Wild ride!

[jmr3]

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/BMW-Z...168998.htm

[fasthonda]

those guys were BALLIN' OUT!!!!  and that was a 4 hour endurance race!!!!!    hock:

holy cow, i'd love to take the Civic over there and run on that track (maybe do a hundred laps or so!!!);  thats my kind of track -- super bravery track, with little to no runoff, tons of ups and downs, fast and slow turns, etc!!!!   reminds me a little of the Glen, but so much longer and faster!!!

that last straightaway is AMAZING!  i bet those guys were at close to 200 mph for what seemed like forever, and weaving in and out of the slower classes!!!  yeeeehaw!  

sign me up!

todd

ReidSpeed

[Darren]

It's something to experience for sure.  I'm hoping to be able to do the BMW school again there next year.  There is a little bit of an issue now with rental cars -- when I did the school you could get any rental -- now most companies, the ring is verbotten.  There is a company they found (BMW CCA) though that rents prepped race cars, which would be the thing to do anyway.

It is a "balls" course for sure.  The Probe would do terribly though, the back straight is uphill for a long long time.

With the BMW club, on the first day, we were at dinner at a great traditional German restaurant.  The US club leader came by and showed us all pictures, after we ate, of a wrecked participant a few years before.  Evidentally he and his brother-in-law were debating whether they could take the last turn in Kesselchen flat out.

Turns out they couldn't, they rolled and the Z3 convertible ended up on its roof on the guardrail, one of the two was killed.

--

After that school, my perception of "safety" was forever changed.  There is no safety, there are only perceived levels of safety.

My friend Gene and I rented a BMW 118i for that event.  It was slow, underpowered.  But in that car at the ring I was more concerned than any race I've ever done.  That didn't slow me down however

[bobt993]

Todd,  kinda like the Glen with no run-off, but no cambered turns (other than the Karussel and the mini-karussel).  68 corners are blind-late apexes so you can't get the car loose at entry.   Race car rentals are available.  We purchased our 330i with euro delivery and did a second trip to the Ring.  My best lap actually got me nervous enough to stop running (too much fun, total adrenalin),  I must have past 30 plus cars including 4 at 125mph in the essess.  I was being chased by a Cayman S with a BMW school instructor driving, he never got me.

[michael lang]

I wish I could find alot more videos like that one. What I like watching is the drivers and how they react at various times while on track. If you paid attention to the driver, he never seemed to get ruffled even in the hairiest times of battle. I try very hard to mimic that while I'm on track. I got it down to being able to calm myself down by the end of the first session of an event. That driver looked like he was completely in his element.