That's me home after a somewhat gruelling but thoroughly enjoyable 8 day trip to the N24.
My plan to walk the perimeter of the entire circuit went almost according to plan, with a few changes. I've not shown the GP circuit, but basically I did the Nordschleife in three days:
Part 1: GP Circuit to Adenauer Forst (Thursday / free practice)
Part 2: Brünnchen to the GP Circuit (Friday / qualifying)
Part 3: Brünnchen to Breidscheid (Sunday / red flag)
On Saturday, I watched the warm-up session from the Mercedes-Benz stand at the GP Circuit, before taking part in the grid walk (which was an amazing bonus, given that stands were full and people were literally leaving the track disappointed...). After the gr5id walk, I repeated the first section of the
Part 1 walk, but only as far as the crossover with the B257 where I got the bus back to Adenau. I then spent the evening at Breidscheid, Weirseifen and as far as Speigelkurve (about
8 on the Part 3 map), and that was frankly a magical experience.
The walk on Sunday in the fog was also absolutely amazing, even before the cars came back on to the track. I made it as far as the Karussel before the GT3s came back out, and then I walked through the forest along the top of the track, and at times the view of the track was pretty incredible - the footpath is a good 50m above the track at this point. Beyond Kesselchen, however, and there's not much else to see until you get back to Breidscheid, albeit via walking down part of a highway for about a mile.
Ironically, the only bits that are accessible that I missed was Metzgefeld and Kallenhard, which are about as close to Adenau as you can get - however, the walk up to the track from the town is steep and pretty long, and every time I was nearby, I was already totally exhausted from a very long walk from one direction or the other.
Speigelkurve was absolutely amazing, as was Breidschied/Ex-Mülhe - and I'm delighted that I got to see the cars at full tilt at Pflantzgarten at least for a few minutes. However, if I was pushed to say what the best spot was, I'd have to with Eschbach/Brünnchen. I watched the first 45 mins of Q2 (I think) there, and it was amazing - it was also perfectly easy to get a great view, which wasn't always the case at other spots.
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All told, I did 125,000 steps, pretty much bang on 100km/60 miles in 4 days at the track.
For my whole 8-day trip (2 nights in Cologne, and 2 nights in Adenau before and after the race), it was 176,000 steps, 140km and 87 miles.
And if you count my 4 days of 'training' before I went (10km a day), my total was 225,000 steps, 180km / 112 miles.
Needless to say, my poor feet and legs need a serious rest...
www.the-race.com
Sadly, I had to delete the video I took on my phone because I had no memory left for the post-race photos, so I had to panic-delete some big files, but this is the pic I wanted for posterity!! It was truly one of the most brilliant times of my life to be there for this moment.
