So, I'm home, the dust has settled, and I have the weekend to enjoy getting back to normality before returning to work on Tuesday to face almost certain chaos.
Sounds like time to write a trip report then!
This trip started off in a pretty random way. I had no intention of going to the ring at this time at all.
Chatting to Dad on the phone a few weeks ago, on a miserable and rainy day in england, Dad mentioned that he and Mum were spending 2 nights in Nurburg on their way back from their adventures in the Polo, I jokingly said I was half tempted to come out and join them because of all the misery back in England, and an idea was formed!
Later that day I mentioned the idea in passing to Pierre, who jumped at the idea. Bugger it, lets go! So a ferry was booked, and we jumped online and booked the cheapest hotel we couild find, wanting to keep costs as low as possible.
As it was unplanned, I didn't have any road legal track tyres here to use for the trip, so Pierre very kindly went to Mum and Dads to pick up some A048's from our storage pile. He fitted them onto his S3 rims for us to use on the trip:
I stocked up with Energy drink, partly to keep us going, and partly because it's become a tradition to take a crate over for the boys at Rent 4 Ring after Ralph found a can in my boot about 3 years ago and decided he liked it!
A check list was written:
Pierre arrived on Sunday afternoon, and also bought up a new steering wheel I'd bought from Jardo to replace my old worn one. He got to work fitting that whilst I changed the wheels:
And everything was packed, reasonably light packing for us this time. We tend to end up taking the kitchen sink and everything else when Dad travels with us!
The wheels were fitted:
And she's ready to go:
Early to bed on Sunday night, and we got up at 1am, ready to leave at 0130 to catch the 4am Ferry. This seemed like a great idea when we booked it, but at 1am, it didn't seem so great!
We set off, and arrived at Dover at 03:15 in Good spirits.
Pierre decided to Model Andys Fez for a photo, we thought that as Andy couldn't join is, we'd at least take his hat along (even if it is a bloody stupid hat)
All loaded up with the usual hassle of going on the lower deck, and it was time for breakfast:
No more pics for a while, you all know what the journey is like in a track car. long, Loud, and bumpy!
We arrived in Nurburg at 1pm, and headed over to Rent 4 Ring to drop off our kit before checking into our Hotel that evening. The guys were as friendly as ever, and let us store our bags and spare wheels out the back of the garage. With the car unloaded, we headed down to the carpark and I bought a 4 lap ticket.
We set out on a sighting lap, but annoyingly the car seemed to develope a bit of a missfire under boost. We cruised around the lap just to get a feel for things again, and headed back down to Rent 4 Ring to borrow a wire brush and some WD40.
Plugs cleaned up, all connections sprayed, and she fired up and ran perfectly again.
We drove to Adeneau and ordered some new plugs and a coilpack from the motor factors, to arrive in the morning.
Sadly the track was again closed due to a nasty accident involving a biker, so we grabbed our stuff from R4R and headed to the hotel to check in at 4pm. By this time Mum and dad had arrived, so we all headed there together:
We headed back down to the track at 6pm, and I took my Mum out for her first passenger lap of the Ring, and she absolutely loved it! it was a stupidly busy lap with car after car of traffic, so a bit hairy for her first ever lap out!
Towards the end of the lap, my brakes started to loose a bit of bite. I knew the pads were getting low ish, but didn't think they'd have worn out already. We decided to call it a day on Monday, as it was just too busy to go out again, so we headed back to the hotel to get changed, then went to Pinnochios for some food and a few beers.
Next morning I got up early and changed the pads over for some Part worn Carbotech XP8's I had:
Then after breakfast we headed to Adeneau to pick up the new plugs and coil pack, stopping on the way to take a photo whilst it was quiet!
New parts collected, we headed back to the hotel to fit them:
Please note the amazing tin foil heat shielding added on Monday to eliminate the possibility of coilpack wiring over heating:
Annoyingly, despite being the right part number (BP7ES) and thread size, the hex on the plugs was too big to fit into my head, so we had to abandon that idea, and just fitted the new coil pack.
On the way to Adeneau the brake pedal felt a tad low, so we decided to bleed the brakes whilst we had a bit of spare time. All went well until it came to the master cylinder:
********!!!!
The bloody nipple snapped off! Oh well, the pedal feel was good, and it was still sealed. I could deal with that back in the UK.
So, all set for some more laps:
We headed down to Brunchen to watch the trackday going on for a while. I got some very strange looks when I parked the car like this and it decided to pop onto 3 wheels:
After some lunch, we headed down to the track to get a few laps in. it had been raining in the afternoon, but the sun was out, and it was drying out very fast. By the time we got on track just after half 5, it was as good as dry.
I setup Harrys Lap timer on the phone for a bit of fun, and slung it in the windscreen on a phone mount. More excited about the new data overlays it can now do rather than timing laps, I love analysing the GPS data and comparing Vmax and Vmin at different places between me and Dad.
First lap out on a fairly busy but drying track, and the car was going really well. No miss fire any more, and even on full boost (18psi) it was pulling well. The difference in speed compared to my last trip with 200bhp was unreal, I found myself having to relearn things a bit, as braking points have all moved due to the higher entry speeds.
I was particularly happy with passing this GT3 through Hatzenbach, even if he wasn't trying:
And the speed through SX, even after being very careful through Flugplatz, was astounding compared to before, showing just over 150mph indicated on the speedo, and a GPS verified 143mph
First lap out went well despite a fair bit of traffic, and harrys showed a lap time of 08:38, surprisingly a new PB for me, despite not trying to break any records. We let the car cool down for 5 minutes, and headed out for another lap.
Second lap was much better on the whole, very little traffic, apart from a very slow trip through the foxhole behind an elise, it was still damp in places and I was being cautious, so I was incedibly surprised to see Harrys show an 08:20.65 lap! The video seems to start under the bridge, but show 2.66s on the clock already, but it also stops a little short (around 2-3s at a guess), so I'm not sure if it's an accurate time or not, but even with it stopping short it's still a 08:24 or so, so I was very happy with that.
Video from that lap here:
Apple link here:
After my 2 laps, we adjusted the harnesses, and Dad jumped in for a few laps. We left the car on low boost for Dads laps, as he's not driven it on full boost yet, and we thought the Ring probably wasn't the correct place to explore the car's new power.
First lap out was nice and steady with Dad getting a feel for the car, the medium compound A048's working REALLY well and surprisingly very little wear at all
Second lap out we stuck the Phone on the mount again to film the lap to see the differences between Dad and I, it was a really good fun lap and Dad was flying, despite having the wipers on for half the lap in light rain, that didn't stop him from finishing the lap in 9 mins 34s, a new best for Dad as well!
Clearly the work on the car over winter have worked well, it just feels better in every way now, the tyres making it much more stable in the bends, and the new power giving it legs where previously it felt dead.
Whilst Dad and I had been lapping, Mum and Pierre had been at Pflanzgarten with Michaela taking pictures, I'd met Michaela just that afternoon for the first time, picking up some Springs for Chris she had been keeping. Great to meet you, and a lovely hotel too And then it all got Ugly.............
Pierre and Mum came back to the carpark, and we had 40 minutes of track time left on our trip before we set off home the next morning. We decided to buy 2 more laps, and I'd take Pierre out for 2 back to back as he's not been round a lap since the first miss firing lap on Monday.
2 tickets bought, and the sun low in the sky, we adjusted the harnesses back to my driving position, and set off on my 5th lap of the trip.
The track seemed totally empty, and we didn't see another car the entire way! we were absolutely flying really enjoying having the track all to ourselves.
Things were going well as we rounded Flugplatz, slightly damp offline, but plenty of grip. I came down the dip approaching Schwedenkreuz, and glanced down at the speedo to see if nearing an indicated 150mph.
God knows why, dont even ask, but for some utterly daft reason I felt the need to say to Pierre ''look at the speedo - 150!''
Now, I always glance at the speedo before SX, to try and get an idea of how much I need to slow down (I have it my head that I need to be down to 110 for the bend), and traffic depending sometimes no braking is needed if you've been sat in a que. For some reason though, this time it threw my concentration, and I THINK, from watching the vid, I tried to move over to the Right too much at the last minute. Some have said it looks like a clipped the grass, I'm not sure, but what resulted was not fun at all.
There are certain views of the nurburgring, at certain speeds, that you should hope you never have to see.
Like this:
And this:
And this:
The back end went right at a GPS 140mph, I tried to catch it but couldn't, so quickly accepted that it was going to hurt and got ready for impact, yelling BIG CRASH hoping Pierre would ready himself for impact too.
We went in backwards, perfectly parallel to the barriers, with an impact speed of 117mph, the front bumper ripped itself off due to air pressure going backwards at 130, and we bounced off the barrier,only to come back round, and finally come to rest just kissing the barrier around 300 yards from where it all began.
The car was still running, and I knew instantly that we were a sitting target, just behind a blind bend after one of the fastest parts of the track. I checked Pierre was OK (a look was all that was needed - hence no audio of that) and backed the car up, making sure we stayed on the grass, and then drove around 100 yards down the verge to get out of danger and park the car at a Marshall post to avoid any further collisions. As soon as I parked up I grabbed my Hi-Vis and started running back up towards the corner to flag the accident to others, but before I even got half way up the hill, the Ring marshalls had already arrived, having been out to do a sighting lap after shutting the track early due to another accident elsewhere that was already being marshalled.
With the track shut, and the marshalls on the scene, I walked back down to find out what was left of my car.
******** And the video from that horrible episode:
Apple link:
So, that didn't go so well!
Another Marshall car arrived, and they took Pierre and I up to show us where we had crashed. We arrived at my front bumper, sitting neatly by the armco, and there was no damage.
''Where did you crash'' he said, I hadn't got a clue! Further back up the track, and still no damage. All seeming very odd.
ANOTHER 100 yards up the track, and we saw the skid marks just after the crest, then it all became clear.
We had hit the barrier so squarely, that rather than dent it, we had just pushed it all back without even denting the beams. It wasn't immediately obvious where we had hit it at all, but sadly, they found it after 5 minutes looking!
I started to panic when I saw him write 63m on the barrier, and demanded to have the whole thing explained to me, thanksfully, 63m was just a hugely worrying form number, Form 63M, not the 63 metres I thought I was about to be billed for!
Pierre stayed with the car and truck, and I was taken back to the office in the car with the Marshalls to pay my bill.
Thankfully, I wasn't TOO terrified in the car on the way round, as the marshall had already told me it was going to be around 3000 Euro for the barrier, and I knew I could cover that with the money on my debit account, so at least I wasn't going to get into any further trouble for that.
Back to the office and Mum and Dad were waiting for me, looking VERY worried. I explained that both Pierre and I were fine, and went into the office to pay my debts to NGMBH.
I was greeted with a bill for 2977 euros. 28m of barrier and 5 posts, plus marshall deployment. OUCH.
I handed over my card, entered my PIN, then heart that horrible dull tone of rejection. WTF? I had plenty to cover it!
tried again - Rejected again. ARGH.
Mum stepped up (thank the lord for Mums) and tried to put the whole lot on her card - Rejected!
WTF? We both had the money to cover it easily, we couldn't understand.
We decided to try 1000 on each, so I tried first - rejected. This was getting stupid now.
Mum tried her card for 1000 euros, and it went through, thank god.
Then, Pierre very kindly offered to put 1000 euros on his card, and it went straight through. 2000 paid, just 1000 left.
I called Tori, who told me we had over 1000 in our joint account, and i could put it on that. Put the card in, typed the pin, WRONG PIN. ARGH. My head was so messed up now, I was typing totally the wrong pin, which I now realise.
So, there we are, with 2000 euros paid, 1000 left, and Bongard still wouldn't give us the car back. I was determined not to let it go to their yard overnight. It's my car, and it doesn't go out of my sight, ever.
Whilst we were discussing what to do, an American chap was also in the office, in a full race suit, paying his bill for 1500 euros for an off at Hocheichen.
What happened next, I could scarcely believe:
'' are you guys having trouble paying your bill?''
''Yes, we have more than enough money but the bank has blocked the transaction thinking it's fraud''
''oh wow, that's bad news, I could pay it for you''
I honestly couldn't believe it!
This guy, who we later found was called Bill, just paid the remaining 977 Euros for me, only 30 seconds after first meeting me. I couldn't believe my luck! All he wanted as interest was a lift back up to his hotel, because his car was in a bad way and being taken to Bongards on a truck.
Utterly stunned by Bills kind gesture, we took him back to his hotel room at the Lindner, where he told us about his 550bhp 2012 Shelby Mustang, now with only 3 wheels. Poor bloke.
What made it worse for Bill, was that he had a 2013 Mustang waiting for him back in the states, and the 2012 was his trade in!
Bills wife was worried that he wasn't OK, so he passed the phone over to Dad, who made several rude jokes about Bill and americans in general, which made me cringe (he's just given us 1000 euros!!!!), but Bill loved it, and it seemed to be just what his wife needed to hear, so well done Dad!
We took Bill out for Dinner to say thank you, and went for a steak at PK, not something he'd done during his stay. Bill was an awesome chap, so friendly and full of stories, we all got on really well and had a great time, which really helped to forget about the horrible day we'd both had.
After the meal, we headed back to the hotel, had a few beers and chatted about the days events, then headed to bed for some much needed sleep! I forgot to mention, during all the panic, I needed somewhere to put the car, so thinking of places as close to the Ring as possible, I tried to call Martin a the Burgstube, sadly, due to a phone problem, my calls didn't get through, so I called Michaela, who was absolutely brilliant and let us put the bashed up car behind her hotel for the night -
Massive thanks to Michaela, she sorted everything out with the recory driver for me, and really made things so much easier, as they were absolutely adamant that it was going to Bongards until she spoke to them - I owe you! you're a star.
So, after some much needed sleep, we went to Michaelas to take a look at the car the next morning:
It was looking sad, so I pushed the front bumper on, and instantly felt a little better:
Dad then had to go and collect Bill, and take him to Koblenz to pick up a hire car, so Pierre and I sat around looking at the car for a while, and took a few pictures.
Things wern't looking good after an initial damage inspection:
Obviously the rear beam was dead.
The front left wishbone was around an inch shorter than before:
The crash bar had done it's job amazingly, and the intercooler core is 100% intact!
Inside things wern't so good though, check out the seat position:
My FIA spec welded in seat rails hadn't budged 1 bit, but the FIA approved sparco steel side mounts had bent LOADS. The sideways impact obviously just too much for them. The seats had cracks around all mounting points, but apart from one bolt hole, they had stayed together just fine.
One captive plate on my seat had pulled through the fibreglass, where the leverage from the bending side mounts obviously got too much:
The worst bit I can find is this on the rear seat squab:
This is directly where the rear beam mounts to the shell. It hasn't moved left or right at all, but had pushed upwards around 8mm. Any thoughts on jigging / possible fixes?
I took it to X-sport racing yesterday, who said the damage was so minimal they would consider adding a small spacer between the beam mount and the shell rather than paying to have it jigged straight. Has anyone got any experience of this?
At this point, having had a look around we were convinced that the car was dead, so we locked it up, and walked back to our hotel to wait for Dad and Bill to get back Dad returned with Bill around 11:30, and we all jumped in the car and headed up to the Burgstube to see Martin, I figured of all the people I knew in nurburg, he was definitely best placed to give us advice on what to do with Bills car, and possible storage as well. We'd heard news that Lizzard was coming to the Burgstube on Friday as well, so it seemed like the obvious place to go.
At the Burgstube, along with Martin and Heidi, we also met Simon and Tim, really great to meet you guys
After a few pictures of Bills mustang, it was pretty clear that Bills mustang wasn't in a position to be fixed in Germany, the parts would simply have been too expensive over there, and we soon realised it'd need to go to a port as it was, on 3 wheels.
Bill had tried to cal Alex earlier that day, and left him a message. Martin tried to call alex, and he answered ''Hello Martin, you're going to tell me about an American arn't you - my bloody phone has been playing up, I've just got his message''
Details were exchanged, and I believe Alex is picking the Mustang up from Bongards and taking it to a port in Amsterdam.
I showed everyone a few pictures of the car, and was promptly told to man up, get back to Michaelas, and get fixing it. I'd been so down I'd just given up on it at first, but they convinced my that far worse cars had been driven home, and when I look at the cost of recovery, or coming back to collect it, it started to make sense - thanks guys, you REALY helped!
Armed with fresh enthusiasm, we headed back to the car and got the tools out, and more importantly, the duck tape!
The rear arch was pulled out with a hammer at first, then rolled with a jack handle and pushing the car until the wheel cleared:
Then Pierre jumped inside and pushed out lots of the quarter panel with his feet:
We re-did the tracking by eye, which needed LOTS of adjustment as the track had been narrowed by over an inch!
I jumped in to see if I could roll it back and forth under it's own power, and pretty soon realised the angle of the seats would make us feel very sick, very quickly:
So the seats came out, and we stamped and bashed the seat mounts straight again, and bolted the seats back in. They're a tiny bit off still, but it was enough to get us home.
The front wing was bashed out with a hammer, and we removed the stickers to get a better idea of the body damage when it was all one colour, then we went for a test drive back to our hotel!
Amazingly, it drove OK!
Nothing rubbed, it drove reasonably straight, and none of the tyres were scrubbing at all. It was a bit lively at the back end due to LOTS of toe out, but so long as we kept it below 40mph, it was managable.
We packed everything up, got changed, and headed down into Mullenback for dinner. We had planned to go to the Burgstube, but they wern't serving food that evening, so after a lovely Pizza in Mullenbach, we headed up to the 'tube for a few beers and a relax!
The next morning, we loaded up the cars, packing as much as possible into the Polo (poor polo!), and packing the A3 as light as we possibly could, with ALL the weight forwards and on the right hand side, to try and minimise the influence of the bent rear wheel.
We kept the Silver wheels and A048's on the Right hand side, and fitted 2 Super T's and road tyres on the left hand side where it was most likely to scrub, this kept the car looking normal from either side, and not drawing attention with miss matched wheels.
Here's me trying my absolute best to look enthusiastic, although lets be honest, I just look special, and sad:
We popped up to the Lindner to pick up some stuff that Bill thought he had left in his room. Sadly it wasn't there after all, and the staff at the Lindner didn't look too impressed at all to see my wreck parked outside!
The trip back was SLOOOOOOOOOW, in the wet in the morning, anything above 40mph felt terrifying, with the back end all over the place.
It dried up in the afternoon, and we were able to push up to 50mph occasionally, but on the rough belgian roads, it was just terrifying, with the back of the car following the ruts from all the trucks. not fun at all.
We left Nurburg just before 9am, and got to the ferry at 5:30pm, just in time for the crossing.
Luckily, Pierres lorry supply of hair gel and sunglasses arrived just at the same time:
My suspicions that the car was still straight and savable were confirmed on the ferry:
It fits in the grid lines on my camera from above, so it MUST be straight still? Right?
Poor car looked tiny down there:
And finally, a 'welcome home - England is ****' picture!
What a trip!
Highs, lows, old friends, new friends, debt, loans, kind strangers, new lessons.
I cannot possibly praise the car enough in this, all the work, and all the safety gear has been SO worth while. Words just cannot describe how lucky we both were to walk out totaly unharmed, and it's all thanks to the safety equipment in the car. I have absolutely no doubt about that at all.
I must also offer a MASSIVE thanks to everbody in Germany who helped me out, To Charles and Irma at the hotel for making sure we had everything we needed, to Michaela for offering us a place to store the car and helping when my nervous german let me down, to Martin and Heidi for making us feel at home and welcome.
Thanks to Bruce for his help and advice on the phone, and going so off topic I almost forgot I'd had a crash.
Thanks to Bill, the completely random stranger who helped me out when I really needed it, and to everyone else who sent me messages on here and on facebook, offering traillers, local advice, lifts home, and general support, I got so many messages I couldn't even name you all, but thank you so much to everyone.
But most of all, thanks to my Mum and Dad, and Pierre, for being quite simply, awesome in every way!
