Nurburgring Trip 2008! 24th-> 29th July

See you all down there.

Picking Bro up from Bristol at 8am tomorrow and driving down to Margate in the afternoon (cheap travelodge). Will aim to get to Dover at 5am Thursday see you all there (somewhere)

I'm so happy I'm driving from Berkshire rather then Sommerset this year. Those extra 2 hours sleep will be nice.

Btw, I never did see if Robbie was comming this year or not. Anyone know for sure?

Setting off soon for a short sleep an hour from the port, then hopefully meeting up with the bulk of the group in Ashford at 04:30

Should be good... after all this planning it will be nice when we finally set off

Good luck you lot, and make sure you all come back in one piece

Getting a few texts from Jaymdee who is there for his first time,

his first text on geting to the ring was "Holy Crap. This looks well scary. Lots of tricked up cars & bikes"

Just found this brill little site that takes a webcam pic every minute at the start, see

:http://www.8200rpm.com/webcam/

Not seen the lads yet, but lots of smart stuff...

Jealous....

I have the first pics of the Ring (after having been there yesterday)

2 of those cars found the armco on Saturday......

I eventually got back at 4:30am (work is proving painful) this morn with my 'remote charging' system. Even side lights proved to be an excessive current draw for any serious progress (35 miles before systems began to shut down) which made for an interesting drive. Not prepared to publish how we actually did it, but I had some very 'close' friends.....

Thanks to everyone that helped me out and good to meet you all. Have a safe trip back tomorrow.

Martin

Just got home. Absolutely knackered. Will post a few little pics tomorrrow. Prepare for a load of high quality pics from Henk!!

A superb 5 days trip. Many thanks to SteveR for organising it so well and all those who attended for a great time

Good to meet you Martin - glad you got back OK in the end

Pics are uploading now, the albums are finished but the full size ones take longer, 2/4 done, be finished by tonight!

Will post a full listing of the albums and file shares in Multi-Media later on.

Definitely second that John, SteveR did an amazing job, best tour guide I know!!!

Excellent trip, thanks to all for making it so entertaining.

I hope you guys are ready for the pics because I expect the forum to go NUTZ when you see them.....

Really pleased you guys had a great time over there...

Looking forward to the pics & stories

Glad you're back safe (sounds a bit grandad'ish that) but you know what I mean !

G

Too tired to post last night,

What a trip, from start to finish everything was brill,big thanks to steve for organising stuff.

Must say the ring taxi with sabine was amazing and i have some video`s to post up.

I'm still too tired to post anything meaningful. Just a quick MANY thanks to everyone on the trip for making it anotehr sucess, and especially for helping me with my cars little strops!

Just wanted to add a big thankyou to Steve (and Kate) for organising the best trip ever. Glad everyone got home in one piece and look forward to the next one.

Can only reiterate everyone's sentiments - a fabulous time was had by all. Cheers Steve.

See you all at the track day in October.

Andy

Glad it all turned out good in the end, you sounded so p*ssed off on the phone Saturday Ste I bet you were relieved you got some laps in the end. What was the problem in the end?

Glad it all turned out good in the end, you sounded so p*ssed off on the phone Saturday Ste I bet you were relieved you got some laps in the end. What was the problem in the end?

There was a slight vacuum/boost leak to the fuel pressure regulator, so that wouldn't have been seeing the true intake manifold pressure - fixing that helped a lot. But we also think there is a lean spot in the map around 2,800rpm, causing very lean running and when you're accelerating at

I went out for a road test session with Si watching the boost gauge & AFR, and he reckoned it wasn't going to cause me any issues if I lapped, so after that I did. I can't say enough thanks to especially Si but to everyone on the trip for helping me throughout almost the entire trip!

Ryan called me when I ws out there, but we weren't sure what it was then (I guess 2 contributing factors is harder to diagnose than 1), so I'll speak to him again now I'm back to get a quick check/tweak done.

Thanks for the invite guys, although i expect to have my radio confiscated next time! lol

btw i have put my pix on my facebook http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=575668641

It was cool meeting some of you. Steve only on phone:D but Simon as he is.

To both of you: You made me a promise that we meet again in Spetember the 14th at the ITF. Hope to see you there.

The Trip Report is overdue so here goes...

Meeting at Dover at 5am to queue to board a ferry is never pretty, but that Thursday morning spirits were high and as the sun comes up you quickly forget you should still be in bed.

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L->R: Chris, Jaymdee, James (in car), Bignum

An hour later and the cars aboard in the decks below us, people's minds turned to fried breakfasts!

http://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1prqhF3C5GLvFOYvt1MyVHNAJ4jPEhgmlcefeiPEqhzwahGDpLbLOig4sHPQdkbL4B

L->R: D-Bone, me

90 mins later we're in Dunkerque and unloading our cars. After regrouping we were on our way; 275 miles to the famous Nurburgring. A steady cruise across Europe with a few stops along the way for breaks, fuel and lunch we arrived about 6 hours later and a few hours before the track opened to the public that evening. We nipped to the track but nothing worthy of much attention was going round so we retired to B&B to chill & unpack. That evening we returned and most people bagged a lap or two; I didn't as my AFRs started playing up on the way over when we were just 4 miles from the track resulting in me limping the last hundred metres. I didn't want to risk damaging the engine/crashing due to watching the gauge instead of the track, so skipped that session.

That night we dined, oh yes! Steak on a hot stone. Sounds odd, but is awesome. A slab of superheated granite(?) is brought out on a ceramic tray with a side area full of fries, and the finest piece of raw cow is sizzling away on top, so you can cook/not cook it to your liking! Man it is GOOD. We went back on the final night!

Friday the track was closed until after lunch so we had a lay-in till as late as breakfast could possibly be. Between brekky & track opening I think some people went sight-seeing but others helped poke my Supra with sticks to see what might be wrong. Memory might be failing me but ultimately I don't think we got anywhere that day - although many theories were discussed and investigated - but as the track was opening I didn't want my issues to affect anyone else's enjoyment & track action, we all headed that way. With 9 cars and 14 people present I forget who lapped with who and what-not but many smiles were present, mostly nervous ones simply glad they had made it back from each 13.2 mile stint with their car (& wallet!) still in one piece. I think Friday was when I guessed my problem was an O2 sensor and it was indeed looking likely until Ryan.G phones me to say it couldn't be, as it's not plumbed into my MoTeC ECU. Doh! Anyway I got off the phone with a new list of potential causes, so thanks to Ryan for the call.

Friday night we ate in a popular place in the main town called Blau Ecke, it was ok – nice surroundings but a little pricey for what we got – ‘nuff said.

Saturday and Sunday both saw the track open to the public all day (8am->7:30pm), the best time to lap on such days is usually 8am; only the hardcore few true enthusasts are there, and the track is quiet as a result. There is the odd tourist, pootling along in their own little world at 60mph who you tend to surprise as you can approach at more than twice that, but they usually have a funny little panic and get out of the way with no harm done except to any times that you wouldn't have been taking anyway. Typically at the weekend the track gets uber busy from about 11am~lunchtime and the numpties decend so spectating/wallet protection becomes a more useful activity and most people took a break away from the track at that point.

My car still wasn't track-able on the Saturday morning but all credit to everyone, in the afternoon we decended like vultures on my engine bay looking for the root of the problem, Ryan's list in hand and a few more theories to boot. Everyone was determined to get me on the track and I am deeply indebted to you all. Si found a few minor boost/vacuum leaks, but fixing the one to the fuel pressure regulator seemed to imrove things significantly but not entirely but after a comprehensive test-drive, me mostly watching the road, Bignum mostly watching my gauges, I got a thumbs up for hitting the track. Simon:

Saturday afternoon the weather wasn't looking clever, but I needed to know if my car was going to be ok to track the next day, so bignum jumped in the passenger seat and we went round in my car, on low boost (0.9bar max). All seemed well; we even had smoe very cool thunder & lightning accompanying us as we went round (Henk & Jaymdee followed me in 'slow' mode but I was so chuffed my car seemed to be working I kept losing them, sorry chaps!). I set off on a second lap again with Bignum watching my gauges but on full boost this time (1.4bar max).... and before I'd got to the end of the S/F straight, it started to rain. Although the track was dry as we got away from the rain, I knew we'd end up driving back into it and between us we'd decided it was probably going to be pretty wet on our return to the car park. It was!

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A motorcyclist tapped on the window as we both set out on this lap, to tell me "watch the skies, it might rain!"

Saturday night we ate Italian, the food was ok but to be blunt the service wasn't. The best bit was when we all thought we had LARGE beers at 1 litre, but Bignum found there was a MUCH LARGER 3 litre (nearly 6 pints!) on the menu:

http://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1pCTGwG4EIEp4EKz7d9FGzNx5FRRjllynM65YIFK8gOURQJGzxuJAbK-HCNGJuLslk

L-R: Jaymdee, Andy, bignum + big beer (foreground), me with puny 1 litre beer.

Sunday morning we were all track-ready!

8am came, the track opened and within a few minutes I think everyone was out lapping. We drove through early morning fog in parts and at the risk of sounding a bit soft it honestly was almost magical. At some point I jumped in Gavin’s SAAB 9000 and pointed out the handful of places where the track can appear misleading but with a little knowledge he could push on a bit more. Despite my fears about it being FWD it was a great lap! Henk had followed us through most of it but right at the end of the lap suddenly dropped back. We thought it he had issues getting past a late flurry of traffic, but as he returned to the car park a wheel nut fell off and 3 more were loose!

After the car was checked over for any damage (none other than cosmetic to the caliper) all the wheels were then fully secured to the car the Henkmobile was back up and running, but with his current lap ticket all used up, Henk decided picture-taking would be his forte for the rest of the trip, just in case. After sorting Henk's out, I think we all checked our nuts before taking to the track again.

Sunday was hot, I had to drop 6psi from my tyres to keep them at ideal levels; a previous lap was quite.... squirmy. In the afternoon 6 of our group went out in 2 sucessive Ring taxi laps with Sabine - Bridge to Gantry times of ~8:40, and some of that was sideways! Bignum was in the first of our group's taxi outings and then followed the second run (once he'd caught her!):

6BFQxC-yEeg

http://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1possOzPFY7p0gEQXFFDxxCW5bkXfSaFtpSMNaVE93xBXljeov86PRczUy09G6t5rh

L->R: Sabine, James

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L->R: Bignum & Sabine

My car must have decided everyone was having too much fun and developed a crunching noise when shifting weight, so that afternoon and with the help of the B&B's garage & pit we all investgated that for a couple of hours... but found nothing. I decided the car had caused everyone enough greif and as a result I was going to ignore the noise and do a few more laps on the Monday. Best quote of the day was Henk, trying to help. Strolling over to my car he bends down to take a look, promptly bashing his head on my alloys:

Move aside you lot, I mean... how hard can it OWW!!!!

Thanks for the much needed comic relief mate!

I think Sunday was when 4packet's car developed alternator issues, so there were 2 sets of us hitting our cars with hammers. I was also supposed to meet up with Rolly, and the previous day I breifly met luxluc who tried to help me find an O2 sensor - I'm sorry I let you down guys and everyone else who would have been looking for me; I truely would have been there & more 'with it' if I wasn't so distracted by ongoing issues! Sincere apologies!

We bumped into George (aka 'Kermit' due to his Supra's colour) a few times throughout our trip, and as always, he was good enough to give passenger rides those that wanted to take them. As I missed out last year I jumped at the chance this time - many thanks George, you're a real gent!

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http://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1p4mGvCxhuFrftjxQVcX8590C_rkx4XAZoZ0f8C36NsN5Xtr_rvUpWFBuLwxOkzi47

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Form an orderly queue you lot

Sunday night we had Chinese, and it was good!

Monday came. Breakfast was eaten by those who could be bothered to get up, others lay in to catch up on sleep/shrug off the previous night's beers; the track wasn't open 'till 5:15 that evening anyway. Gavin headed out for some sight-seeing and quickly rang me to say:

"You need to come to the track. Masarati MC12, Ferrari Enzo, Porsche Carrera GT, number 9 of 25 carbon fibre Zonda F, and a purple carbon fibre Keoneneononeonenezegg. Need I say more?"

Moments later we were there. sums it up, see for yourself:

http://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1pTT9_cDI0NYCTFH2e4PtsRUaXlZ9C4Dy0c_Xljg377viex64LfE5Ro9Y5_pbJAivL

http://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1pkjdS-zec-IXmOG1sx7ysROIcwUcAXz1iKPdU8yGgFBvecx6Utk9Kc3quJhm1zQ58

http://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1pxPJ49ubT6tsdcnEsmrxokE3IpziJw6MGGOG_REKn1RWBNww__OuwZOV-yGbU9RIs

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Some of my other cars

http://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1p8k-9YrU9XuNyjVkXs39Tdq-QO7Wqrh9Vhshihm6hv3rZk9HCn7zcaG1GveXiUPdP

Carlsberg don't do track days....

Monday evening was the last chance to bag a few laps before we'd have to head home the next day. Bignum's turn for car noises. A suspected flywheel issue and a wise choice to sit the evening out rather than risk a breakdown. Remaining lap tickets sold -

James could sell sand to the Arabs

It was the least I could do to take Jo, Paul and finally Bignum out for a lap each in mine, finishing off my tickets in th process Andy kindly video'd one of my laps (and a previous half lap when he caught me up)... erm from the sidelines of course.

Henk took yet more awesome pictures that evening; my fave is now my first proper avatar after 3 years on this forum as a fish.

http://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1pnJp58JBX-bwhOUIOC42xHs97WukjhfhKLBdJSVB8TGAJNjRZCHngUbHnopYl40sm

D-Bone

http://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1pniEMaHWB_5PY-_ahxKrr0399k4lNidDKMJX3Bjuh3FG31y291ZT5Sb0nxu8igLKQ

SEVENMAN

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Bignum

Joe

http://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1pgSTkkDyK8zq9C8zk8n0OR59h3eDj-E4shVuuQyeFpwPItQgPpFnpOa9Ua1si-91E

AndyBandit

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me

Monday night, many more steaks on hot stones and many, many more beers. It had been an eventful and not exactly smooth-running trip, but a hopefully fun one for all who went and most importantly, incident-free! I breathed a HUGE organiser's 'phew' of relief and bought a crate of beer to share out between us to say well done and many thanks to everyone who went for not only their help during the trip but for making it a great success. Happy days.

Tuesday we had fun changing Joe's Yaris' gearbox oil then we all drove back across Europe and got on the ferry home.

The Henkmobile on the ferry home

The end.

Credit to Henk as he took all(?) of the above photos, and the same to Bignum for the videos.

More pics & videos can be found: here, here here and here., and if you've got MyFace then here too! No doubt more to come!

Gah! Reading my own trip report makes me want to go back. Dammit!!!

Good report, although it is hard to do justice to the true greatness of the trip

It wouldn't have gone so well without such dedicated organisation, and I think it was an example of how a trip like that should be run.

I can't believe I was so cautious about going - there are some things you just have to do, and if it involves overtaking roll-caged Porsches in an 11 year old Saab, all the better