After a long weekend visit to the nurburgring back in easter I decided I had to go back. Even doing the odd track day at cadwell and silverstone could not put me off making another visit....

so off i went again for a full week whereby the "toll road" was open for a good 5 days... which i hoped would be suffice for at least a single good day, in a dreary german november day.

Over last time very little had changed to the fez ST's spec bar a small power hike due to a remap and a change of pads.

Monitoring the weather prior to the trip it appeared that this november was proving to be one of the driest on record, so when i got there how peed off was I. RAIN!!! Three consequetive days of sat, sun and mon where the track was open resulted in matching downfalls of the wet stuff, which put a big dissapointment on the trip as the laps where obviously slower However these slow laps... only 5 in all did refresh my memory from the last trip and provided a sound basis for wednesday.

A few pics over the wet days...

(follow this link for all pics- http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v23/danfezsi/nurburgring/ )











Wednesday proved to be a lot better. Although the day started off a bit miserable it hadnt rained over night and wasnt due to all day. With a sighting lap I soon discovered that the previous weekends rain still hadnt dried off and the track surface remained wet, dry and damp in various places... exactly what the ring is famed for lol.

Waiting an hour and doing another adventurous lap to discover the conditions, things where looking good. The line was drying fast so time to figure out the ring again and do some fast laps was on the books. With it still a little damp in the morning i filmed a lap (naughty naughty!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBQ2RUSZ2SY

As the day progressed, so did the track. On my prvious trip i had managed a 9 minute 52 second lap under tuition. With experience and increasingly good conditions my times fell into the 9 minute 20's. I was happy and thankfully due to low traffic there was very little accidents or obsticles to contend with.. bar the driver training, as seen in the above vid.

Wednesday Pics....












A top day

Saturday was my remaining day but i had to go at lunch to make the ferry. As with the previous weekend it rained and remained slippy where you simply point rather than steer. So using up my final two laps taking my accumulative total to 29 off i went.










For a week in november where i told there would be snow.. all i can say is thumbs up One dry day makes up the disppointment of the others, and I now have the confidence of knowing the track relativley well (although it still brings a few surprises!) Best advice I can give is.... get yourself there!!

OMG Dan! what a post!

Great pics, I love the one of the VW with the Smart Car in the backround, and a fantastic Vid.

I think your going to get loads of questions, starting from me.

What kind of top end speeds did you reach?
What cars were they that you passed?
You say the track was wet, but drying. What tyres have you got, and did you slide (broadside) on any of the bends? can't really tell from the vid.

Well done.

OK...

On the long straight, 3rd of the way through the circuit i regularly reached 130 mph.

The Track was pretty empty tbh. The only things that overtook me where the odd bmw m3, scooby and well thats about it tbh. Brilliant not having to look over the shoulder.

Tyre wise..... I have hankook ventus sports upfront. I would NOT of dared gone on the ring with priellis with any kind of dampness. The hankooks are brilliant dry and wet.

And sideways... occasionaly you do enter a corner with too much speed and have to lift off which causes a bit of oversteer making the car go sideways a little but it is easily controllable. No real point in going sideways tho as all it does is scrub speed and slow your times. Remember aswell that there is no run off, so if it goes out of control you will be lucky to escape without hitting something.

Top fun.

Nice pictures and video! seem your enjoy it!

Thanks for that write-up Dan, sounds like you had a brilliant time there!!

I can't wait to go there in a year and a half's time (will have to remmeber the advice you gave above).

Wow fantastic write up there Dan. Video was brilliant! Glad you had a good time even though the weather did spoil it a bit. Cheers for taking the time to post.

How do you go about insurance when doing this, and how much does it cost?

its a restricted public toll road. no seperate insurance needed.

as part of your green card issued by your insurance they agree to cover all areas required legally in any country. In the same respects all german laws apply on the ring, your insurance company cannot exempt from it.

besides dont go silly and you will be ok.

Hi Dan, what engine and exhast mods have you done? I notice on your signature it says 191.4 bhp, it that your .?