Nürburgring Nordschleife - Kiss and Tell

[Muzza]

Did you dare to drive the Nürburgring Nordschleife?

Tell your story.

[paulzinho]

I think my Dads driven it, never raced there though. A few years too late.

I remember him pointing out to me when i was about 6 the old Nurburgring and the new Nurburgring.

Thats as far as it goes!

[Lee Janotta]

Gimme a round-trip ticket and a BMW M1, and I'll letcha know.

[Darren Galpin]

I've driven it twice (not raced), once in my parents Ford Sierra, and once in a friends clapped-out Lancia. Well worth it, especially watching the Wartburg going around the flat bit of the Karrussel so that it's suspension should cope, and the VW camper-van thinking it would be a racing car for the day. All at the same time that four racing Porsche's were on track and hordes of motorbike racers. Highly recommended!

[JGM]

I rode around it a few times on a motorcycle when it was still in use a race track. I also went off to explore the 7.747 km Sudschleife on foot on one occasion. While I was doing this some people were testing road cars around the track and one of them eventually became exasperated with me and screeched to a standstill and began screaming something at me in German. I've often wondered what he was saying!

I remember watching the German GP at Kesselchen, the most remote and inaccessible part of the track, in 1973 and seeing Niki Lauda crahing his BRM. He ended up with a broken wrist.The race was won by Jackie Stewart- his last GP win. I was there again in 1976 when Lauda crashed again just about a kilometre further back down the track. I saw his car come past on the back of a lorry, burnt and smashed. There was no public address system in the area so I spent the rest of the day wondering whether he was alive or dead. I went to the last major race at the real Nurburgring - a Group 'C' sports car race - held while the new circuit was being built. I havn't been back.

[Plumtree]

Did a 24hr saloon car race there 10 years ago which ended for me on the last lap of my last stint when I received a 'nudge' at the Flanzgarten which sent the car into a 100 metre barrel roll totally writing it off. I went back last year a did a few laps in a hire car and then sat at the Flanzgarten for an hour or so to rid myself of the ghosts. Amazing circuit and very difficult to learn due the blind brows and similarity of the scenery. There are a lot of locals who only drive there and enter the big grid saloon car races and they are invariably a lot quicker than many of the well known european drivers due to their specialist knowledge of the circuit. Well worth paying the 7 marks or whatever that equates to in Euro's to drive it