Article: TT on the Green Hell (anybody here driven this??)
10-14-2001, 08:33 AM
#1
Article: TT on the Green Hell (anybody here driven this??)
Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company
The Boston Globe
October 12, 2001, Friday ,THIRD EDITION
SECTION: SPORTS; Pg. E1
LENGTH: 1325 words
HEADLINE: TRACK OF OUR FEARS AT DANGEROUS GERMAN COURSE, SKY IS THE LIMIT FOR ANYONE
BYLINE: By Royal Ford, Globe Staff
BODY:
NEUERBURG, Germany - It is not the speedometer needle twitching at 220 kilometers per hour that stirs trepidation.
It is not the descending S-curve that looms seconds ahead, and that 220 must become 120 smoothly and quickly.
And it is not the hiss of the Audi TT's tires as the car whistles at its outer limits.
What is disconcerting is the motorcycle that has just blown past, passenger on the pillion with her arms in a death grip on the driver. And it is the looming lights of the Porsche in the rearview mirror as it devours the distance between itself and the Audi. Welcome to the Neuerburgring Nordschleife (North Loop), an undulating, twisting racetrack that winds for 14 miles and 177 curves, and dips and rises more than 1,000 feet through the verdant forest of the Eifel Mountains in western Germany. Until 1976, Formula One races were run on this track. But when the great driver Niki Lauda crashed and nearly burned to death (he would have brought the death toll on the course among professional drivers to well over 100) at the base of a cliff here, the professional circuit abandoned the track.
Germany's response? Open it to the public.
That is why today, for about $5 per lap, anyone can take a registered automobile or motorcycle and drive as fast as they want around a track the legendary Jackie Stewart named the Green Hell. Built in 1927 as both a world-class racetrack and a test site for German auto manufacturers, the track surrounds three small villages and a centuries-old castle.
Automobile companies and car clubs still rent the track for testing and training. Autoweek magazine recently noted the sporty new Cadillac CTS, developed on this track, was "forged where angels fear to tread."
But on days when it is not rented and is open to the public - notably weekends, when crowds gather at hot spots around the track, cheering spinouts and wrecks - adrenaline flows like gasoline through fuel injectors. A fatality a week
That's how it was on a warm September afternoon as the Audi sat burbling in line as, two by two, all sorts of vehicles went through the gates and onto the track. There were Porsches - some right off the street, others set up for racing - a Lotus, Jaguars, BMWs, Opals, Mercedes-Benzes, a Volvo station wagon, fast, fast motorcycles popularly known as crotch rockets, and, remarkably, three glass-topped tour buses, passengers out for a spin, no doubt hoping to see from on high a crash or two.
All had driven here on the narrow, twisting roads of the Eifels, past signs that warned them that while they may be headed to a race track, "Rasen Ist Out" (Racing Is Out) on those roads.
Before you drive, you study a map of the track. Here's a curve called Wipperman, where two motorcyclists were killed recently - locals say the track averages a fatality a week. Here's Ex Muhle, where Viktor Junek was killed; and Pflanzagarten, where Peter Collins was killed; and Wehrseifen, where Onofre Marimon was killed. There are 177 curves. How do you remember them all? Better to study flung spaghetti. New Englanders might picture the Kancamagus Highway, which twists through the White Mountains, and imagine driving that road at 100 to 200 miles per hour.
Another way to study the track is to go out to spots where crowds gather near their favorite (most dangerous) curves, rises, and dips. Watch cars hiss, wiggle, and twitch as they barely make it through those descending S-curves. Listen to the shriek of their tires as they disappear into unseen parts of the forest. It is enough to make a prospective driver reconsider venturing out in that Audi.
Sports Illustrated sent a reporter here a year ago to drive the Ring. After close observation, including a ride around with a Ring veteran, the reporter declined to drive. There is no shame in walking away from the Green Hell. You must be in control
Rules here are few.
Speed limits? "You must be in full control of your vehicle whatever speed you're traveling," a posted warning states. There's your speed limit.
"Accidents, as well as any damage to the track . . . the fences, the crash barriers, or any other Neuerburgring property" must be paid for by the person who wrecks.
Get run into from behind, it's your fault, because you were not going fast enough or did not properly get out of the way (and here come those Porsche headlights).
Ben Lovejoy is an Englishman and a true "Ringer," as devotees of the track are called (they sell season tickets here as though it were a ski area). Lovejoy has logged more than 800 laps on the Nordschleife since 1998, and a chat with him can set those trepidations to twitching yet again.
He watched a friend, in a coma at a local hospital after a crash on the Ring (the friend awoke and survived), and talked with emergency room personnel during his vigil. Two or three people per week are brought to the ICU from the track, Lovejoy was told. Half of them don't survive.
Yet Lovejoy's eyes gleam as he talks about the track and its curves.
"Very steep, off camber, a very, very dangerous bend," he said, finger on the map.
"Here's Schwedenkreuz," he said. "A very, very fast approach, the most dangerous on the course. If you take the line you think is correct, it's not.
"Adenauer Forst - you get lots of spectators there. Any time you see lots of spectators, that's the sign of a dangerous, dodgy bend.
"At Aremburg, you look through the corner - it's blind - and aim for the concrete bridge support." High-octane ballet
No amount of advice, no amount of studying maps, however, prepares a driver for the first few laps of the Ring. Lovejoy's thoughts, certainly, are in the mind as the Audi creeps toward the entry gate.
So are thoughts of Lauda, Collins, Marimon, and Junek. And the specter of Jackie Stewart and his Green Hell.
There is sweat, there is fear, there is the gnawing notion that maybe the Sports Illustrated guy did the smart thing. But then the gate opens, the Audi streaks ahead, and driving fast and smooth occupies all thoughts.
Cars are passed, motorcycles are passed, buses are passed. Cars pass and motorcycles pass. It is a high-octane ballet out here on the Ring.
Lateral forces push you from side to side as you shriek through the corners: downshift, brake, full throttle, release the car to the outside line. Use all the track.
The Audi wants to catch air at the crest of sudden hills; compression is fierce as it screams into dips; the forest seems to close in all around. At a curve called Karussell - a 270-degree corner lined with what appears to be a giant, halved concrete pipe - there barely seems room for the Audi on the track. Later, it is explained Formula One cars used to go through the Karussell side-by-side.
The Audi tops out at about 220 k.p.h. (about 140 m.p.h.). It is faster than many cars on the track that day, far slower than the best and fastest, but plenty fast for a Ring first-timer.
Also on the Ring that day was a couple from North Granby, Conn., Bob and Sheila Morin. He is the president, she the vice president of the Connecticut Valley Chapter of the BMW Car Club of America. They had been to the Ring several times but it was never open to the public on those visits. Today, they're the ones in the Volvo station wagon, the one loaded with vacation gear.
Do they drive the Ring in that Volvo? Hey, a daring couple's got to do what a daring couple's got to do.
"This could never happen in the US," Bob Morin said. "Too many lawyers, too much liability."
That thought rolls through the mind as tension drops as the Audi exits from its final lap.
Green Hell driven, hardly conquered.
And one other thought, something Ben Lovejoy said.
Anyone who drives the Ring regularly must not only be a good driver, they should also be well-trained in first aid.
"If you come here often enough, there's no doubt you will someday be the first on the scene of a traumatic accident. You can count on it."
GRAPHIC: PHOTO, 1. Private cars navigate one of the 177 curves on the Neuerburgring Nordschleife (Northern Loop). / GLOBE PHOTO / HERMANN J. KNIPPERTZ 2. A car chases a motorcyclist through the S-curves over the former Formula One track at Neuerburg, Germany. / GLOBE PHOTO / HERMANN J. KNIPPERTZ
LOAD-DATE: October 13, 2001
The Boston Globe
October 12, 2001, Friday ,THIRD EDITION
SECTION: SPORTS; Pg. E1
LENGTH: 1325 words
HEADLINE: TRACK OF OUR FEARS AT DANGEROUS GERMAN COURSE, SKY IS THE LIMIT FOR ANYONE
BYLINE: By Royal Ford, Globe Staff
BODY:
NEUERBURG, Germany - It is not the speedometer needle twitching at 220 kilometers per hour that stirs trepidation.
It is not the descending S-curve that looms seconds ahead, and that 220 must become 120 smoothly and quickly.
And it is not the hiss of the Audi TT's tires as the car whistles at its outer limits.
What is disconcerting is the motorcycle that has just blown past, passenger on the pillion with her arms in a death grip on the driver. And it is the looming lights of the Porsche in the rearview mirror as it devours the distance between itself and the Audi. Welcome to the Neuerburgring Nordschleife (North Loop), an undulating, twisting racetrack that winds for 14 miles and 177 curves, and dips and rises more than 1,000 feet through the verdant forest of the Eifel Mountains in western Germany. Until 1976, Formula One races were run on this track. But when the great driver Niki Lauda crashed and nearly burned to death (he would have brought the death toll on the course among professional drivers to well over 100) at the base of a cliff here, the professional circuit abandoned the track.
Germany's response? Open it to the public.
That is why today, for about $5 per lap, anyone can take a registered automobile or motorcycle and drive as fast as they want around a track the legendary Jackie Stewart named the Green Hell. Built in 1927 as both a world-class racetrack and a test site for German auto manufacturers, the track surrounds three small villages and a centuries-old castle.
Automobile companies and car clubs still rent the track for testing and training. Autoweek magazine recently noted the sporty new Cadillac CTS, developed on this track, was "forged where angels fear to tread."
But on days when it is not rented and is open to the public - notably weekends, when crowds gather at hot spots around the track, cheering spinouts and wrecks - adrenaline flows like gasoline through fuel injectors. A fatality a week
That's how it was on a warm September afternoon as the Audi sat burbling in line as, two by two, all sorts of vehicles went through the gates and onto the track. There were Porsches - some right off the street, others set up for racing - a Lotus, Jaguars, BMWs, Opals, Mercedes-Benzes, a Volvo station wagon, fast, fast motorcycles popularly known as crotch rockets, and, remarkably, three glass-topped tour buses, passengers out for a spin, no doubt hoping to see from on high a crash or two.
All had driven here on the narrow, twisting roads of the Eifels, past signs that warned them that while they may be headed to a race track, "Rasen Ist Out" (Racing Is Out) on those roads.
Before you drive, you study a map of the track. Here's a curve called Wipperman, where two motorcyclists were killed recently - locals say the track averages a fatality a week. Here's Ex Muhle, where Viktor Junek was killed; and Pflanzagarten, where Peter Collins was killed; and Wehrseifen, where Onofre Marimon was killed. There are 177 curves. How do you remember them all? Better to study flung spaghetti. New Englanders might picture the Kancamagus Highway, which twists through the White Mountains, and imagine driving that road at 100 to 200 miles per hour.
Another way to study the track is to go out to spots where crowds gather near their favorite (most dangerous) curves, rises, and dips. Watch cars hiss, wiggle, and twitch as they barely make it through those descending S-curves. Listen to the shriek of their tires as they disappear into unseen parts of the forest. It is enough to make a prospective driver reconsider venturing out in that Audi.
Sports Illustrated sent a reporter here a year ago to drive the Ring. After close observation, including a ride around with a Ring veteran, the reporter declined to drive. There is no shame in walking away from the Green Hell. You must be in control
Rules here are few.
Speed limits? "You must be in full control of your vehicle whatever speed you're traveling," a posted warning states. There's your speed limit.
"Accidents, as well as any damage to the track . . . the fences, the crash barriers, or any other Neuerburgring property" must be paid for by the person who wrecks.
Get run into from behind, it's your fault, because you were not going fast enough or did not properly get out of the way (and here come those Porsche headlights).
Ben Lovejoy is an Englishman and a true "Ringer," as devotees of the track are called (they sell season tickets here as though it were a ski area). Lovejoy has logged more than 800 laps on the Nordschleife since 1998, and a chat with him can set those trepidations to twitching yet again.
He watched a friend, in a coma at a local hospital after a crash on the Ring (the friend awoke and survived), and talked with emergency room personnel during his vigil. Two or three people per week are brought to the ICU from the track, Lovejoy was told. Half of them don't survive.
Yet Lovejoy's eyes gleam as he talks about the track and its curves.
"Very steep, off camber, a very, very dangerous bend," he said, finger on the map.
"Here's Schwedenkreuz," he said. "A very, very fast approach, the most dangerous on the course. If you take the line you think is correct, it's not.
"Adenauer Forst - you get lots of spectators there. Any time you see lots of spectators, that's the sign of a dangerous, dodgy bend.
"At Aremburg, you look through the corner - it's blind - and aim for the concrete bridge support." High-octane ballet
No amount of advice, no amount of studying maps, however, prepares a driver for the first few laps of the Ring. Lovejoy's thoughts, certainly, are in the mind as the Audi creeps toward the entry gate.
So are thoughts of Lauda, Collins, Marimon, and Junek. And the specter of Jackie Stewart and his Green Hell.
There is sweat, there is fear, there is the gnawing notion that maybe the Sports Illustrated guy did the smart thing. But then the gate opens, the Audi streaks ahead, and driving fast and smooth occupies all thoughts.
Cars are passed, motorcycles are passed, buses are passed. Cars pass and motorcycles pass. It is a high-octane ballet out here on the Ring.
Lateral forces push you from side to side as you shriek through the corners: downshift, brake, full throttle, release the car to the outside line. Use all the track.
The Audi wants to catch air at the crest of sudden hills; compression is fierce as it screams into dips; the forest seems to close in all around. At a curve called Karussell - a 270-degree corner lined with what appears to be a giant, halved concrete pipe - there barely seems room for the Audi on the track. Later, it is explained Formula One cars used to go through the Karussell side-by-side.
The Audi tops out at about 220 k.p.h. (about 140 m.p.h.). It is faster than many cars on the track that day, far slower than the best and fastest, but plenty fast for a Ring first-timer.
Also on the Ring that day was a couple from North Granby, Conn., Bob and Sheila Morin. He is the president, she the vice president of the Connecticut Valley Chapter of the BMW Car Club of America. They had been to the Ring several times but it was never open to the public on those visits. Today, they're the ones in the Volvo station wagon, the one loaded with vacation gear.
Do they drive the Ring in that Volvo? Hey, a daring couple's got to do what a daring couple's got to do.
"This could never happen in the US," Bob Morin said. "Too many lawyers, too much liability."
That thought rolls through the mind as tension drops as the Audi exits from its final lap.
Green Hell driven, hardly conquered.
And one other thought, something Ben Lovejoy said.
Anyone who drives the Ring regularly must not only be a good driver, they should also be well-trained in first aid.
"If you come here often enough, there's no doubt you will someday be the first on the scene of a traumatic accident. You can count on it."
GRAPHIC: PHOTO, 1. Private cars navigate one of the 177 curves on the Neuerburgring Nordschleife (Northern Loop). / GLOBE PHOTO / HERMANN J. KNIPPERTZ 2. A car chases a motorcyclist through the S-curves over the former Formula One track at Neuerburg, Germany. / GLOBE PHOTO / HERMANN J. KNIPPERTZ
LOAD-DATE: October 13, 2001
10-14-2001, 11:37 AM
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Re: Article: When you routinely drive a car at its limits sooner or later your
likely to loose it. When that happens at 140 mph in a street car that is not designed to withstand crashes at those speeds death is usually the result. The G forces cause your internal organs to crush themselves in your own body. It's litterally like jumping out of airplane without a chute, but then who wants to live forever. If I had the chance to do what you did, I'd do it in a heart beat. I wish you luck in future drives.
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