My obsession with the Nordschleife.

If all goes according to plan (oh man hope I don't jinx it).....in 7 days I will be lapping the Nordschleife!!! Even better, I will be able to rent the same year/make/model car that I am already comfortable with and used to tracking here in the States. Since 2017, I moved on from autocross and started tracking my 1990 Mazda Miata, progressively adding more track mods along the way.

The 1990 MX-5 Miata I will be renting has some comparable mods done to it, with a few higher end addons compared to my own (mainly that I still have lowering springs with non-adjustable Bilstein shocks, the rental has BC Coilovers, it also seems to have a nicer exhaust).

I signed up for 10 laps, and will have the afternoon-half of the October 10th SkyLimit trackday to complete those. That's right, I went straight for a trackday instead of unpredictable touristenfahrten. The big differences being (besides the entry cost) there will be a cap on cars, so much less traffic, and the whole distance of the Dottinger-Hohe straight can be used. Now, in a Miata that extra distance won't be getting me going a hell of a lot faster than you normally could max out at, but that is ok, as I'll probably get my line much better coming out of it while still going a good speed.

My understanding is the rental also includes video, so hoepfully I will be sharing my laps with you guys when I arrive back. If anyone will happen to be in the area or even going to the same event, I wouldn't mind meeting up and getting to know a fellow poster.

 

Good luck & hope to see those videos soon.

 

I went there last year and it's beyond anything you can experience on a simulator. You'll not regret it, especially doing it on a trackday (I could only hit 2 tourist days due to scheduling issues). Good luck and enjoy it.

 

Hopefully everything will turn out great for you! All my IRL Nordschleife experience is 2 back-to-back laps as Touristenfahrt back in 2005 with my Peugeot 307 (2.0, 136PS - my company car at that time ). For me the biggest thing was really the terrain. I did altogether around 1 hour tracktime on the Hockenheimring (current F1 layout, 4 different sessions, also Touristenfahrten), so the speed itself wasn't that extreme as such but the elevation changes, the bumps were definitely something - from what I heard Skyline at Bathurst is also reminiscent to that kind of experience.

 

After the picture had been standing om my pc for 6 years, I finally decided to get it printed on acryl (120cmx80cm) to decorate the living room

 

So on the topic of photos, do any of you have insight about properly ordering trackday photos? I finally decided to wire my funds to SkyLimit photo service (SkyLimit being the event organizer for the trackday I drove on October 10th 2019). It has already been close to 1 week since I wired the account money. I actually considered ordering from them a few months back, only to be confused by Bank of America's wiring fees. I went through with it this time because as long as you wire the amount in Euros instead of making them convert from USD, they don't slap you with their fees.

SkyLimit has been slow/unresponsive to get back to me via email. A few months ago when I initially asked if there was alternative method of payment, they referred me to one of the staff and they never got back to me. This time around, I sent a follow up email about if they received payment and if there will be a long time to process or send me the photos. Haven't received a reply back yet.

It feels like the equivalent of a FB Marketplace sale, where I Paypal the money and hope the address I either am shipping out to or gave them to ship to me is right. Very unofficial feeling.

Off the topic of photos, but related to the Nurburgring, I still have yet to edit together the videos of my laps driving the 'Ring back in October. I'm trying to give DaVinci Resolve a try. I mainly need to string together the separate files, since the laps overlap between them. If I could also adjust/fix the overexposure that would be a plus. Any one with video editing experience have a good tutorial? It has been years and years since I last used Adobe Premiere.

 

Good luck with it all.

 

Quick (content) update, I did receive 2 out of the 3 photos I ordered. The 2 I received are the only 2 so far that I can find from that day that feature me driving. 1990 MX-5 Miata with handling mods:




Still working on stringing together my lap videos...

 

Off topic but,

while I still think anything that can do a sub 8 is remarkable and worthy of modern sports car status, these times seem so much more down to earth compared to the 6:46 the 991 GT2 set. Or even the GT3 which also shattered the sub 7min mark by a good handful of seconds I still have trouble coprehending that to this day.

A refined road & track car, on arguably what may have been semi slicks?.... Honestly I'm not sure what the specs were, Manufacturers are good at withholding that kind if information. However if some one told me Porsche were using full blown racing slicks that would be easier to digest.

 

How incredible that this thread has been running 6 years! Just shows I am clearly not the only one with an obsession for the 'ring... I still lap lap it on a daily basis albeit on assetto corsa now rather than gran turismo.

Great to see so many people realising the dream and actually going there to drive it!

Long live the 'ring!

 

What are you lapping in these days? Do you have a go-to car? These days, mine is the C7.R.

 

All sorts of things.

I'm heavily into sim drifting now, so most of my time spent in sim is spent sideways on small Japanese tracks, but when I fancy some laps at the nurburgring it could be anything...

I really enjoy the 90's DTM cars, the way they move around, manual gear box, good grip, I could drive these endlessly.

If i want to scare myself it's the group C cars that come out to play.

Its not the most realistic but I love taking the mod for the Porsche 919 evo around aswell, incredible piece of kit.

There is an e34 M5 mod by gentle mind performance that is excellent fun and suits the track perfectly.

Could be anything really.

I have an RX8 in real life so I also really enjoy taking an RX8 around on AC.

 

I join GT Planet because of this thread (looking for Nordschleife info a long long time ago), and found some really cool people here, so I also wanted to thank you.

 

Ah you are more than welcome my friend

 

This is still so addictive.

 

I know it’s a short wheelbase but it doesn’t look like the most stable car under heavy braking.