Glad that you guys like the pics
After our stay in Tuscany and La Spezia we headed back north and drove to Frankfurt. On the way I had a nice race against an AMG SL55 at speeds of 200+ km/h on the way into the Alps on the Italian side. He was faster but not by much. Here is a pic of the car:
We stayed for a night in Bolzano which is an interesting city in the north of Italy. It is bilingual, everything is both in Italian and German but the town feels much more German than Italian
Here is a video from the drive to Frankfurt. The weather was great, dry hot roads and not too much traffic. So I decided to have some fun - went to 300 km/h at the end after passing the 7 series:
http://www.rngtoy.com/thordur/m5/eur..._und_Queen.wmv
The guy in the 7 series did try a few times to catch up with me but I would not let him
And also, the look on the face of the guy in the Maserati when I passed him was priceless
After staying in Frankfurt for a couple of nights I drove my girlfriend to the Frankfurt Hahn airport where she flew home to Iceland. I however drove to Nurburgring which is an hours drive from the airport. As I got closer to the Ring the ratio of nice cars vs. normal ones got higher.
I got to the ring at evening and met up with 3 Icelandic guys at the Altes Forsthaus hotel (
www.ringhaus.com). The hotel is great - it used to be Mercedes Benz headquarters on the Nurburgring and has built in garages. The hotel is run by racers (
www.mungo-racing.de) and they have cars you can rent. The hotel is very well situated, only 400 meters (quarter mile) from the main entrance to the Nurburgring Nordschleife.
If you are going to the Nurburgring this is THE HOTEL to stay at - no question.
Anyways, the morning after - this was the view from my hotel room - the Nordschleife is back there in the morning fog:
Here is a pic of the hotel - you can see that boardmember Fart has showed up in his E60 M5:
We went down to the track as soon as it opened.
From left to right in front of the two M5's - Sveinn (Fart), Ingvar, Bjarki and me:
The parking lot filled up quickly as the weather was good and it was a Sunday open for public driving (Touristfahren).
I went for a few laps in my car in the morning - here is a pic from one photographer:
And one from another:
Driving on this track is unbelievable!! Itīs long, 22km/13.8miles, with so many bends and itīs difficult to learn. I had alot of fun but you get physically tired just after 1 - 2 laps and then itīs a good time to take a break.
I had DSC on as this was my first time on a track
Here is a short video clip that shows me as well as Fart in his E60 M5:
http://www.rngtoy.com/thordur/m5/eur...urburgring.wmv
As you can see there are all kinds of vehicles on the ring!
By this time we took a break from driving and took a tour of the parking lot which had alot of interesting things to look at. We also went to some of the places where you can look at the cars driving on the ring:
Ingvar really liked this one:
The cops had a display to show what can happen at high speed:
This Porsche was really nice! They had 2 of those in the black/yellow stripes. They were driven by a father/daughter team. The older car was for sale at 90.000 euros:
The Ringtaxi building:
The ringtaxi in action:
A nice Italian:
One of the bees:
Some more pics of the ringtaxi and the ringtaxi building:
An E30 and an E36 trying to hunt a Viper:
The owner of this car was staying at our hotel. He used this Touareq to tow his Z4 track car which he had used on a 3 day training course on the Ring. Unfortunately the Z4 broke down but instead of just going home he decided to have fun in the Touareq on the Ring. We got to ride with him and to see the reaction of the crowd when this dirty heavy car came through the bends with tire squeeling was hilarious!!!
A nice looking Boxter:
Ingvar really likes Porsches so he was mesmerized by the bees:
A mean looking M3:
This E34 drove hard on the track:
Just look at the size of that spoiler!!!
Here is the daughter driving:
The other guys had a reserved spot on the Ringtaxi and were hoping to drive with the legendary Sabine. They asked me to come over to take pictures of them going into the ringtaxi. Here we are waiting for the driver:
While we were waiting Ingvar was speaking to the people going in the next taxi and discovered that there was a free seat. After a quick negotiation i got a seat for 50 euros
Unfortunately the guys did not get Sabine as their driver - here is their driver (Iīm signing autographs in the back
). They were really disappointed about not getting Sabine:
Ok, ok, they werenīt autographs - I was just signing some legalese about me giving up all my rights during the ringtaxiride.
Now, when my ringtaxi showed up just guess who was my driver??? Of course Sabine!!
The ride in the ringtaxi was unbelievable, Sabine drove very fast and did some crazy powerslides for our pleaseure and for the spectators. If you go to the ring I highly recommend the ringtaxi!!!
Now, back to my friends. One of them, Bjarki, had been feeling sick the day before and in the morning. They told me that during their ride Bjarki had been sitting in the front and started telling the driver that he was feeling car sick. The driver ignored it and kept on driving hard. Bjarki warned him a couple of times more before proceeding to throw up in the ringtaxi with some of the puke landing on the driver. He was not happy at all.
Here is a pic of the cleanup effort
The BMW staff seemed used to this:
Here is a clip of Fart reenacting the ride and showing the parking lot:
http://www.rngtoy.com/thordur/m5/eur..._stemmning.wmv
We took a lunchbreak and Bjarki went back to the hotel to rest.
After lunch I went back onto the track and by then the grip had improved alot. I started driving harder was having alot of fun and coming out of Karoussel when I started feeling some vibration from the driveline and heard a nasty sound. Not good.
Limped back to the exit and went to the hotel. Had one of the mechanics at the hotel check it out but he could not find out where the noise and vibration was coming from.
Ouch - stranded on the Ring with a broken M5.
More coming later.
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