Something better then nothing?

Greetings all,

I haven't posted this week for a couple of reasons: nothing really happened and I was lazy. Thought I would post "something" which may or may not be "better then nothing". You decide.

Well as you probably recall, my journey to hell was foiled by bad weather and accidents on the road/track/course. I went back to the green hell a couple of Sundays ago and really glad I did. The ride up was uneventful and when I arrived I got right in the line to enter the track.

The first lap was pretty unnerving for a couple of reason. I was going in cold in so much that I did not know the track. The second thing that was unnerving was the packs of marauding cars that continued to approach rapidly from behind. It was a lot of work staying out of their way.

I did a second lap without exiting the track and that time around was a little better. I had a lap under my belt felt a little more comfortable knowing what the limits of my rental were. As I was finishing the second lap, I decided to come in. Everything felt pretty solid with the car but if anything was going to fail, I figured it would be the brakes. You see, this car was not really designed for this type of continuous high speed deceleration. The car is very heavy (probably around 3900lbs and meant as a boulvard cruiser which was at home with short stints of spirted driving (not 24 miles on the Nurburgring).

With multiple hard stops, brakes begin to get very, very hot. This heat boils the brake fluid and creates gases in the brake lines and these gases cause the brake pedal to sink to the floor board just as you need to shed 75 mph so you can make the next turn. I decide to come in for an hour to let the brakes cool off so I would not be "that guy" who shut to the track.

I went back out after about 45 min (rotors were still surprising warm) and had an enjoyable couple of laps. Traffic had thinned which allowed me to concentrate on driving the proper line instead of constantly looking in the rear veiw mirror to see who was crawling up my exhasut pipe.

I saw several instances where drivers did not properly negotiate a turn and side swiped the guard rail bringing out a local caution flag and saw one fella spin his TVR (expensive British car you can't get in the US) and plant the backend into the barrier. You can see from the pics that I you go off the driving surface, you are probably going to hit something.

All and all, it was a great experience but I would not say that I "conquered the ring". I did, however, check a box on the things to do during a lifetime, did not damage my rental car, did not get collected up in anyone else's wreck, and stayed out of all the faster cars way.

This past Thrusday, the fun continued as I ventured out to the Hockenheimring which is a dedicated race track where, amognst other things, Formula 1 races are held. This track is not as complex as the Nurburgring as it is only 4.5 miles in length with 10 turns vs the Nurburgring at over 12 miles and 75 turns.

I was surprised how many turned out for the open track session. There were probably at least 100 cars and 300 motorcycles there. Instead of paying per lap like the green hell, you paid a flat fee for a 15 minute session.

The big difference is that this is a race track and not a public road like the Nurburgring and there are no rules here other then don't be stupid and watch out for the other guy. Here, cars would pass where ever they had room and it was not uncommon to have faster cars passing on both my right and left at the same time as we entered long straights.

Through the turns, everyone wants to be on the same exact part of the track called the "apex" which is the ideal high point of a turn and allows for fastest speeds. It as not uncommon that I would lean into the apex to find that a faster car had squirted under neath me. You really had to have your head on a swival especially with 100 cars on the track.

The E350 Coupe I have as a rental really showed its weaknesses here. The car has pretty good power (3.5 liters making almost 300hp) but the front end really lacks grip (the winter tires it is sporting certainly didn't help). You see, to go through a turn the tires have to overcome the cars desire to continue moving in the direction it is going. In this case, the car's front end gets loaded up with weight (transfered under braking) and the front tires have to wrestle it around into a new direction. The less grip you have, the slower you have to go to stay on the radius of the turn. Slow in the corners means slow overall.

I am happy to report, I did manage to pass a couple of cars just based on sheer horsepower.

Again, very happy I went out and now can say I have driven on a Formula 1 track.

Well, that is about it. Now you have to decide, is something better then nothing?

On another note, my replacement should be here here in about 3 weeks. Honey (Jodi, my wife)...I'm comin' home!

Until next time.