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10 days before the Nürburgring 24 hour race I was invited to attend the race, supporting one of my customers who was competing. Having never been to a race at the Nürburgring before (I’ve tested there a few times) I thought it was too good an opportunity to miss.
Armed with my plane ticket, hire car voucher and a promise that the team would find somewhere for me to sleep (I took a sleeping bag as I was expecting the worse) I set off from Stansted first thing on Friday morning.
I arrived at the track just before lunchtime to find fans already set up everywhere around the track. I’d seen the pictures before of the sunburnt Germans, sitting on their folding chairs in front of their tents, all important beer in hand, but nothing could have prepared me for just how many there were. Every spectating area was full, to bursting point with fans out to enjoy the event. They come seriously well equipped for the event, not just with their tents and BBQs, but also their fridges, freezers, big sofas and large flower pots with neatly arranged plants, to name but a few things I saw. By the Friday afternoon most of them were already looking bright red due to the fantastic weather out there, so I hate to think what they looked like at the end of the weekend.
I headed straight for the pits and was amazed at the volume of kit in there. I’d been informed approximately 200 cars were starting the race, so thought I knew what to expect, but the sight of all the equipment for 200 race cars, plus all the support races, was something else.
Walking round the paddock on Friday gave a good indication that there were a number of people who were taking this very seriously.
Something like four of these were entered in the race. And the rumour was that there was some factory money supporting the cars as well.
Other cars of interest around the paddock were.
(Running on compressed natural gas)
(The amount of people who took photos of the underside of this car was unbelievable, and by the Saturday morning a poster with one of the sponsor’s names on it had appeared on the underside!)
Friday finished at a sensible time and it was off to the hotel, the Dorint in Daun. This is approximately 30 mins away from the track so not right on the doorstep, but the drive to the hotel was very good fun, on some very entertaining roads. This was despite my hire car being a new Ford Fiesta 1.2, equipped with winter tyres (which although move around a lot, offer a surprising amount of grip on quite hot tarmac
)
Saturday was a late start (it was going to be a very long day) and I arrived at the track just before lunchtime.
I thought the number of people on the Friday was large, but Saturday was unreal. Normally at tracks the paddock is restricted access, but it wasn’t here. Every man and his dog was milling around in the build up to the race.
When it came to go to the grid all the cars were slowly allowed to take their positions. During this time the pit lane was awash with people.
(Yes, she is lovely!)
When it came to actually putting the cars on the grid I assumed there’d be some sort of restriction on people getting access, but no, everyone went onto the grid. It was mayhem, but fantastic for the fans.
By the time I got onto the grid, it wasn’t going to be possible to see all the cars, so here are just a few random ones I photographed.
With about 10 minutes before the start of the race I was wondering how they were going to clear the grid as there were people everywhere, and some of the engines were already starting right at the front.
The answer was that they weren’t really going to clear the grid (there were a few marshals ushering people away, but they weren’t really doing a lot), they were just going to let the cars to start moving off on the formation lap, and hope that common sense got everyone off the grid.
It worked surprisingly well. Here’s a BMW leaving moving off on the parade lap, with people still walking around it!
Entry back into the pit lane was then restricted, so the walk back up the garage was a bit quieter, and pleasing on the eye!
I’d assumed that the race would be a fairly slow start with drivers being quite restrained, what with it being 24 hours long, and around the old and new Nürburgring circuits. I was however very wrong. The cars in first and second (a Ford GT and a Manthey Porsche) were at it immediately, scrapping all the way round, with the Porsche obviously quicker in the corners, but slower on the straights. The Porsche got past fairly early in the race though; not sure what happened to the Ford.
Thankfully for me I didn’t have too much to do during the race, but being in the garage meant I only got a few photos during the race.
There were two Lexus LF-A entered in the race, with full support from the factory, which resulted in something like 100+ engineers looking after the cars, and a large number of Bridgestone engineers also, plus a few attractive models. The car looked very much like it was production ready (a lot of OE kit fitted to it, and not much one-off/prototype pieces) and sounded awesome (V10 engine). You had to feel sorry for the team though because one of the cars spent two ours in the garage having the alternator changed effectively ruling it out of contention in its class, and the other one which had been running fine caught alight near the end!
For me, the race itself went surprisingly quickly, despite only getting 10 minutes sleep during the 24 hours!
Come the end of the race, everyone was in a mood to celebrate, and the pit lane was quite a sight.
After the race I went to a couple of points around the circuit just to see what it looked like on the Monday morning. All the spectators were long gone (no bank holiday on the Monday in Germany), but had left quite a bit of clearing up to be done!
I think that about covers my Nürburgring 24 hour experience. It’s a race which strangely doesn’t get more coverage in the UK, for reasons I don’t know. If anyone has the opportunity to go to it, I’d absolutely recommend it!
The chance to see everything up close, and the atmosphere make it a unique event. It could be compared to Le Mans, but truthfully I’d say it makes Le Mans look far too sanitised.
Will I go back again, most definitely!!!!
Armed with my plane ticket, hire car voucher and a promise that the team would find somewhere for me to sleep (I took a sleeping bag as I was expecting the worse) I set off from Stansted first thing on Friday morning.
I arrived at the track just before lunchtime to find fans already set up everywhere around the track. I’d seen the pictures before of the sunburnt Germans, sitting on their folding chairs in front of their tents, all important beer in hand, but nothing could have prepared me for just how many there were. Every spectating area was full, to bursting point with fans out to enjoy the event. They come seriously well equipped for the event, not just with their tents and BBQs, but also their fridges, freezers, big sofas and large flower pots with neatly arranged plants, to name but a few things I saw. By the Friday afternoon most of them were already looking bright red due to the fantastic weather out there, so I hate to think what they looked like at the end of the weekend.
I headed straight for the pits and was amazed at the volume of kit in there. I’d been informed approximately 200 cars were starting the race, so thought I knew what to expect, but the sight of all the equipment for 200 race cars, plus all the support races, was something else.
Walking round the paddock on Friday gave a good indication that there were a number of people who were taking this very seriously.
Something like four of these were entered in the race. And the rumour was that there was some factory money supporting the cars as well.
Other cars of interest around the paddock were.
(Running on compressed natural gas)
(The amount of people who took photos of the underside of this car was unbelievable, and by the Saturday morning a poster with one of the sponsor’s names on it had appeared on the underside!)
Friday finished at a sensible time and it was off to the hotel, the Dorint in Daun. This is approximately 30 mins away from the track so not right on the doorstep, but the drive to the hotel was very good fun, on some very entertaining roads. This was despite my hire car being a new Ford Fiesta 1.2, equipped with winter tyres (which although move around a lot, offer a surprising amount of grip on quite hot tarmac
)Saturday was a late start (it was going to be a very long day) and I arrived at the track just before lunchtime.
I thought the number of people on the Friday was large, but Saturday was unreal. Normally at tracks the paddock is restricted access, but it wasn’t here. Every man and his dog was milling around in the build up to the race.
When it came to go to the grid all the cars were slowly allowed to take their positions. During this time the pit lane was awash with people.
(Yes, she is lovely!)
When it came to actually putting the cars on the grid I assumed there’d be some sort of restriction on people getting access, but no, everyone went onto the grid. It was mayhem, but fantastic for the fans.
By the time I got onto the grid, it wasn’t going to be possible to see all the cars, so here are just a few random ones I photographed.
With about 10 minutes before the start of the race I was wondering how they were going to clear the grid as there were people everywhere, and some of the engines were already starting right at the front.
The answer was that they weren’t really going to clear the grid (there were a few marshals ushering people away, but they weren’t really doing a lot), they were just going to let the cars to start moving off on the formation lap, and hope that common sense got everyone off the grid.
It worked surprisingly well. Here’s a BMW leaving moving off on the parade lap, with people still walking around it!
Entry back into the pit lane was then restricted, so the walk back up the garage was a bit quieter, and pleasing on the eye!
I’d assumed that the race would be a fairly slow start with drivers being quite restrained, what with it being 24 hours long, and around the old and new Nürburgring circuits. I was however very wrong. The cars in first and second (a Ford GT and a Manthey Porsche) were at it immediately, scrapping all the way round, with the Porsche obviously quicker in the corners, but slower on the straights. The Porsche got past fairly early in the race though; not sure what happened to the Ford.
Thankfully for me I didn’t have too much to do during the race, but being in the garage meant I only got a few photos during the race.
There were two Lexus LF-A entered in the race, with full support from the factory, which resulted in something like 100+ engineers looking after the cars, and a large number of Bridgestone engineers also, plus a few attractive models. The car looked very much like it was production ready (a lot of OE kit fitted to it, and not much one-off/prototype pieces) and sounded awesome (V10 engine). You had to feel sorry for the team though because one of the cars spent two ours in the garage having the alternator changed effectively ruling it out of contention in its class, and the other one which had been running fine caught alight near the end!
For me, the race itself went surprisingly quickly, despite only getting 10 minutes sleep during the 24 hours!
Come the end of the race, everyone was in a mood to celebrate, and the pit lane was quite a sight.
After the race I went to a couple of points around the circuit just to see what it looked like on the Monday morning. All the spectators were long gone (no bank holiday on the Monday in Germany), but had left quite a bit of clearing up to be done!
I think that about covers my Nürburgring 24 hour experience. It’s a race which strangely doesn’t get more coverage in the UK, for reasons I don’t know. If anyone has the opportunity to go to it, I’d absolutely recommend it!
The chance to see everything up close, and the atmosphere make it a unique event. It could be compared to Le Mans, but truthfully I’d say it makes Le Mans look far too sanitised.
Will I go back again, most definitely!!!!
