BMW M5 Forum and M6 Forums banner

My latest Nurburgring Trip

1K views 8 replies 5 participants last post by  Echo39 
#1 ·
This first weekend in May saw my first Nurburgring trip of 2009 completed. For the first time in four trips I was in the convoy as every trip last year i travelled down seperately for various reasons. An early start with a meeting time of 0400 at the service station about 45 minutes from the ferry in Dover and a wuick convoy down to Dover saw us meet up with a few other cars. The 0600 ferry from Dover to Dunkirque was good, and cheap at £51 return as opposed to £130 plus for the channel tunnel. The ferry also put us 30 miles further into France.

We landed in Dunkirque and set off on an hour or so's journey into Belgium where we met up with all the others who had been on the overnight ferry in Ghent. After the usual introductions and insults we set-off after some of the guys started putting comedy stickers on our cars. I ended up driving to Germany from Belgium with a sticker that said "I Love Dogging" written on it :eek:h:

We arrived at the Nurburgring early afternoon, and caught some of the VLN racing, which was varied and very interesting to watch. By now it was 20 degrees plus off the track and the track opened at 1830. I did two laps back to back before going home for dinner. I was disappointed with the car and myself, i seemed to be struggling fro grip and was suffering from more understeer than usual. A chat over dinner revealed that my friend Paul in his e46 M3 was suffering the same symptoms, as was my friend Matt in his Porsche 996 911 TT X50. Over dinner i decided to increase the air pressure in the tyres and then run the car and see how it felt, knowing that i could let air out and check pressures in the car park if i wanted some adjustments.

After a lot of beers on Saturday evening, i awoke bright eyed and bushy tailed to go to the Aral petrol station in Adenau to adjust my tyre pressures. I decided tio run them at BMW's suggested pressures for maximum load and passengers which was 3.0bar front and 3.3bar rear. On the rear tyres i was 3PSI away from the maximum that the tyre could take in air pressure :eek:h:

My first run on different tyre pressures transformed the car, understeer was gone, i had slightly more tyre squeal under hard cornering but was ok with this as a trade-off. I was asked by a couple of guys to teach them the lines i take around the track and to sit in the car with them as a passenger to talk them through it. One of the guys was on his second visit where i was on my thirteenth visit so had a slight advantage. :biggrin:

I was also asked to drive my friend Graham's e60 M5 round there with him as a passenger. It was my first time driving an e60 M5 and also my first time using SMG properly. But, what a good place to start. With the car in M Dynamic Mode which is 507BHP, traction control half-off, heads up display on and the side bolsters alive i went out for a lap. As it wasn;t my car and i had never driven one before i didn;t push that hard. I saw about 130mph in places but felt very confident in the cars abilities to handle the track. What can i say about the e60 M5. I drove a modified one with similar modifications to my car and also what i would do to an e60 M5. It didn't make me want to run out and buy one. The lack of low down power was very noticeable in comparison, and the other most noticeable thing was the much stiffer chassis on the e60 M5 that had virtually no understeer whilst i was driving it. I think if you could put the e60 M5 chassis under the e39 M5 body, engine and running car it would be truely phenomenal. A huge thanks to Graham for allowing me the priviledge of driving his car and also the trust he put in me!

There were a few spots of rain which drive the majority of locals to leave in the early afternoon, leaving us with a rather empty track to play with. On my 15th and last driven lap of the trip i was turning tration control off in certain places with confidence. At Adenau Forst i managed a very purposeful drift with two passengers in the car for the cameras and people that were still there watching :biggrin::D:haha: I hope that someone can send me the video of it!

As usual a lot more beers flowed on Sunday evening and i, as always, made arrangements to get some photos from Jochen at Frozenspeed.com of the beast doing it's thing. I ended up buying all 30 photos that he had taken and should receive the photos on CD this week. Jochen's friend commented on my placing of the car on the track and found it hard to believe that i had not had any private tuition on the Nurburgring. This is something i am going to look in to for another trip this year.

Whilst i was there i saw Onno and his e30 M3 (RNGTOY), but he was always surrounded by a crowd of people who were enthralled with his creation so i didn't get a chance to have a chat with him! I didn;t take any photos either as i was too busy lapping, driving and drinking beer to get the camera out. I will definately be making a couple more trips this year, hopefully one with the M5 and one in my track car that is nearing completion. I shall post up the photos from Jocehn when they arrive.

For part of the trip I also got TotalBMW to come along with us for the trip to do a write-up on the Nurburgring and the main forum i use (BMWLand), so i shall post up some scans of the magazine when the article is eventually released!

Thanks for reading

cheers
 
See less See more
#2 · (Edited)
Cheers for the write up! Sounds like you did the exact same trip I did 2 weeks ago! Same times, days and ferry etc. It was my first time and I was blown away by how great it was. I have honestly not had such a big buzz since I stopped parachuting over 10 years ago. I agree on the tyre pressures - masses of squeal too, but then they were trying to stop 2 tons of metal flying off the tarmac, and succeeding admirably, so I think I will forgive them for screaming in pain!

What a great place to have a first drive of the E60. Did you go out on the roads around the ring first to familiarise yourself??

If you're interested I stuck some pics on the end of MarkQC's post as I saw his car in the paddock on the Sunday. There are some good photos! Here is his thread - http://www.m5board.com/vbulletin/e39-m5-e52-z8-discussion/136689-another-sunday-nuerburgring.html

I have to say that the drive down was just as much fun as the 'ring itself. A 6 car convoy doing over 160mph for many miles at a time is something every M5 owner should experience. (only where legal obviously :hihi:) The 300 mile journey from Dunkirk seemed like a quick trip to the shops rather than a 3 country trans-continental schlep.

You should post up a link to one of your Frozenspeed shots. There are some seriously good photographers round the 'ring and your car looks stunning with those Alpina wheels. I bought one from MW-Sportfoto http://images.mw-sportfoto.de/galerie/index.php?cat=10 as theirs were my favourite shots of the weekend.

Just to be blatantly self indulgent, and because I still feel as 'excited as a 5 year old on Christmas Eve' about the trip, here's my MW-Sportfoto favourite from the weekend.... Cheers! :cheers:

 
#3 ·
That's a cracking photo! The only bit of familiarisation with the e60 took place in the car park to be honest. I don't like the journey there and back much anymore, having done it so many times it is really quite boring for me now. Will post up the Frozenspeed photos when i receive the cd from Jochen. I also put the original M5 rims back on about 18 months ago and sold the Alpinas as i changed my mind and preferred the oem look

cheers
 
#5 ·
Sounds like you had a good trip - you should have come over to say hi.
Could have taken you for a pax lap in RNGTOY.
 
#6 ·
I got my CD from Jochen today, i ended up getting 32 photos in all! Here is a selection of them.



























cheers
 
#7 ·
Good pictures from Jochen as usual.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top