Nurburgring Trip Day 4

Thursday 15 July 2010 at 7:37 pm

Sunday 11 July
Lap of the 'Ring day!

Mileage start:24702 end:24738 miles travelled:36

Today was the day!  On Sundays the 'Ring is open all day to the paying public, rather than just evenings lke the rest of the week.  So it's a bit of a free-for-all.  We all went up to the car park to have a nose around at the hardware; the highlight was this DeTomaso Pantera in immaculate condition, right down to the polished diff case.  Don't know if it went on a lap though.

The heat was unbearable again - and no shade in that car park, so Trev and I left the others to it and rode off to the considerably more shady viewing area to wait for their lap.  In the end the track got closed after an accident, so back to the cafe for more currywurst.  After more waiting and closures they eventually lapped about 3 o'clock.  I think I was almost as excited as Ian with the added pressure of getting a good picture through the thick chain-link fence!  In the end I got a full complement of 24 shots of him coming down the hill.

Nurburg Castle: with that excitement out of the way (to quote Ian's text message: "Oh my f***ing god...Better than sex, no track will ever be like that... I think I let a little bit of wee out... I'm too hyper to go out again now!! I'm shaking"), Trev and I went off to find the tower we'd kept seeing poking out of the forest.  Turned out to be Nurburg Castle, which we manfully struggled up despite the heat.  In fact, only Trev made it to the top of the tower.  I had an attack of vertigo and claustrophobia halfway up!  Nice views though.

A walk in the country: After re-grouping at the hotel, 3 of us decided we'd see where the path at the right of the hotel led to.  It's only about 3km to the next town, but after a hot day it felt much further.  We had a brief poke around the closed-for-the-night Adenau and headed back as it was barbeque night at the hotel.

Unfortunately we were a bit late:  the football was about to start, and the Dutch landlord wanted to see his team play.  So rather than being waited on, we ended up cooking our own tea.  We ran out of stamina before extra time, so heard the result in the morning.  Spain won 1-0 which meant I had won my work's sweepstake... bonus!