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 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 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::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
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 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 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::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