F-Stop Junkie

What?

Here's the latest from what I've heard... Basically don't tit about, or turnup in a shitbox, and you'll be fine. Bonnet pins (or any sharp edges, like aftermarket jap-style wings) are all about biker safety in the event of a crash.

Nobody's got any bonnet pins that arn't flush fitting, right?

Why on a dSLR?

What's the betting it's had a bump, and is being hurridly repaired before Mum and Dad notice?

Cool, learn something new every day!

Got the towing test booked then?

Looking at the dates over Easter: 1st April - 1415 - 1945 2nd April (Good Friday) - 0800 - 1930 3rd April - No tourist session 4th April - 0800 - 1930 5th April (Monday) - 0800 - 1930 6th April - 0800 - 1930 If you can do it, going out Thursday will be a better bet. You'll get a full day's driving on Friday. Any hold ups on the trip over on Friday and you'll be worrying about missed track time, then you'll wake up Saturday morning raring to go and be faced with a closed track. Also Tuesday will be relatively quiet, Wednesday is back to just evening sessions...

You'll need to have taken the towing qualification on your UK licence if you passed after 1995 (I think), otherwise you're not legally allowed to tow in the UK. Once you hit Germany (again, I think. It may be Belgium or even France to Germany) if you haven't taken the appropriate towing test IN THAT COUNTRY then you're limited to 50mph. When everyone else is doing 70ish, that's a pain too. All depends on the car to be honest. One VLN driver does 8 min laps in a Suzuki Swift, M3s will easily run Sub-9s all day long. If you're worrying about times, you're doing it wrong.

Without the Levelboss, we wouldn't have the long and low Echo/Zoo!/all that jazz we have now. Not many bikes you can say that about.

If you're after real mile stones, then the Levelboss has to be one. It marked a monumental shift from short to long and low. Within a couple of years the whole design model of 26" frames had followed. The Ashton ET 24" also was the first time 24" bikes were proven to work.

How do you mean a straight vote? How do you think the number of votes affects a members chance of being validated?

It's worth noting that the voting system is used purely to bring a worthy member to the attention of people like me. It's not a way to vote in your friends or anything like that. If some doofus comes along and gets a million votes, then us mods will come along, look at their posting history and decide their a doofus and not validate them. On the flip side, it means that people get recognised more quickly, and brought to the attention of mods who validate them. The criteria hasn't changed, just the way people get noticed.

1,200 posts...

Definatley encouraged, but you have to be realistic. Some coffin dodger in a 911 cab will be driving so slowly you'll be trying to get past, then some anonymous hatchback will leave you for dead, despite you being convinced you should be quicker. It's only when you get back to the carpark do you spot the sticky tyres and german plates...

Yep, that's a tourist day. It's odd. Legally it's a derestricted, one way road. i.e. you can go as fast as you want, but you are subject to laws of the road for overtaking and in case of accident/death. You're not allowed to time your laps or video them though. Most people drive the same car on track that they do to get to and from Germany. I always wear a helmet too (not on the motorway!) I was just trying to make the point that you don't have to have a dedicated track car, you can just turn up and drive comfortably in any road car, as long it's upto the job.

Ah, I thought he meant a medical injection! I was trying to think what diseases you could catch in Germany, apart from Ringworm...

To answer for Nick... It all depends. It could be judged to be your fault or his fault depending who was where and so on. Like any accident, there are expectations for tourist days, such as only overtaking on the left. There's two tracks at the Nurburgring. The Nordschleife (Northloop) which is 12 miles and quite mental, and the Grand Prix circuit which is about 3 miles or so and where they run F1, DTM and so on... The real fun comes when you at an endurance event (N24 or VLN) and they use both circuits! In fact there's a Northloop trackday in June which uses the FULL 15 mile loop... Stefan Bellof has said that when he did that lap he had no fear of death whatsoever. It was truely all or nothing. Plus this is an old Group C endurance racer, so nowhere near as safe as modern cars... Sadly he was killed in the same car at Spa. The Radical lap is insane, especially as the bloke driving doesn't think of a Ring specialist, and had some pretty hairy moments. I'm waiting for Caparo to go out there with the T1! Cool! Another Northlooper! On my second trip I had a pax lap in Nige's Golf which showed me just what a pussy I'd been! That probably took a minute off my time

From what I've heard (and seen of some cars at the track!) if it's MoT'd and registered then they'd only stop you going out if the car was dangerous (i.e. dropping fluids, or looks shabby), too loud, or has pointy bits that could injur other people. Things like bonnet pins that arn't flush, or wings with sharp edges that could hurt a biker if you hit them. If you're not MoT'd, and you're involved in an accident which requires you to produce documents for the police/insurance companies, and you haven't got them - *then* you'd be in trouble. Quite a lot of people turn up in modified cars, some dedicated Ring track cars. Another one wouldn't look out of place. That said, I'd have no issues about lapping in the same car I drove to and from the track in... Camping cheap. Supermarket in Adenau same as here. Injection? For what?

Greetings - buy slicks? You do realise that tourist sessions are not for racing cars, but road legal, road registered cars? If you turn up on slicks, you'll be turned away. Plus you don't need to do lots of work to the car. Most there have open diffs and standard road suspension... Any car will do the job, as long as it's registered and so on (And TuV approved if you're in Germany!) I'd say 8 laps is enough, but you could do double or triple that in a weekend if you wanted. I think I did 12 or 15 laps in my last visit. Could have done less, but had to buy just one more card... Easter weekend is good as there's usually TF days on the bank holidays. Lots of Brits go over, so there can be big queues to get on and off, and quite a few closures too. Given the state of the Economy and Euro vs £, who knows? I'd avoid 24 Hours/VLN dates if you're looking to go lapping. It's not uncommon for TF days to disappear to allow cleanup/track repair as required. Best you'd get I reckon is a couple of evening sessions either side. Either go for TF or N24, not both. BTW, if people are looking at official calendars on the Nurburgring website, keep in mind they don't list all events, industry pool days and so on. If it doesn't say TF, don't assume it will be!

Where do you read Al's trip reports? He seems to be a member of most internet forums... I didn't think Nuremburg had a circuit? I met a couple of bikers while I was waiting for the ferry in Calais who had hired bikes, thrashed them at the Ring, then had to fit new tyres before taking them back. The guy at the hire company asked if they'd been to the Nuremburgring? Nope, certainly haven't been there...

Nurburg or Nuremburg?