My trip to the Nordschleife July 2008

[GVK 0]

Written on a Northloop.co.uk - so members names mentioned may not be relevant here.... anyway

 

To say that I was looking forward to this trip, was a bit like saying Karl enjoys a few light ales on a Saturday evening in Adenau.

 

This weekend it would be my girlfriend Claire, myself and the GVKwagen, we knew there would be lots of friends old and new at the 'ring so was ok to go "on our own".

 

Weds left work early so we could hit the road and make our way to Dover where we'd booked a b+b for the night. As it's the middle of UK summer we had torrential rain alll the way down the M40/M25 on our was "daaan saaarf" - which made driving very tricky on R888 'reifen'

 

 

 

Lots of aqua planing and "shiiiiit" from me as the Golf slithered from lane to lane onthe motorway. Somewhere south of Brum on the M40 there was a blue GT3 smashed to bits in the middle of the road, might have been wearing Cups, but it was dark so couldn't tell you....

 

We decided just to drive bloody slowly in the end as it was bloody dicey, and so due to our much reduced pace southbound we didn't get to Dover until 10:55pm.

Got to b+b and George greeted us and showed us to our room, which looked exactly the same as it did 4yrs ago when we stayed there en route to the 'ring - the last trip for the Golf.

 

Thursday

 

Up and having breakfast for 7am and the short drive through the town to the docks where we more or less drove straight in and onto the ferry - sat in line for a few mins

 

 

 

Noticed lots of classic cars at the port , wondered if it was Le Mans classic weekend.

Once in Calais 10:15 local time , we followed the Sat-Nav for the first time across France, Belgium via Brussels, up to Aachen and down the A1 to Blankenheim .

 

 

 

Seemed a long way around but we got to Adenau by about 3:30pm - seemed quicker than the "John Felstead" route that I've always taken (Lille,Mons,Leige,Spa,Prum,Gerolstein etc)

 

 

Mav had sorted us out with a really nice place to stay near the Blaue Ecke ,and Micheala was "on duty" to check us in, she was very friendly - hadn't met her before.

 

With our baggage unloaded we drove toward Nurburg via Quiddlebach as had offered to collect Nige's car for him so he could get out on track early Saturday. Ken's place was exactly where he'd described so we were ok to find it Friday morning.

 

Once in the car park in beautiful sunshine we were met by Steve (Hobgoblin) and Nigel (vr6goth) who asked if I was "Mr Blofelt I presume?" LOL!

Stood around chatting until the start of TF - Purchased an 8 lap ticket 135

[GVK 0]

Sat pm

 

Getting busier now the Sun was shining again - the track dried up really quickly, which was nice !

 

 

Marc from http://www.mw-sportfoto.de caught us at Hohenrain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lizard and Steph turned up in Alex's E36 M3 , they were heading across the alps to Monza the following week.

 

 

Das Chin was over in his mk2 Golf.

 

 

During the weekend, I was gradually carrying more speed through some of the faster corners, Flugplatz for example , carried more speed through and on one lap Saturday afternoon saw 140mph over the crest before SX :blink:

 

I was travelling faster into SX than ever before and things were getting a bit interesting, even more so when I braked heavily for Aremberg and the rear brakes locked up. Bit of a brown pants moment but no harm done. :nono: I think they call it 'backing it in' on the Superbikes - I was heading the wrong way into the corner tho.... :shf:

 

Jochen was up at the Karrusell Saturday afternoon, he got a great shot of us.

 

 

Huge thanks to Jochen "The Eifel Yeti"

 

http://www.frozenspeed.com

 

Nigel's clutch decided to stop him selecting gears so he and roland (pye21) did a lap in 4th gear, I had a look at all the visible bits on the clutch system and advised the clutch was "fecked"

 

This meant that Nige could have more than 2 beers that evening.. more on that later.

[dirtytorque 0]

petrol head heaven.

Thnks for sharing looks like you had a great time.

[Leonard 0]

That brings back a few memories, cheers fella :)

[davidwort 0]

great read, looking forward to September even more now :D

[GVK 0]

Will it be your first time over there David? You'll love it if so.

[GVK 0]

I got followed out of the cones by 2 proper looking German reg'd mk2 DRTs, thinking they would catch me ;)

 

 

 

I was chuffed to follow this local reg'd mk2 for a lap, until Martin from TTE told me it only had a 'standard 16v engine' - it usually runs a 230bhp unit...

 

 

Me and Ian (pye21)

 

 

pics http://wwww.mw-sportfoto.de

 

The green and grey 'uns did... as I was queuing to get off the track :lol:

 

[boost monkey 0]

 

Northloop/cgti member Stu was out in his mk2 track car he'd been building up - car used to belong to another NL member Paul.

 

THAT'S MY OLD GOLF!!!!!

 

 

Boost Monkey's Old Golf :grin:

 

God, that's made my day now! I'm gonna have to get on over to CGTI and shake that guys hand! :dance: :dance: :dance:

[boost monkey 0]

p.s. sorry for the hijack :notworthy: