Ok. Part 1 I've showed you how I got there, in this Part 2 I'll show you the in track, normal and souped up cars at the parking lot and the Nurburgring theme Restaurant nearby.
So the car I'll be driving down the track is a huge + heavy + comfy 2.2 Diesel Turbo Powered Opel Insignia Wagon. Hehehe. Below tells you my experience.
The track will be opened to public by 5.30pm so I took the time to get myself familiarize to the left hand drive and driving on the right lane. Wanna know how is it like driving a left hand drive for the first time? My left hand keep banging the left door! Hahaha. Another problem, I was too close to the edge of the right lane.
So practice done, when I got back to the parking lot, the track is finally opened and cars seen moving towards the entry gate I've shown you earlier. I actually wanted to wait for all of them to go in first but my friend keep pursuing me to go in immediately, which turned out to be a really wrong decision.
I was very kelam kabut! As if right hand shifting is not making me nervous enough, my friend keep asking me where's my Ring card! So I stopped in the middle in between 2 gates to get the card out from my wallet and immediately the marshall came and shouted at me! T_T
That's my Ring Card yo! Loaded with one lap inside.
Past the gate, my heart was pounding quickly + feels like burning too. I believe you felt the same thing like this before.
And here's the shot! I don't know what does this corner named. Hahaha. If you noticed this was shot on the right seat, during my friend's lap, which is after my 1st lap.
Bear in mind that it is prohibited to take any photo and video in the track! So please don't tell the management that I posted the picture above. Hehe. I'm serious. But who wouldn't?! You are driving on the Green Hell that's everyone's dream! My advice is, do not reveal any image or video recording device as you are approaching the entrance, after you have past the gate, then you can safely take out your camera and basically no one will know – Everyone is busy navigating the corners. Hehehe
1st Lap,
I entered earlier and decided to go slow as this is my very maiden flight down the Ring. Hehehe. I stayed on the right and kept looking at my rear view mirror, and turn on the right signal whenever there's cars approaching from behind. I was doing like 80-90km/h only each corner. Hahaha. The car has got rather firm suspension though, not like a typical Toyota which always roll until your head sticking on the window.
2nd Lap,
Time to push it harder now! Sadly, the car started to understeer as soon as I'm into Turn 7! The tail just refuse to turn in with the front! The run off space around was obviously very limited as everyone knows and the barriers are less than few metres away from both side. So? For the sake of safety, my 2 passengers inside and the car, I decided that I'll just cruise until the end. Running on 3rd and 4th gear only thoughout the whole journey. I was really really bored to hell as this is the longest track in the world!
My lap time? According to the video, it was about 13minutes. =.=
Nevertheless, it was still a great experience to have driven in the Nurburgring. Honestly, it was my first time driving on a racing track as well. I've never driven in the Sepang track! Only a taxi ride in a stroked DC5. And I have a reason to drive on Nurburgring again, next time would be with a rented track car!
By now you must be curious whether Gran Turismo really reflect the real Nurburgring Nordschleife??? Hmm... Erm... Err... Let me think... Let me recall that again... and the answer is...
Yes. Indeed! It was accurately replicated! Except there's one straight which I think is shorter than in the simulator, and everything else in front of me look more squary and bigger, this could be due to all the widescreen TV we have at home. Haha.
Another thing is, Nurburgring also famous for it's inconsistent gradient and bumpy ride right? In my experience, it was not. It was comfy and smooth, which I believe it's due to the car's suspension setup for comfortability. Even the continous 6 hours journey on the Autobahn was awesomely smooth and not tiring at all in this Opel Insignia Wagon. But the highway of our country? An hour is enough to exhaust us.
Driving mission accomplished. Now, to walk around taking pics of cars around.
The number plate were blurred due to the insurance policy and warranty thingy which if the insurance company discovered that the insured car been driven in the track, the coverage would be voided. Anyway, the Germans were really nice and friendly!
Somebody rented this.
Driving Academy in an Aston Martin yo!
R34 man! in Germany!
You have image of how the entrance looks like now?
What car is this?
All 4 rented. Good news for you, they are RIGHT HAND DRIVE! and none of this ever had an accident, according to the company.
It's a Merc C Class. Crazy driver! If not mistaken this black or the other silver, whack the corner in front of me on 3 wheels!
7.00pm. Track closed.
These 2 supercars came without knowing that the track closed at 7.00pm today. And I never thought that, 7 days after at Nurburgring, I got the opportunity to drive one of this LP570-4, in white, at Sant Agata Bologse, Italy.
This is the restaurant I was talking about, with nice Germans inside. :-)
Rather nice though. For the price, we prefer spaghetti only. hehe. I don't remember which one is mine.
Last but not least, if you ever come to Nurburgring, I strongly recommend this for your accomandation! The owner was super friendly, she greeted everyone of us at the door, spoke good english, talk and hand gesture like Mr.Bean. And how bout the room? Amazing. Like new! Clean. And at night, it's total silent out there, the kind of silentness u can't find anywhere in KL.
One more thing, the breakfast included was heavenly fresh and nice! I never had so many types of amazing fresh and good meat before. And I thought it's from her farm, but it's not.
You can find this Pension/Hotel in Booking.com. At only 30 EURO/night, best bang for buck and it's only 2.5km from the track.
Has a nice living room you can use too.
The superb scenery around was an eye opening experience as well for a kampung boy like me. Had a nice morning walk before breakfast.
So, that's all for now. At the next day, I visited the modern version of Nurburgring track, its info center, exhibition hall, merchandise shop(spent few hundred there), and racing simulator hall. There's also a Nurburgring theme park and museum but have to rush off down to Munich already, 6 hours journey via Autobahn, the famous highway that has no speed limit(certain stretch). We were doing 200km/h on the middle lane and yet, those on the fast lane passed us like piece of cake.
There were “spyshots” of some of the cars blasting down the track, shot at the same place as other spyshot photographers. Cool!
If I have the time(expecting during the CNY break), I'll share with you my visit at Lamborghini HQ at Sant Agata Bologse, Ferrari HQ at Maranello as well as my experience of pushing a Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 to over 200km/h at the birth place of the raging bull.
Feel free to drop me a PM if you have any question. I'll try my best to answer. There are still many many info to share, but this is as much as I could provide with the free time I have.
Happy New Year and Chinese New Year to everyone!
May all your motorsports dream comes true!
So the car I'll be driving down the track is a huge + heavy + comfy 2.2 Diesel Turbo Powered Opel Insignia Wagon. Hehehe. Below tells you my experience.
The track will be opened to public by 5.30pm so I took the time to get myself familiarize to the left hand drive and driving on the right lane. Wanna know how is it like driving a left hand drive for the first time? My left hand keep banging the left door! Hahaha. Another problem, I was too close to the edge of the right lane.
So practice done, when I got back to the parking lot, the track is finally opened and cars seen moving towards the entry gate I've shown you earlier. I actually wanted to wait for all of them to go in first but my friend keep pursuing me to go in immediately, which turned out to be a really wrong decision.
I was very kelam kabut! As if right hand shifting is not making me nervous enough, my friend keep asking me where's my Ring card! So I stopped in the middle in between 2 gates to get the card out from my wallet and immediately the marshall came and shouted at me! T_T
That's my Ring Card yo! Loaded with one lap inside.
Past the gate, my heart was pounding quickly + feels like burning too. I believe you felt the same thing like this before.
And here's the shot! I don't know what does this corner named. Hahaha. If you noticed this was shot on the right seat, during my friend's lap, which is after my 1st lap.
Bear in mind that it is prohibited to take any photo and video in the track! So please don't tell the management that I posted the picture above. Hehe. I'm serious. But who wouldn't?! You are driving on the Green Hell that's everyone's dream! My advice is, do not reveal any image or video recording device as you are approaching the entrance, after you have past the gate, then you can safely take out your camera and basically no one will know – Everyone is busy navigating the corners. Hehehe
1st Lap,
I entered earlier and decided to go slow as this is my very maiden flight down the Ring. Hehehe. I stayed on the right and kept looking at my rear view mirror, and turn on the right signal whenever there's cars approaching from behind. I was doing like 80-90km/h only each corner. Hahaha. The car has got rather firm suspension though, not like a typical Toyota which always roll until your head sticking on the window.
2nd Lap,
Time to push it harder now! Sadly, the car started to understeer as soon as I'm into Turn 7! The tail just refuse to turn in with the front! The run off space around was obviously very limited as everyone knows and the barriers are less than few metres away from both side. So? For the sake of safety, my 2 passengers inside and the car, I decided that I'll just cruise until the end. Running on 3rd and 4th gear only thoughout the whole journey. I was really really bored to hell as this is the longest track in the world!
My lap time? According to the video, it was about 13minutes. =.=
Nevertheless, it was still a great experience to have driven in the Nurburgring. Honestly, it was my first time driving on a racing track as well. I've never driven in the Sepang track! Only a taxi ride in a stroked DC5. And I have a reason to drive on Nurburgring again, next time would be with a rented track car!
By now you must be curious whether Gran Turismo really reflect the real Nurburgring Nordschleife??? Hmm... Erm... Err... Let me think... Let me recall that again... and the answer is...
Yes. Indeed! It was accurately replicated! Except there's one straight which I think is shorter than in the simulator, and everything else in front of me look more squary and bigger, this could be due to all the widescreen TV we have at home. Haha.
Another thing is, Nurburgring also famous for it's inconsistent gradient and bumpy ride right? In my experience, it was not. It was comfy and smooth, which I believe it's due to the car's suspension setup for comfortability. Even the continous 6 hours journey on the Autobahn was awesomely smooth and not tiring at all in this Opel Insignia Wagon. But the highway of our country? An hour is enough to exhaust us.
Driving mission accomplished. Now, to walk around taking pics of cars around.
The number plate were blurred due to the insurance policy and warranty thingy which if the insurance company discovered that the insured car been driven in the track, the coverage would be voided. Anyway, the Germans were really nice and friendly!
Somebody rented this.
Driving Academy in an Aston Martin yo!
R34 man! in Germany!
You have image of how the entrance looks like now?
What car is this?
All 4 rented. Good news for you, they are RIGHT HAND DRIVE! and none of this ever had an accident, according to the company.
It's a Merc C Class. Crazy driver! If not mistaken this black or the other silver, whack the corner in front of me on 3 wheels!
7.00pm. Track closed.
These 2 supercars came without knowing that the track closed at 7.00pm today. And I never thought that, 7 days after at Nurburgring, I got the opportunity to drive one of this LP570-4, in white, at Sant Agata Bologse, Italy.
This is the restaurant I was talking about, with nice Germans inside. :-)
Rather nice though. For the price, we prefer spaghetti only. hehe. I don't remember which one is mine.
Last but not least, if you ever come to Nurburgring, I strongly recommend this for your accomandation! The owner was super friendly, she greeted everyone of us at the door, spoke good english, talk and hand gesture like Mr.Bean. And how bout the room? Amazing. Like new! Clean. And at night, it's total silent out there, the kind of silentness u can't find anywhere in KL.
One more thing, the breakfast included was heavenly fresh and nice! I never had so many types of amazing fresh and good meat before. And I thought it's from her farm, but it's not.
You can find this Pension/Hotel in Booking.com. At only 30 EURO/night, best bang for buck and it's only 2.5km from the track.
Has a nice living room you can use too.
The superb scenery around was an eye opening experience as well for a kampung boy like me. Had a nice morning walk before breakfast.
So, that's all for now. At the next day, I visited the modern version of Nurburgring track, its info center, exhibition hall, merchandise shop(spent few hundred there), and racing simulator hall. There's also a Nurburgring theme park and museum but have to rush off down to Munich already, 6 hours journey via Autobahn, the famous highway that has no speed limit(certain stretch). We were doing 200km/h on the middle lane and yet, those on the fast lane passed us like piece of cake.
There were “spyshots” of some of the cars blasting down the track, shot at the same place as other spyshot photographers. Cool!
If I have the time(expecting during the CNY break), I'll share with you my visit at Lamborghini HQ at Sant Agata Bologse, Ferrari HQ at Maranello as well as my experience of pushing a Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 to over 200km/h at the birth place of the raging bull.
Feel free to drop me a PM if you have any question. I'll try my best to answer. There are still many many info to share, but this is as much as I could provide with the free time I have.
Happy New Year and Chinese New Year to everyone!
May all your motorsports dream comes true!
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