Just thought I'd post up a short, okay it will probably be a long thread due to the fact I waffle a lot.
I've been back a week now and have finally managed to compress some video's as they were 1.5g long (I took that long to get round the Ring).
Story goes like this:
Friday 20th August leave Birmingham for Harwich to catch the 11:45pm boat. No hickups and all goes well, board the new ferry which was very clean and cabin facilities were superb! Ferry cost £220 return with sleeping arrangements on the way out. Had a couple of drinks then bed!! (Only to be woken dead early in the morning by the Dutch lady over the tannoy speaker which was directly over my head)!!
Landed at Rotterdam to drive to Amsterdam - pitched tent with no hickups (pop up tent) and headed into the centre for a cup of coffee at the "coffee shop" Had a few drinks - bit of light shopping for dinner tonight and purchase a number of spirits for the Spag Bol that would be cooked by my cullinary hands!! (Yeah Right!!)
Next day again a nice sunny day more "Coffee" and then drinks in the evening at Newmarkt. A little word of warning anyone who has been to Amsterdam before will of course know that drinks can be pricey!! Well, this is probably my 6th or 7th time and I've never paid £7 for a pint there ever!! So that's the end of Amsterdam from my European tours!! Not only did we get stung once, but twice!!
During the night it rained like no tomorrow - where my mate in his single skin pop up tent was leaning out of his tent in the pouring rain with 2" of water inside his tent Sorry I had to laugh as he was actually holding an umbrella inside the tent it was leaking that much!! That will teach him to get a single later tent! But then my lesson of experience is to bring an airbed - WITH THE BUNGS!! We slept on an airbed which would slowly deflate throughout the night - very uncomfortable!!
Packed up in the rain/muddy field and attempted to put away my pop up tent. My mates tent folded no problem, but as my tent was slightly larger had to be folded in a different manner. Lets just say the tent never made it back into the tent bag again that holiday!! Further advice, if you fancy a pop up tent, just throw it away when your done with it on your trip/holiday - I could have spent 3 days trying to get it back in the bag.
Monday 23rd August today we are heading to the Nurburgring This is my first ever time to the ring, not only that my first ever track day!!
I had prepped my car with the relevant modifications over the last 6 months, which included performance and lightened body parts. I even retired my spare wheel for the trip (a little tip - if you need more space in your boot - remove the spare wheel it came in very hand for loading things like car cleaning bits, dirty clothes and various non important items). There was only 2 purchases that I made which did not quite make it on the car (Hel Braided lines and Motul brake fluid) - I had installed my Performance Friction pads. So we head to the Ring - a good few moments on the various Autobhans to give it some stick - although we wanted to save our spirited driving for the track.
We arrive at the empty campsite which was a stones throw from the track. Setup camp and washed the car ready for our drive of 4 laps the next afternoon. So with the afternoon free my mate decided to purchase a gazebo to stand over his single layer tent if it were to rain, and I headed out to find a new airbed!!
So the gazebo was up, and my and the other half had purchased two kiddies lilo things, one red and one yellow for sleeping on!! They took an age to blow up and were again very uncomfortable and narrow!!
So the inorgral day - the RING!! We head out to the track only to be met by an unhealthy amount of Porsche's and Beemers. There was a brand new Morgan can't tell which it was, although someone might confirm.
I prep the £10 camera's I have 3 but only 2 were working. So I have one on the grill and the second on the dash. Both give totally different perspectives. My mate who drives the Civic Type R was absoloutly bricking it! He had to visit the loo at least twice before getting on the track. I was a little nervous, but nothing worth worrying about. We'd purchased our 4 laps with a view to drive all 4 on the one session. Our first lap was taken very easy and we achived 13 minutes. Our second lap which we found was littered with Porsches once more who thought they were invisible decided to stack their cars into the barrier. A total of 4 crashed on lap 2 with 4 bikes and 2 Porsches! So by now we've experienced what the Ring is all about. My 2nd lap was around 11 and a half minutes, which I was quite pleased with. Although I wanted to get to 10 mins!! I also found that my car was running great around the track with my other half who was crapping herself the entire time!! There was one slight problem - by the time I'd done half the lap my brakes were only performing to 40% of their ability - I have put this down to my OEM brake lines and fluid of which suffered badly due to my tentative drive - due to the fact I was braking at every crest and of course every corner! A lesson to be learnt there I think.
We planned to leave the next morning for Chamonix and Mont Blanc, although we still had 2 laps left of the ring and with the track closed we had no alternative but to.......
Stay an extra day!!!
So we cleaned the cars again and prepared for day two!!
Below is a video of lap 3 with camera on the front grill. Please note as mentioned this is only my 3rd time on a track and was very cautious due to my lacking of brakes and my daft mate who wanted to tootle along the track! I think my time was just over 11 mins.
Here is lap 4 with camera positioned in the car - note - it rained for the first 1/4 of the track and so I was extra cautious.
So after using up 1 and a half bottles of NOS - wearing out my pads and melting my falken tyres I've got to say it's one of the most addictive and fantastic moments of my life. I have decided that I will return at least once a year.
Thursday 26th October We now head to Chamonx/Mont Blanc. Cutting a long story short now as you're probably getting bored. Journey time should have been 7 hours and we took 11. Sat nav chose to avoid toll roads and I never thought to check why it's taking so long. By now we are tired, fed up, used loads of petrol, although the view we got just 70km away from Chamonix made up for it, including the amazing twisty roads on route. Oh and my mate almost ran out of petrol on the way!!
We arrive at Chamonix around 11:30pm only to find the campsite is FULL. We decide to sleep in the car overnight. Not very comfy I must add sleeping in a ZED!!
We are woken early and head to the campsite as people have started to leave allowing us to stay. Oh guess what, it starts to rain again. My mate a little pee'd off says he's going to sleep in the car again as we will be leaving for Paris the next day.
So we head up to Mont Blanc to see the Glacier etc. Go shopping in town - purchase alcohol and food for the evening meal - which was a curry - although cooked on the campsite by yours truly!! (Yes it was a Balti mix bag thing).
So it rains through the night, cars are dirty again, backs are hurting and we are all pee'd off from the weather. Maybe Paris will have better weather.
Saturday 28th August We head onto the Toll roads this time (I gave the Satnav a right kick up the ar$e) only to find it would be a costly trip! A tank and a half later - 45 Euro's in toll costs, as well as service station food. P.S. I hate French arrogant drivers. We're doing 90 in the outside lane, Ford Kuga comes up my rear and I mean bumper to bumper with him flashing is outside indicater light. I'm not moving as there is my mate ahead of me and 4 other cars overtaking. I dab the brakes - he still persists with driving dangerously, now he's flashing his lights. So I move over - not that he'd make any further progress. He is now pi$$ing off my mate by doing the same. He moves over and once the traffic had cleared - I thought I'd show him who really is boss. I floored it whilst flashing my lights and waving nicely to move over!! He politely moved over and despite leaving my exhaust dust all over his white car - he proceeded to follow us for the next 200 miles!! Okay but this time he wasn't trying to get past us - and understood the fact our cars were far more powerfull than his!!
We arrive in Paris - with lovely weather and chose to pick a hotel as we were now fedup of camping. Looked around the sights of Paris - which I've done many a time - but thought it would be a good location for my mate.
Up the Eifel:
We went out on the final evening (Sunday) to have a curry. Nice place with live music (a bloke playing a sitar - or whatever they are called). We had finished dinner and paid when my mate said "On the QT - RAT!!" I said "WHAT" - he repeated - "on the QT - RAT!!" I said "RAT!" - "yes" he said. And there it was sat in the middle of the curry house twitching it's nose!! I couldn't believe it RAT!! Anyway, we couldn't get our money back, decided best to leave (Oh it's raining again!) and go back to the hotel - hoping that we weren't going to be ill from the curry house.
(now I'm getting bored of typing now).
So anyway, we head back to Rotterdam, get on the ferry, land at Harwich at 8:30pm for the drive home. I sent my mate down the M1 as it would be better located for him and I took the M40. I had a great drive home and was in the house for 11:30pm. My mate on the other hand didn't arive home till 1:30am as there were mega amounts of roadworks. Ooooops! He wasn't too pleased.
That was our trip!!! The car was amazing - spent well over £400 on fuel and thoroughly enjoyed the Ring. Hope you enjoyed my little (I mean long) story!
