally arriving at Herschbroic Village around 1pm on Thursday and meet our hotelier Edgar. Its great to see him and fabulous to find he remembers many of our names. Nice touch.
The Hotel from above:
Edgar:
Edgar’s Dog. "Wolfie"
View from my room:
We all unpacked and met up with some of the other crew we had booked in with us. This is it, the fun really begins here... Within an hour we were off to the ring, led by me, the virgins were eager to lose their virginity and i was eager to get some laps in at the controls of the new girl.
Here’s a few of the people and their cars in our hotel, all PFers.
Sadly, the ring was closed until around teatime, but we did get to watch some serious new machinery being tested, such as what we thought was a new M3 and a new Mercedes. We were privileged to be stood beside the main straight as these things went passed us sat on their limiters in top gear. The sound of the air being displaced was tremendous, and really got us all in the mood for some serious action.
We all went up to the corner called showboat and watched the action for a while.
Them the camera's went away and we drove the ring for the first time of teh trip.
The look on the newbie’s faces when they came in from the first laps was worth the trip alone. I still remember the awe I felt just being at the place on my first tgrip, and indeed I still feel it a little each trip i do. Fabulous.
That night we went up to the museum / F1 Pits area and ate in the hotel there. Its one of the few places big enough to house us all and we managed to get half of PassionFord in there as usual.
Day one over. Phew.
Next day was the big one for us all. We got up at 7am, ate, and was at the ring for 8am. The place was already buzzing with activity and i set out to really make an effort whilst the traffic was low.
The car I took this year was a MY2000 BMW 323Ci SE.
She weighs in at 1430KG and has 170bhp so that gives her around 118bhp per Tonne. Not a fast car by anyone’s standards, but a far nicer chassis than any Cosworth, and that I figured, was the main thing in my favour. The chassis was totally standard and has done 102K miles. I shod her in some sexy Michelin Pilot sport PS2,s changed the oil and left for the ferry, so she had no special preparation at all.
Having only been twice, i was taking it easy all day but found even on the fist lap that i had far far more confidence in the cars abilities to do as I wanted than I had ever had with the Cosworth. The braking is better (STD brakes with DS2500 Pads fitted). The steering wasn’t as nice as its a bit light and lifeless, the traction was far superior on turn in and the rear axle was never delivered enough power to break the 255/35/18s free, so that was never a problem, but the power was poor in the uphill section, very poor indeed. I was getting quite annoyed in some parts, but it did, I must admit, force me to learn better lines and find better ways to approach these areas with more speed.
On the fast back 2km straight, the most the car ever achieved was a lowly 121mph.
I am sure a decent Cosworth or M3 will be doing well over 160 1/2 way down there. My 121 was achieved at the braking point at the 2kms end after being flat to the floor until then. Some pictures of cars on the ring, including one of mine.
All in all we all had a fabulous time at the ring this year. I must admit now and apologise for something though.
This year i found that arranging it for 30+ people was a bad idea and I was starting to get strained with my phone ringing every 20mins and texts coming in asking me what we were eating, where, when, etc, and it started to get me down as I spent all day and night wondering where we were going to eat with so many peeps and what to do next day etc so I had to take a back seat and just do my own thing with my friends as it was affecting the holiday and my overall mood. I asked peeps to just do their own thing and everyone did, and had a far better time for doing so as well i am sure. At least now I know my limits and I firmly believe that the experience is better in groups of 8 or so. As long as you’re all there together then you will have a great time, but more than a handful is impossible to coordinate properly in such a place. Lesson Learnt.
The above lesson was proved Friday night when we went to our first meal i had pre arranged with the teh kind help of my German speaking friend ON-OUJA (Brent)
Sadly, although teh booking was perfectly made by Brent, and they knew we were coming... the place was ill prepared for our table of 23 and simply could not accommodate us.
After leaving us all out in the cold for 20 mins, then seating 3 or 4 here and 5 or 6 there, we finally all found seats somewhere in the restaurant an hour later.. Well, when I say ALL, I mean all Bar myself and Dan. We were allocated 2 seats outside on the pavement on our own. To say I felt a bit down at this point would be an understatement. I was gutted beyond belief. The final cap came when the waitress popped out and told me we could now order, but they were out of PIZZA DOUGH!
I mentioned to her that I was pissed off, mentioned I had pre ordered this meal for my friends many weeks ago and mentioned I was pissed off again. I think she understood one or two words... We then left, and all got seated in a great little Chinese that Dan and Nick found down teh road. Thank god for you two lads as I was ready to get a cab back to the hotel and go to bed.
From there we went to a bar and all got well and truly hammered...
The pics below are random eating and drinking shots:
In the daytime we regularly ate at a little restaurant behind the Ring fuel station. Good food and good prices, you can’t really go wrong there:
When i wasn’t driving, and that wasn’t often as i got 37 laps in amongst our other activities, it was great to just chill out and take in some of the amazing sites that are to be found at the Nurburgiring on a busy day. The exotica and rare machines are overflowing as always...
On Sunday Night we went to the second restaurant i had pre-booked for us all. Th Piston Klaus. Sabine and Klaus Schmidt’s Restaurant. As well as eating great food, we took the opportunity to give Jay his birthday Cake that Kim, Stu and Nicole had bought the day before. I sadly didn’t get many pics, but here’s what I have:
On Monday, we decided to do something really unusual, so we went OFF ROADING. This was one of the highlights of the trip... we just hired an off-road Suzuki between 2 of us and went off roading for an hour. All for the bargain price of... 35euros per car!! Pics explain further!
After that I went back to the ring and did my last solid 2 hours of the week. My aim was to get myself and the car to do repeatable and decent quality 9:30s. I achieved a 9.21 of which i am very pleased.
That pretty much sums up the trip for me.
On Tuesday we left Edgar’s and had to say good bye to all our friends, both old and new. We got a collection for Edgar and a group picture as always thought, and even managed to have a little joke with him over how much we had collected. We hid a load of it under a cloth. The pictures should explain better...
And off we headed to Amsterdam for a short visit.
We all went in and had a few euros worth of peep show. What a letdown that was though!!
So there you have it.
Nurburgring Easter 2007 all over... roll on teh next one.
However, 2 things really brightened up my Easter trip this year, and neither was actually related to teh ring at all.
The first surprise was a good Customer of mine called Wim from Hollant called over to see me at the hotel, but i was extremely late ansd busy getting ready for the piston Klaus booking id made and didnt have time to give to him. (I didnt know who he was at teh time i must stress)
Anyway, Nicole got talking to him somehow and he had only delivered me a gift as a thank you for my services to him over teh years. How bad did i feel for not making teh extra 5 mins to talk to him. Sorry Wim. really.
My fabulous Gift.
I had to smile at the exclamations after teh size...
The second surprise was a great bottle of expensive Champagne from Tony NutsRus, again thanking me for something we had done businesswise.
Neither gift was necessary but your both gentlemen and i thank you from teh bottom of my heart for your thoughfullness and generosity. It was much appreciated and such appreciation makes me happy to go out of my way now and then to help people like yourselves out. It never goes unnoticed. thank you both.
Finally...
Thanks again to all who came and made it what it was. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did and i hope you are allready planning your next one. Drive safe everyone, and thanks again for a great great time.
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12-04-2007, 10:05 PM
#17
Re: Nurburgring Easter 2007. My story... (WARNING: 100s of p
great story stu
spookly on our visit to the ring last year we went to the dam for the day on the way back and I took a photo of exactly the same peep show!!
was also dissapointed at what we saw for a euro!!lol
same place!!!!!
spookly on our visit to the ring last year we went to the dam for the day on the way back and I took a photo of exactly the same peep show!!
was also dissapointed at what we saw for a euro!!lol
same place!!!!!
13-04-2007, 12:41 AM
#32
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Re: Nurburgring Easter 2007. My story... (WARNING: 100s of p
We drive through Rotterdam, Holland and Germany, finally arriving at Herschbroic Village around 1pm on Thursday and meet our hotelier Edgar. Its great to see him and fabulous to find he remembers many of our names. Nice touch.
13-04-2007, 07:30 AM
#38
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Good read Stu - I'll give you a ring later for a short catch up and if I can get the contact details of the hotel as it seems a good one.
PMSL at random offroading - never knew that was there
PMSL at random offroading - never knew that was there
