Work on the bucket list continues.

'Took it easy again this morning.  I'm getting too used to this "waking up at 9:30" thing, but there really wasn't much ado about anything until 4pm, so I took advantage.  I followed breakfast with a short walk into town to buy more socks (the sock count appears to be what's holding me back on laundry these days), and to procure a little more cash.

Short aside:  Europe, it seems, is still by-and-large a cash-based society.  Many restaurants won't even take cards (even the McDonalds in Holzkirchen said "Karten geht nicht").  You can get gas, buy groceries, and such with plastic, but I think people doing that still represent a minority.

Footwear situation sorted I walked the ~500ft from the hotel to a section of the track running through Adenau (the track encompasses something like 4 or 5 small towns), and watched more of the manufacturer testing.  Someone was driving a new Porsche 911 (991) around at a pretty good clip:




There were also a couple of SLS Mercedes circulating at a really good clip (I'd say "flat out" would be applicable given the tire noise). 

At some point, the testing wrapped up, and what I presume was a private track event started and ran for the rest of the afternoon.  There-in drove some pretty interesting cars (I've added  more to the Adenau/Nürburgring gallery).  The Ferrari 458 to the left, for example, was moving pretty well for a non-pro-driven car.

After watching and taking pictures for an hour or so, I headed back to the hotel by way of a bakery for lunch and relaxed for a bit.  Around 4, I headed up to Rent4Ring to pick up the car for the evening "Touristenfahrten" session.

......which brings us to that bucket list item:  Drive the Nürburgring at-speed.

In the words of the most interesting man in the world, "It's never too early to start beefing up your obituary".

As someone who's a "driver" of-sorts, the Nürburgring represents something of a holy grail. Like the Oahu Pipeline for surfers or Everest for climbers, even attempting it sort of re-validates your credentials as an enthusiast of the sport.  I consider myself lucky to have had the opportunity to see what all the fuss was about.

Quick overview:  The 'ring (for short) is the longest active racetrack in the world.  The current configuration is a little over 13 miles around.  That's over thirteen miles for one lap.  For some perspective, the longest track in North America, is "only" 4 miles around.  Throw in something like 1000 feet of elevation changes, and more than 70 turns......and yeah, it's complicated.  This track has serious history as well.  It was originally built in the 1920s as this region's version of a "new deal" type project, only with less FDR.  If you want more of a history lesson, watch this (and just ignore the BMW bias):

Clearly, since I'm typing this, I survived the "green hell" and can report that it's every bit as insane a track as everyone seems to imply.  It really is an awesome rollercoaster of a track, but if you get it wrong, even a little, there are consequences.  In my three total laps I noted several places where, if your car placement were to be off by a meter or less, you would be utterly screwed.

For example:  Some of the track-side curbing is gentle, and you can use it to get a better angle through a turn.  However, other curbing is almost like a parking curb, and would either break your car, or bounce you back across the track...as one unlucky fellow found out earlier today.  A car in front sprung a leak and laid down an oil slick towards the end of the lap, and this resulted in an unlucky VW Golf parting itself out via curb/wall.  The driver was ok, but the car, not-so-much.

That, incidentally, ended the day.  I'd managed a few flying laps before this unfortunate event closed the track for the evening. However, any day at the track that involves driving the car back to where you got it from, is a good day.  I have no complaints.

Off to Leipzig tomorrow!