ring | LENSPEED

TO HELL AND BACK

By BLT

BLT takes to the treacherous Nürburgring Nordschleife … and returned home alive

Like any racetrack, the Nürburgring Nordschleife inspires both exhilaration and trepidation. But for me, it represented more of an enigma; a bucket list item any petrolhead needs to strike off his list at least once. We’ve all seen the Top Gear videos of Sabine Schmidt and Jeremy Clarkson going at it on the ‘ring. We’ve seen the manufacturer test videos of their cars doing a blistering lap time. And yes, we’ve all seen the epic crashes and YouTube ‘fail compilations’ of exotics crashing when flogged too hard from corner to corner.

Even with all those premonitions and expectations, I wasn’t scared. I was confident. I wouldn’t call myself a veteran, but having driven many Californian racetracks in fast cars and gotten second in a Porsche race day, I arrived in the sleepy town of Nürburg with my head held high. To me, this was just another track, albeit one with a lot of unnecessary hype and fuss. She was just another conquest.

Boy was I wrong, though it would take me a day to realise it.

After checking in at the Tiergarten Hotel (owned by none other than the Sabine Schmidt’s parents), my friends and I thought it wise to do the Ring Taxi to whet our appetite. We were hooked instantly. The instructor took his M3 E90 to limits beyond what BMW must have intended and we did an impressive 8:30 with four people on board. My friend and I then decided to rent Suzuki Swift and do a ‘practice lap’ each in anticipation of the next day’s race. My friend pulled a 12:15 on his first lap, no small feat considering he had never driven left-hand-drive before.

At the helm, I pushed that little car harder than gravity intended and started passing car after car. My proudest moment was when I managed to pass a latest-gen Porsche Cayman S in the inside line. The thrill of passing a 300+bhp car in something with 200bhp less pleased me almost as much as my respectable 10:23 timing, and I went back proud to the Schmidt hotel proud of my achievements and hoping I would run into Sabine to boast about my exploits.

It all changed the next day when I woke up to the thickest fog I’ve ever seen, or rather, not seen. Indeed, I couldn’t even count my fingers with my hands stretched out. I was as if I were a tick lost in Santa Claus’s beard. The fog was everywhere, and to make matters worse, the fog’s moisture soaked the ground like a sponge. Perfect racing conditions… if one were suicidal.

Despite that, we headed off to the racetrack expecting the competition to have turned tails because of the fog. And even if they were silly enough to persist, how many weekend racers in their GTIs/Lotuses/”pre-F30” M3s were going to be a match for my rental today – The latest generation Porsche Cayman S (981). Fog or no fog, I was going to rock it. Again, I was severely mistaken.

Instead of a bunch of midlife crisis men with salt-and-pepper hair rocking M3s and hot hatches as old as their pensions, the parking lot was filled with chiseled alpha males with cars one only saw on Top Gear. Audi R8s, Latest-Gen BMW M3/M4/M5s, C63 Blacks, Race-Spec Aston Martin Vantages, Koenigseggs, Ferrari 458 Italias, McLaren MP4-12Cs, 650S, even a P1, not to mention a whole assortment of Porsche GT3s, GT3RSes, and Turbos. The value of the cars in that lot exceeded the GDP of some countries. I felt like the guy who brought a Super Soaker up against guys packing bazookas, and actually knew how to use them. All of them had roll cages, fire-retardant suits, helmets, lots of machismo, and perhaps one too many ‘Nürburgring veteran’ bumper stickers. Germany’s motoratti were out in full force. Gulp.

“Up against such competition, the only thing that prevented me from turning tail was the fact that I had already pre-paid for 16 laps; one lap of which was pricier than 10 lap dances from the most exotic of exotic dancers.”

Up against such competition, the only thing that prevented me from turning tail was the fact that I had already pre-paid for 16 laps; one lap of which was pricier than 10 lap dances from the most exotic of exotic dancers. Put in that perspective, the money-conscious Asian American in me (and the only one in the whole race) could not walk away from that opportunity cost. After I signed the innumerable amount of waivers, I was made to put a deposit on my credit card for the replacement value of the car if I so much as scratched it: E$24,900. Yes, “only” a third of what a base Cayman costs, but one too many zeros for my comfort level. I crossed my fingers and hoped it would exceed my credit card limit, thus allowing me a face-saving exit out of the race. Needless to say, it didn’t, and I found myself cursing AMEX as I fired up the car, its raspy Boxer 6 defiantly croaking against its V8, V10 and V12 counterparts in the mist.

“Predictably, I was terrible, pushing too hard on the straights and braking way too late to clip the numerous apexes properly. The 150+ turns, already a challenge in the dry, were downright impossible in the mist.”

I had hired an instructor for the first six laps so I wouldn’t be culpable to doing anything overtly stupid (at least not initially), and he was in charge of teaching me the proper racing line. Michael, a veteran of more than 20,000+ laps and current touring car champion, was the epitome of Teutonic cool as he guided me around the track. ‘Zis ist nicht playzstation, you dzon’t get rezet button!’ he yelled many times as I flew through the corners carrying way too much over-confidence-induced speed. I had to place full trust in Michael, because all the corners were not only blind, but downright invisible thanks to the fog. Yesterday, I remarked to my friends that the ‘ring was almost beautiful, even if one weren’t driving at 250km/h. Now, I couldn’t even see a meter in front of me.

Predictably, I was terrible, pushing too hard on the straights and braking way too late to clip the numerous apexes properly. The 150+ turns, already a challenge in the dry, were downright impossible in the mist. As Michael scampered for the door after his six lap obligations were done (I don’t blame him at all), I tried my best to memorise where and when to turn and make it out of the numerous corners carrying the best possible exit speed. He did a fantastic job of teaching me, but I simply couldn’t memorize all 150+ turns at full throttle.

As luck would have it, the sun came out, but as the mist slowly dissipated, so did everyone’s inhibitions for speed. I found myself up against fast and furious racers relentlessly pushing my 6 o’clock in their 458s, P1s, and GT3s. With the fog gone, it was hard not to ogle at the supercars in my rear view mirror and think I was in a surreal dream – Except the dream was quickly shattered when all of them easily passed me without so much as even downshifting. Dream quickly turned into nightmare as I ended up being overtaken by one of the few hot hatchbacks at the race. How quickly the tables had turned since yesterday and I buried my face (and my dignity) in my hands at lunchtime.

Chain-binging on nuggets and fries, I resolved to give it my best after lunch. My passenger after lunch, Janina, was not used to screaming, but she did. Which, being German, is a big deal for her. That certainly inspired confidence in my driving. My next passenger and travel compadre, Malcolm, had the brilliant idea of navigating with the car’s GPS and with his help, I was starting to rock it. Like a rally team, he would give me directions right before a corner and give me a few milliseconds of much-needed anticipation. I finally felt confident enough to press the “Sport Plus” button on the center console and blew past a few cars.

“I now understand the allure of the Nürburgring Nordschleife. It’s not so much outright dangerous, but like a sexy vixen in a Bond movie, lulls you into a false sense of security with her luscious curves, then bites your head off right when you get overconfident.”

With our new strategy, I managed to pull a decent 9:53 hot lap. As I was going for another fast lap with my ego glowing, disaster struck. Right as I was about to take a corner at high speed, a GT3 appeared out of nowhere. Trying to cut him off so he couldn’t clip the apex, I pushed a centimeter too hard on the accelerator and the car spun out explosively.

Having been a victim to a few motorcycle and car accidents, I am no stranger to the sensation. Everyone experiences it differently and for me, it’s always in slow motion, yet I am always powerless to change the outcome. As we spun around the Nordschleife like a roulette dice, I remember thinking it was going to be expensive crash and cursed my AMEX again for its high limit. Thankfully, I smashed the brakes and downshifted quickly, stopping the car from catapulting me into bankruptcy and cutting short my ‘idiot drives Porsche into wall’ stardom on YouTube. After we took stock of our near-death experience, I noticed we were half a meter or so away from hitting the metal-plated barrier and becoming another Nürburgring casualty figure.

I was done. Like a sportsman trying to master a comeback and failing repeatedly, my subsequent laps were pathetic. I was scared, and knew it. I came face-to-face with death and blinked. Though my luck had not worn out and I was still in God’s good graces, I knew pushing it would be foolish. Normally I would have continued, but for some reason that day, logic won. As I sat at the starting grid watching others gambling with their lives with every kilometer above 200, I made the decision to stop and turn in the keys. At 12 out of 16 laps, my Nürburgring career was unequivocally and undoubtedly over.

I now understand the allure of the Nürburgring Nordschleife. It’s not so much outright dangerous, but like a sexy vixen in a Bond movie, lulls you into a false sense of security with her luscious curves, then bites your head off right when you get overconfident. I pulled a 9:53, which was respectable, but not noteworthy. Under Walter Röhl, the Cayman is capable of 7:56. I was two minutes away from the car’s true potential. My fantasy of running into Sabine and impressing her were all but the stuff of pipes.

With my self-worth in tatters, I bought some kitschy ‘I survived the Nürburgring’ bumper stickers for my Cayman back home; feeling that I might be able to bandage my ego with them by bragging to other petrolheads back in the States. Indeed, I comforted myself with the solace that I had crossed something off my bucket list without kicking the bucket itself. I figured no one in the States will know about my cowardice, just that I had raced at the ‘ring.

As I walked back across the parking lot past all the supercars and into my friend’s Seat Ibizia, I knew that I would be back, sans overconfidence. I was beaten and humbled, but not out of the fight. Perhaps that is the ‘ring’s true appeal – Once you’re smitten, you never let it go, and I wondered if that was what possessed men like Nikki Lauda to return. As I sat in the car contemplating my comeback, I started asking myself which corners I could improve on, what I would change about my racing line, and what car I would take next time.

What caused me to spin out? Why did I rent a Porsche Cayman when a much more basic car would have sufficed? What on earth had caused me to commit to 16 laps? Even one lap, basically 10 minutes and 23+ kilometres, was an eternity. They say pride comes before a fall, and the Nürburgring was the ultimate experience of my confidence not matching my actual skill. I was, in other words (specifically those of Jeremy Clarkson) ambitious, but rubbish.

At least I have those bumper stickers.

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Lenspeed’s awesome Alpine tour

By James Wong

The European summer is almost upon us. It’s April in 2014, but in countless occasions over the last few months I have been dreaming again and again about Lenspeed’s awesome Alpine tour. Did it really happen? Was I really at the Nürburgring, then up at the Alps, before finishing school and entering the corporate world proper? It is all fuzzy now, especially since the transition from university life to work has been sudden and paralysing, the latter at least in terms of the lack of free time. But one thing is for sure: I did not do my journey justice. It was more than 3,000 miles of driving, across 7 countries, all in the search of the thrill of driving. However, apart from a few Facebook posts, the story of the humble blue Clio 200 Cup across Europe wasn’t shared. That would be fine if not for my fading memory, which motivated me to pen this all down before they disappear into the whirlpool of an ageing mind. So, ladies and gents, fasten your seat-belts, get snug into the Recaros, and join us as we hop on the Eurotunnel for the continent… (time reverses to June 2013)

Pre-trip background: The dates were set for the road trip. We’ve got the car, we’ve got the people. Now, where do we go? Thanks to the helpful chaps at Pistonheads.com and the ever-reliable Google Maps (not so sure about the new one though…), we plotted our way from London to arrive at the Ring, but not before settling on Grindelwald as our base from which to explore the Alpine routes. It all came together somehow.

Arriving on the mainland, we quickly sped across the dull Belgian landscape, passing Netherlands for a brief moment before entering Germany. En-route, we chanced upon an unexpected delight: vineyards. As we’ll be staying in wine country for the night, we drove through vineyard routes for the rest of the day for the heck of it and captured this shot in what seemed to be in the middle of the estate, with nary a care or concern. Confession: we stole no grapes.

Our next stop was at a chalet town which can genuinely pass off as a set in a perfect Hollywood neighbourhood. Every house is identical, brand new and to be honest, a little creepy, as most of them were empty at this time of the year. And don’t be fooled by their tame looks – their interiors are filled with motorsport-inspired decor (ours had Senna and old F1 memorabilia). With good reason of course – it is at the gateway of the Nürburgring, just a 5-minute drive away.

As our time at the track was not scheduled until the next day, we took a drive around the Ring. Yes, there are roads surrounding the track – its scale cannot be underestimated. At nearly 18 miles long it is literally a strip of tarmac laid over rolling mountains and lush coniferous forests, so at many points of our tour we could not tell that we were at Ring territory at all.

Sadly, all the talk about the Ring being underutilised is true. While the track itself is adequately booked up, the accompanying facilities are all like ghost towns. Besides huge conference halls and a go-karting track, there is even an indoor roller coaster built into the facility – I kid you not. As expected, these things don’t get used often at all.

After a home-cooked dinner and some ill-fated attempts at trying to master the Nürburgring via YouTube, we slept and awoke fresh the next day seeing this “traffic jam” outside the track. This is, of course, an everyday sight at the world’s most famous race circuit, with winged Ferrari cup cars sitting next to road-going classics like the 968 CS. Of course, there are also many rental cars waiting to go in, and we’ll be in one of them soon.

At the Devil’s Diner just outside of the entrance of the Ring, the Hall of Fame is scribbled upon by millions who have passed by and enjoyed the comfortable facilities of the Diner while they waited for their turn at The Green Hell.

Being the Porsche fans that we are, we took a gazillion pictures of the 997.2 GT3 RS 4.0 that stayed for the whole track day, of which this is one…

When we collected the Swift Sport we realised just how race-prepped this little tike was – this is the view from the back of our car. Being modestly powered the car was supremely exploitable at the demanding track, but knowledge of the circuit layout was paramount to having a good time… I will advise anybody thinking of making a trip up to be well-versed with the Ring to maximise their time there.

Next up was my turn in the Lotus Exige 240 Cup. It’s a riot, and almost uncontrollable on the track, especially with public day traffic. Another tip: if you’re at the Ring, I’d highly recommend a private track day. Less mishaps, more time and more space.

After we escaped certain death, we took a walk around the track to check out the scene. When cars are not passing by, the forests are actually really serene. It could pass off as a national park, and it is one.

If you ever wondered how mule spotters do their work, this is one of many vantage points around the track allowing you to peep at the machinery passing by.

We were honestly quite relieved that we lapped the Ring without any mishap. It was the riskiest part of the whole trip, and with that behind our backs (with bragging rights in tow, of course) we headed down south for the Alps. Of course, we do this route no justice without a stopover at the Black Forest…

After the rainy Nürburgring, the weather at the Forest was simply magical. The roads were almost empty, and when we reached our stop we took a hike. As it turns out, there is beer on tap at every few kilometres up the track.

Nothing could have really prepared us, however, for what laid ahead when we arrived in Switzerland. Suddenly, the Black Forest (which actually isn’t black at all) swept past our minds double quick time as snowy peaks greeted us.

Our humble abode up in the mountains had a million-dollar view…

As well as a lovely dedicated car park garage!

There were moments of serenity (that’s dad taking photos)…

But for sure, moments of staggering beauty as well.

While we were in the area we took a short detour up to Gimmelwald too (no cars allowed here). We used our legs instead and the view didn’t disappoint…

However, after the adequate exercise from trekking the mountains we wanted to take in the best Alpine passes Switzerland had to offer. By four wheels, of course. Setting the alarm at 4am, we started nice and early. It was a great feeling that so early in the day the sun has already risen, yet everybody is still asleep. These few hours must certainly be called “driver hours” for their perfect conditions. The itinerary for the morning: Grimsel, Nufen, Gottard and the Furka Pass.

We climbed and climbed until we saw snow, and a murky lake that looked frigid.

As we rose, the sun rose together with us and temperatures started to peak.

Needless to say, everywhere we turned the scenery was breathtaking.

Here’s a video of how the Furka pass was like.

At some points, the snow reached nearly double the car’s height but the road was bone dry. Thank God for the efficient snow ploughers which were no doubt working through the night to get the road cleared for us… Also, if any snow were to fall that morning, we would have been stranded! The Clio was on summer tyres.

The valleys became slightly hazy as we crested across several peaks.

But soon, we were in what must be one of the longest tunnels in the world, if not the world’s most impressive. Remember the scenes in the James Bond films that were filmed here? I really wish I was in an Aston Martin, although the exhaust note of one could cause an avalanche from all of those precarious-looking snow.

There was beauty everywhere, even in the small details.

All that you see in Top Gear et al, it’s real.

At the base of Furka pass, we had to take a stop to take in all of the beauty (and grazing cows, not pictured).

Furka is incredible. Instead of the snakey curves of the Stelvio, it has long, wide and flowing roads that were so well-sighted you could take either lane any time if you wish. Definitely deserves a big approval from Lenspeed.

Just proof that we didn’t fake everything (ha).

The front-wheel drive Clio proved to be a hoot in these type of roads, with just enough power to climb the mountains without feeling like it’s struggling while having the darty front end response to sniff out hairpins.

Of course, with every rise there is also a fall. At the base of Furka, we were met with acres of yellow flowers. That’s the end of today, then – back to Grindelwald to recover back the lost sleep… But what a worthy drive to wake up for!

Our final jaunt south brought us slightly warmer temperatures and more balmy environments, which meant that everything looked greener and more lively. Take this turquoise lake for example, while we were en-route to Stelvio.

As we entered Italy to climb Stelvio from the south side, it dawned upon us very quickly that the Stelvio is extremely popular with tourists and enthusiasts. As such, the narrow roads going up were simply no fun. There are many moments where we had to reverse to let a whole convoy of cars through, while managing deep drops to the ravine at the sides. Luckily, we managed to take a breather here before proceeding further up.

This is just a teaser for what’s to come. Consider it mini-Stelvio…

The real deal is a lot steeper, with a rougher edge to it that hints at its poorly-maintained nature. I cannot deny that it is a terrifying climb up this road, as it is so narrow and you literally only go upwards, only taking breathers while you slow down at the hairpins. I don’t think you can go very fast here or even try to hoon. The Stelvio then, is quite overrated in Lenspeed’s opinion, but it still must be experienced because it is very humbling.

And that’s all of it. It really happened after all. I don’t think much else can top this for some time yet.

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