One Ring to Rule Them All

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When I first started out on my track day car project one of the requirements was that I would be able to drive the car across Europe in relative comfort (more on that later) so I could take it on the Nürburgring. I don’t have space for a trailer and having a tow vehicle would force a major rethink for the other side of the garage, so the car has to be driven to any track I want to visit. I’d promised myself that a summer trip to the ring was definitely on the agenda it was simply a case of deciding which TDO to sign up with. When BookaTrack.com announced they had secured the circuit for the 1st two days of August the die was cast. I’ve done a number of BookaTrack.com days in the past and always found the organisation excellent, I also like that BaT boss Jonny Leroux takes driving standards very seriously (having previously been the victim of an accident caused by an poorly judged overtake during a touristenfahrten session it’s important to me) and I don’t mind paying a premium for a smaller number of cars on track.

The trip started on Wednesday morning (31st July) with a quick trip to Eurotunnel to meet up with 4 guys from 911uk.com, it was quite funny travelling in convoy with four Porsche 911 GT3s (two GT3RS, one GT3CS and a very heavily modified GT3 with a 4-litre engine conversion) although the convoy aspect didn’t last very long for me as it turns out keeping up with a bunch of GT3s isn’t that easy particularly since the Frenchies would let the Porsches through and then pull straight out in front of me. Once I couldn’t hear the rest of the guys over the 2-way radio I realised I was in for a fairly lonely journey. I made pretty good time and arrived at Nürburg only half an hour after the GT3 boys, my first port of call was Rent4Ring to meet up with Dale Lomas (owner of BridgeToGantry.com and occasional VLN racer) who was providing me with instruction. With my gear dropped off at my hotel it was then time to indulge in the traditional visit to the Pistenklause for a large bit of red meat cooked on a stone and some Weißbier.

The weather forecast for the Thursday and Friday had been looking good and I wasn’t disappointed, Thursday morning brought blue skies without a single cloud. I was up at a shockingly early 5:30am to prep the car, grab some breakfast and get to the circuit for sign in and drivers briefing at 7am. BookaTrack had split the briefings into two groups with the earlier session for novices like me which would allow us to get some sighting laps in before the circuit went live at 9am. I got 3 sighting laps in before 9am and I was able to recall some of what I’d learned during my two previous visits. After booking the track day the next thing I did was arrange for some instruction, I can’t stress enough the value of getting some proper instruction at the Nürburgring, it isn’t like driving a circuit at the UK where you can learn the sequence of corners in a few laps. Circuit knowledge on the Nordschleife is key and hundreds of laps on Gran Tourismo or Forza Motorsport doesn’t equate to circuit knowledge (don’t get me wrong I’m a big fan of driving simulators, being somewhat addicted to iRacing.com but it’s no substitute for real track miles). Anyone reading this who has more than a passing interest in the Nürburgring will probably have heard of Dale Lomas, as well as working for Rent4Ring Dale writes for his own website http://bridgetogantry.com, provides articles to http://www.pistonheads.com and also races in the VLN. I’d booked Dale for an hour on Thursday morning and an hour on Friday morning, an hour of tuition on the Ring is pretty intense but by then end of my first hour I definitely felt that my circuit knowledge was improving. I spent the rest of the day trying to put into practice the lessons I’d learn from Dale. The weather was so hot that even with air con more than two laps in a stint caused my concentration to falter.

You can see how stunning the weather was from this video taken from front bumper of my car.

With the first day over I was looking forward to the 1/2 day on Friday morning…. Sadly Friday morning didn’t turn out quite how I would have liked. I went down to the parking garage in my hotel to head over to the circuit after adjusting tyre pressures I jumped into the car and went to start the engine, as I turned the key I was rewarded with a loud *CLICK* followed by all of the lights on the dash going out. I was sitting in the car wondering how I was going to get a car that won’t start out of an underground parking garage with barriers preventing anyone entering or leaving without a ticket! Luckily there were three other guys on the same track day as me in the garage who very kindly push started the car, once I got to the circuit I decided the best thing to do was drive a few laps to maybe recharge the battery a bit. Everything seemed to be fine when I returned to the car park at Grün Holle, sadly when it was time to head over to Rent4Ring to pickup Dale the car wouldn’t start again, another push start and I made it over to Rent4Ring. After I explained the issues with the car to Dale we decided that I’d drive my entire hour session without stopping, although hard work this really did work. To give the car a rest we’d coast down the Döttinger Höhe straight to give the car a chance to cool down. After driving a couple of laps to see how I’d progressed from the day before we started to do a few exercises to work on a number of weaknesses. The first exercise was to drive the entire circuit in 5th gear, the aim of this was to stop me from coasting through corners and feel when the throttle was beginning to drive the car forwards, when the car is coasting it’s actually much less stable than when the front wheels are pulling it through the corner. The second exercise was to drive an entire lap of the circuit without using the brakes, I have to say this was a daunting prospect, apart from a bit of a scary moment when I went too fast into the Karussell we made it in one piece.

A second lap shot on the Friday morning but this time inside the car, I really need to remember to adjust my GoPro so it’s not massively over exposed!

After completing my session of instruction we drove straight out of the circuit, still wearing crash helmets, down the road to Rent4Ring. This time I learned my lesson and parked the car on a hill so I’d be able to restart it. The electrical issues still weren’t getting any better so with my track day over I needed to decide how I was going to get my car back home. Although I had European breakdown cover I didn’t really want to use it as the first they would want to do was take the car to main dealer! The guys at Rent4Ring told me there was a place down in Adenau who should be able to help. I have to admit I did get a bit lost and ended up in the car park of Lidl with a car which wouldn’t start, I tried to get hold of one of the guys at the circuit to get a set of jump leads but couldn’t contact anyone. I then decided to go for a bit of walk to pass the time as much as anything else, I noticed a small Mazda garage that was also a Bosch dealer so decided to take my chances. The mechanic there spoke excellent English and couldn’t have been more helpful, he lent me a jump start battery and a set of leads so I could get the car from the car park. My initial hunch was that the battery had died (it was a BMW part and I suspected it was the original one fitted almost 12 years ago) with a new battery fitted the car fired up first time but when doing a diagnostic check it revealed that the alternator was only providing about 10 amps of current to the battery which was dropping down to almost zero with the lights and air con on. Although the battery wasn’t the root cause of the issue I decided to stick with the new battery, the mechanic then offered to charge up the old one so I could use it as a spare.

If you are at the Nürburgring and have any minor mechanical issues I’d definitely recommend a trip down to the Mazda dealership on the right hand side of the road on the way into Adenau from Nürburg (it’s just before the Aral petrol station) the guy there was so helpful and they had a nice collection of classic cars in the workshop so clearly the locals trust them.

I woke up early on Saturday morning had breakfast, checked out of the hotel and started the journey home. With a brand new battery in the car plus the old one fully charged and a set of jump leads I was just going to cross my fingers and hope I’d make it. The first part of the journey is down twisty country roads and is a lot of fun, it was damp and much colder compared to previous days, because I didn’t want to put too much load on the electrical system I switched off every thing that wasn’t critical so no air con no stereo. I don’t know if it was the weather conditions or the 102 octane fuel I’d filled up with the day before but the car was burbling away on the overrun more than usual, despite being worried about making it back home I was still enjoying the drive. I just kept counting off the miles, once I made it half way to Eurotunnel I knew that at least I’d make it England. If I broke down just after arriving in Kent I was willing to live with it. But we made it all the way home which was a massive relief! One thing I did learn, particularly on the return journey (with no air con) is that racing seats are actually really uncomfortable for a four hour journey, more padding will be needed for the next long trip.

Once I got home it was time to fix all the issues the car had picked up, not only did the alternator need sorting out I also had a minor radiator leak too. Rather than buy a new alternator I decided to get the old one refurbished by a local firm.

Worn out

Like new

Ready to go

The results speak for themselves I’ve got a very clean alternator in perfect working order for the fraction of the cost of a new one.

Now I just need to decide where to do my next track day, won’t be quite so far away this time!

Despite the issues I had and the stressful journey home it was easily the best track day experience I’ve had so far. I want to say thank you to BookaTrack.com for running a superb track day (not ONE red flag over 1.5 days of track time), Rent4Ring and Dale Lomas, London and Essex Auto Electrics and finally the brilliant mechanic in Adenau.