Stu Owers

How fickle are the Eifel Mountains? Great sunny weather for tourist laps and sunbathing during the ‘crazy’ weekend of 12/13 May before the N24 closure. Now the early fans are camped on the hillsides it’s 4C and may even snow! Some said it did yesterday.

But first the 12th & 13th. The Nordschleife has some new seal as other reports have stated and now it’s weathered and the grip is consistent and very good. Some of the work is quite strange for a race track e.g. a long patch parallel with and right through the centre of turn one and not to the kerbs… but it’s very well laid with no impact on handling. BMW are just completing a permanent building to capture the action and panorama at that turn.

I live for this place and grinned from ear to ear as I helped returning Kiwi Michael Eden relearn his lines over 8 laps with 2-up also in the back seat. And I reckon those in the back are braver than me.

Ticket prices have become a bit of a commercial con with 4 laps for €95 and then a huge gap to 25 laps. There’s now no 10, 12 or 15 lap ticket. With the best will in the world it would be a challenge to drive 25 laps over this weekend when bikers are regularly meeting the tarmac, and hopefully not their maker. Although you never know with Police & ambulance activity & Bongard’s wrecking trucks may well be the only vehicles achieving 25 laps.

On Saturday I spent 45 minutes creeping through the congestion to be next car at the barrier when the track closed! “Please return to parking.” And we did for 1 1/2 hrs… and then crept in the queue again. S__t happens!

‘The queue’ ia a pretty coarse way to describe Audi R8′s, the occasional McLaren, myriad Mercedes, Ferraris, Aston Martins, hundreds of GT2′s, GT3′s & BMW’s and even more RSR, Rent4Ring & RentRaceCars ranging from Swifts & Clios to Lotus & Porsches. It’s still a drooling pit walk between laps & I’m sure some folks are only here to photograph the parked cars.

Our race car is a BMW M3 E36 # 215 competing in the hotly contested and often very close V5 production car class. We have sponsorship from Danish tool manufacturer Scangrip and will do only seat, radio and light checks today after completing vehicle & driver’s scrutineering and our administration checks yesterday.

I’m looking very forward to driving and that starts tomorrow (Thursday) with training and qualifying. I hope you enjoy the race too…

Speed Safely!
Wayne

Just back from a month long trip to Aus (got to do the work trips to pay for the Ring trips!) and getting into prep mode for our ring run on the 9th of May. Not quite as hectic as your prep and I am pretty sure the fitness regime is a little less onourous!!

We now have 17 confirmed going in 6 cars with the line up looking like the Lexus ISF, Golf GTi, BMW M5, BMW 335i, BMW 330d and my HSV GTS. And after a little run on the weekend must say the twin turbo 6, 335i is a monster car – surely can’t be far off the current M3.

I’ll keep an eye out for you and would love to have a look at your car if time permits. It sounds like a real buzz building up to such a maga event.

Cheers for now and best of luck,
Michael

Here’s a challenge for AUSringer fans to come up with a punch-line…

What do you get when you put 3 Kiwis and a Danish lawyer in a 3 litre BMW crewed by Germans for the N24?

I hope a lot of fun and a good result in production class V5 which is often very closely fought.

Meanwhile as my fitness regime increases and the days ’til start decrease I’m hanging out for the Entry List. Race Organisers have reduced start numbers this year to 190 and I guess that is another safety measure as the passing speed of the top cars well exceeds 300km on high-speed parts of the circuit. There’s also a dedicated qualifying for the fastest 40 cars which will reduce some of the mayhem and madness of past years. And create an additional breathtaking specatacle in itself.

Gone are the days when this race could be won by either of the two BMW’s or the single Viper or one of three Porsches. In 2011 any of 20 plus cars from nine manufacturers had a chance of an outright win. Very, very exciting and maybe that’s why accommodation within a 40km radius of the circuit is already fully booked for 17-20 May ’12.

And where did we find a Danish lawyer? He owns the car of course.

Speed Safely!
Wayne

http://forum.nurburgring.org.uk/
or
http://www.bridgetogantry.com/

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

What an eclectic line-up of vehicles… I’ll be on the Nordschleife12th & 13th May so will come and say Hi! to the black HSV. It’s a crazy weekend with heaps of 24H drivers learning/relearning their lines as well as the usual numbers of North Loop fans. The traffic congestion both on the track and the roads around the Einfahrt beggars belief. I’m looking very forward to it too.

Best Wishes for a fun trip from Ireland.
Speed Safely!
Wayne

So far I think we have a Lexus ISF V8, my HSV GTS, an M3 or 2, a VX220 and a Golf GTi so the 2000 mile round trip should be interesting!!!

Starting to get excited just thinking about it!

Cheers for now

Michael