I have owned my wagon since December (28th, I believe) of 2008. Since that time I have driven over 40,000 miles, mostly within Washington state (or just into Oregon or BC). About half of that has been commuting to work. Thankfully the new job is a bit closer, and I will likely be riding the bus and/or working from home more often, so the car won’t be seeing as much wear and tear as time goes on. My manufacturer warranty expired when the car passed 36,000 miles (that happened about 13 months after buying the car). I’m now on an extended warranty which appears to be very good, but I hope I never have to use it.

Anyway, I do have a few things planned for this summer, including a drive to the Spokane area for a big car cruise in the first part of May, and a group drive to Las Vegas in June for a car show there.

In the mean time, here’s one photo I took in February while driving around the Snohomish River Valley:

I missed my car quite a bit by the time the 10 days had passed. I also severely missed the mountains and the water. There are few places in the world like the Pacific Northwest. I can’t wait to go for a drive (yes, more driving) around this area again.

Coke tastes different. HFCS…

I’ll try to work on the photos and reports from Friday through Monday over the next few days so I can get them posted here.

the day after the ring:

I got to bed late Wednesday night (about 2am) after offloading the days photos and working out my route for the rest of my trip in Germany. I woke up as late as possible the next morning. I checked out of the hotel just in time and then sat in my car figuring out where I was going to drive that day, and figuring out where the Ring Werk was so I could pick up a couple souvenirs. Sadly a thick fog had rolled in late Wednesday night and had settled quite heavily by Thursday morning. I gave up on taking photos of the various test centers around the ring (Nissan, GM, and BMW all have large test centers) and drove straight into town to pick up some goodies.

The Ring Werk area. This is all new construction as part of the “Nürburgring 2009″ project, near the Grand Prix circuit.

a large recreation/model of the Nürburgring in the Nissan area

an RS4

no idea what this is..

Aston Martin store

huge video screen inside the building

This place oozes BMW..

inside the souvenir shop

After taking photos of all the cool things along the way, I picked up a Nürburgring shirt and a few ring stickers for my cars at a home. It was so foggy I actually used my rental’s rear fog light, and had a hard time seeing the buildings when looking for a place to park.

I got out of town really quite late, after noon, and started on my way toward Stuttgart. I was hoping to make it to Stuttgart in time to stop at the Porsche Museum before driving on toward the Austrian border further south. However my body had different plans for me as I ended up feeling very tired while driving on the Autobahn. I ended up having to pull off into a Parkplatz and catch some rest in my car. I slept a couple hours and missed the closing time of the Porsche Museum.

in between Nürburg and Stuttgart.. everything is old here, including the mountains

I ended up staying in another hostel on Thursday night, having driven only a couple hundred kilometers that day. It felt like a complete waste. I checked into my room (single room this time) and immediately settled down to work on my photos from the previous day. This took me about four hours to complete. I got my photos online and went to bed.

the first Z1 I’ve ever seen..

I made my way back into town and stopped by Pistenklause once more for a quick meal. I grabbed my tripod along the way and took several night photos of all the cars parked along the roads. Once inside the restaurant I ended up being seated in the same area as the previous night, next to the same British guy I had met earlier. So we talked more about our experiences that day before heading back to our hotels for the night.

the photos from around town on my way down to Pistenklause

Burgstube

another small hotel with a few cars

another popular hotel & restaurant, with all of the Ring Runners of Sweden cars parked outside

down the hill to Pistenklause

looking toward the newer part of town… the BMW Test Center is first large “blue” building

outside Pistenklause

Oh, and this thing flew into my head while I was packing things on Wednesday night in my room. It took me a while to kill it.. it’s huge! (the coin is roughly the size of a quarter)

and some awesome snacks given to me by the dutchman

The three guys I’d known from Finalgear showed up during the 9 o’clock hour: one from The Netherlands and two from Germany. All had driven the ring at least once before, and had been in Nürburg multiple times. We all watched the cars enter and exit the course for a while, catching a glimpse of a Gumpert Apollo… the actual car to have broken the ring lap record for a street car, and the Top Gear track record as well. You quickly grow numb to the huge number of 911’s around you. The parking lot is simply full of them. You start to pay more attention to the more rare cars around.. such as right-hand drive Integra Type-R’s, 190E 2.5l 16v Evolution’s, and Ferrari’s. There were a few very nice examples of older VW’s as well, including a couple mk2 Scirocco’s and mk2 GTI’s. Of course there were a couple mk5 GTI’s, but I don’t remember seeing any mk4’s at all. There was also a new Scirocco or two, along with the rented ring tools that included new GTI’s and Scirocco’s.

I believe this is the first RS4 Avant I’ve seen

I’m told the Polize like to show up and check whether modifications on cars are legal or not

the Gumpert Apollo.. there was a red one as well, but I failed to get any photos of it

quite a few of these were around that day

very clean looking gti

I’ve no idea why this French car was pulled off to the side of the course..

the r8 v10

We all drove to one of the turns on the track that’s easily accessible to watch the cars drive by, nearly crash, and take photos. Remember, this course is about 21km in length and takes around 8 – 11 minutes for most cars to finish one lap. That’s part of what makes it so special, and a mecca for car & motorsports enthusiasts around the world. The ring has a few towns inside, and you drive across a couple bridges that cross normal country roads. You are literally racing through the country side, on what is a restricted access, one way, toll road, with no speed limit. You still must have a completley road legal car, technically you can’t follow to close, and you’re supposed to pass on the left (most people do). There are actually speed limits imposed in two places as well. One is at the Adenau bridge where a second track entrance is. This is mostly used for annual ring pass holders and for emergency vehicles. The other speed limit is at the end of the course, on the famously super long straight, where you have to eventually slow down to 50kph so you can safely re-enter the toll area.

I’m not going to post all of the photos I have online from the track, so check out the link here: http://www.fakelag.net/users/v…/ring/

Here’s a few of the more interesting photos from the first corner we visited:

this thing sounded like a Honda :sly:

the v10 r8

I thought these Opel’s were quite good looking

there were two of these Seat’s on course Wednesday

this was trailered in, towed by a diesel mk4 wagon

one of a few GT-R’s there

just a scirocco in the parking lot

I was told these were some sort of military police

After quickly making a run back into Nürburg to verify with RSR that I would have my car for the afternoon, we all drove out to the Adenau bridge area to watch the cars go through one of the slowest corners before speeding down across the bridge (lowest spot on the track) and climbing back uphill on the other side. We had an awesome sweeping view of the countryside, and of this part of the track.

the bridge is to the right, and Adenau is the town you can see in the photo

this is the track’s second entrance, used mostly by emergency vehicles and annual ticket holders. Note the “///” sign (“unrestricted”).

Here’s the 50kph sign before the entrance.. most people don’t really follow it, though this is a relatively slow portion of the track.

“one way”

this was near the entrance.. no idea what it’s supposed to be

graffiti under the Adenau Bridge

heading back up the hill from the bridge

down the hill toward the bridge

popular viewpoint

the three guys from finalgear

an ADAC emergency helicopter.. we did see a rider arrive who had wrecked earlier, so this may have been for him

A little later we all had to return to Nürburg once again so I could pick up my ring tool rental. I was given a quick briefing on the car and the track. I was basically told to keep the traction control on, try to stay out of 2nd gear once you get going (the car has some quite a bit of lift-off oversteer), and to watch out for the Adenau Forest turns (everyone warns you about this). The car, I was told by several people, is a great car for first-timers. It’s a small front wheel drive hatchback, with an NA 4-cylinder making 200hp and revving past 7k RPM’s. It actually oversteers slightly, when pushed through the corners, before the tracktion control kicks in and brakes one of the wheels to straighten the car out. The car is pretty odd inside, with switches and knobs in places you wouldn’t expect. The turn signal stock is a small lever rather than the traditional longer stalk.

I quickly got used to it though, noticed the heavy clutch, and drove off toward the entrance (heart beating quickly, of course).

As you pass the toll booth, where you swipe your proximity debit card (“ring card”) to get through, you follow some cones for the first few hundred meters before being guided through a sharp chicane and then being set free. I slowly navigated through the first corners, mostly sticking to the far right so everyone else could pass. One piece of advice I kept in mind the entire day was “the limit is not your skill or your car, but your knowledge of the track”. I reminded myself of this as much as possible throughout the afternoon, keeping myself from gaining too much confidence. This is not a track you want to feel confident on until you have 25+ laps driven, and probably closer to 100 laps completed. I went through the corners at a modest pace, but quickly relaized how fast the car really was. I was told by one of the guys at RSR that it can do 8.5 minutes around the ring. I was probably going to be lucky to get under 11 minutes.

I quickly returned for my second lap, with the tires (P-Zero Nero’s) and brakes starting to warm up nicely. The car really accelerates nicely after about 4k, and easily keeps up with most of the cars on the ring. I’ll say right now that I walked away at the end of the day very impressed with the car. I would have to seriously consider it if I lived in Europe. I took some corners on the second lap way too quickly and made use of the traction control and ABS quite a bit. The third lap I settled down quite a bit and started to recognize a couple corners… and started to have more fun.

I returned to RSR to check in with them, look over the car a bit, and to let the engine cool down. Ten minutes later I was headed back to the ring for my fourth lap, which was awesome. I fell in behind an older 911 and in front of an E30 for most of the lap. They were about as quick as I was, but seemed to know the lines a little better. I was able to follow and keep up nicely, and this very quickly schooled me on running the course better.

The fourth and fifth laps were done in succession. I again took a couple corners too quickly in the fourth lap, making heavy use of the TC and very nicely saved me from hitting anything. The fifth lap had me pass my first yellow flag and accident. I passed by another RSR owned Clio Sport first, which was sitting on the side of the track. It turns out they had hit the barrier and damaged the car enough to cost them a significant amount of money. After passing the downed Clio I passed by a GT3 RS, driven by someone from the Ring Runners of Sweden group, with both the front and the rear quite damaged and the car turned around on the side of the track. This group, made up mostly of 911’s, had been travelling around the ring in groups all day, causing others to have to slow down quite a bit in order to let 5+ cars pass at the same time. I can’t exactly say that they were driving very safely at times either. The track was closed due to this accident (gravel and car parts everywhere), so I drove back to RSR, disappointed that I had had a great lap and was just starting to get heat back into the tires.

some photos from around RSR

the other Clio that was damaged

this Frenchman had his Porsche damaged on the course. RSR helped pull the body work out enough so he could at least get the car home

While back at RSR I started talking with another guy who was renting one of their unlimited kilometer Alfa 75’s for the day. It turns out he lives in Portland and was in Europe for a couple weeks like me. We talked for a bit about the Northwest and about our experience on the ring so far. He ended up doing 16 laps that day (the normal recommendation is for newbs to stop by about their tenth lap, as they’re usually starting to lose their concentration), and he didn’t have the luxuries of ABS or TC like I did in my car.

The track opened about 45 minutes later and I made my way out for the sixth lap. Surprise! It closed again right as I was finishing the lap. My package included six laps total, but I added one more on because I just wasn’t ready to be done yet. It wasn’t my best lap, but I was really starting to recognize the corners where I knew I could go fast and the corners where I had to brake more. I had my line down pretty well through the Adenau Forest as well.

After this closure passed I went out for my seventh, and final, lap. It turns out the track was closed again shortly after I started my lap, so I was able to keep it quite clean since few cars were behind me. This was my best lap by far. I can’t easily describe the feeling, or how well I did either, since I had no camera or way to time the lap. But I passed a few cars, didn’t have to use TC at all, used ABS only a couple times, and ended up with a fairly good line for most of the course. It was an awesome way to end the day, so I thought.

the track is often closed to bikes when there is any fluid on the track

the area of the course in between where cars exit and enter is closed during tourist sessions, so these guys were using the closed part of the pavement to film an R8 driving in a straight line, for some reason

I pulled back into RSR and worked on breathing normally and calming down from my amazing day. I drove back to the track entrance to meet back up with the guys from Finalgear. I arrived to find out that if I hurried I may have a chance to ride with race driver Tim Schrick in a Renault Migane R26R (fast car.. twitchy… weird looking, etc.). They were giving free rides around the ring for those in the know (this wasn’t widely publicized). Also there was Jörge van Ommen, a former DTM driver, driving a standard 911 (996) Carrera. I ended up getting my ride around the track with him. I had never ridden in a 911 before, let alone around a road course driven by a professional race driver.

Jörge, standing behind the 911 I rode in

Tim Schrick, about to scare a German kid who wanted a ride in the Migane

Simply put, I was amazed by the 911. The engine is a little underpowered compared with the faster cars on the track (we were passed by one car.. a new M3), but the car is perfectly sorted, on stock tires and suspension. He was able to take corners and hop over the curbs without unsettling the car one bit. The car had worn brakes and tires, if that matters. I was impressed none-the-less, and it was a perfect way to end the day!

The four of us hung out at the diner near the entrance for a while before parting ways, well after dark.

Tuesday morning I left the hostel in Kassel and made my way toward Nürburg.

On my way out of Kassel..

I got a late start out of town and got a bit lost while looking for a couple places my friend in Darmstadt had suggested. After driving through Fritzler, which I’m sure had some nice sights had I had time to stop, I ended up in Gudensburg. It doesn’t seem well publicized, but somewhere in town is a hill with an old castle site at the top. I found a place to park near the hill and found the path around the hill that eventually leads you to the top. The path led me to some super skinny side streets with some great views as well.

I believe someone is buried here?

The castle appears to have had its outer walls rebuilt so you can see where it was, but it is still amazing to stand where people stood inside a castle in the 1100s, overlooking the town below.

first view as I climbed up..

top of the hill, inside the walls

views from the top

I had tried to take shots for a panorama, but they didn’t work out like I’d hoped.

looking toward the entrance

castle’s timeline

a 190e Evolution at the bottom of the hill

I spent a couple hours walking up, taking in the view, and then hiking back down. I then made my way toward Edertal, where I was told there was an old hydroelectric dam (circa early 1900s). I couldn’t find it.. I drove down the wrong roads several times and eventually found one of the lakes from the dam, along with some Burg at the top of the hill nearby so I took a few photos and headed back toward the Autobahn.

on the way..

This was some town southwest of the Edertal area, where I had taken the wrong road. The buildings were cool enough I took a shot before I turned around.

near the dam, I think

saw this guy doing 20kph up a hill…

Afterward I kind of rushed my way toward Nürburg. The ring had a tourist session from 1730 – 2000 (if I remember correctly) and I wanted to make it in time to check into my hotel, shower, and then watch the cars. I got lost a few times along the way, but at least the country side is nice.

Heading toward Adenau

I arrived late (about 1830) and ended up catching just the last hour or so of the session that night. I simply stood by the entrance to the track and watched the cars roll by, enviously. The sounds echoing through the hills from the cars as they started (the course is so huge the exhaust notes quickly dissipate) made beautiful music.

Before doing anything I immediately stopped by RSR Nurburg, which has their garage just a few hundred meters up the hill from the track entrance. I had tried to email them a few times over the last couple of months with no reply, sadly. When I showed up I found out they essentially had all of their ring tools (cars prepped and ready for the ring) rented out for the Wednesday session. They did have one car (a Renault Clio 197 Sport) available for the afternoon session (“half day” rental. I had been hoping for a full day.), provided the morning driver didn’t wreck the car. So we decided that I should show up at noon on Wednesday to verify the car had made it safely through the morning and to show them that I was definitely interested in driving the car.

Afterward I checked into my hotel quickly before going to watch the cars. I was staying at Burgstube for two nights… the next day was scheduled for a full day tourist driving session. The hotel has about 10 rooms and is about the size of a large house, sitting at the top of the hill in Nürburg, overlooking the valley down toward the entrance to the course, and overlooking the newer part of Nürburg where the BMW test center is, and where the Grand Prix course, Ring Werk, and the “Nürburgring 2009″ construction is (they’re building a rollercoaster and other silly tourist attractions, but they also have a new building with several racing organizations and manufacturers showing off their cars, and selling souvenirs (there’s a Ferrari Store, for example)). The hotel room was small.. just enough room for a bed, a chair, and end table, and floor space to walk around. A nice bathroom was attached. To get to the room I had to walk up a steep set of metal stairs, but that’s about the only negative. Paying 90 Euros for two nights (including breakfast), was a steal, in my opinion. It’s a relatively short walk, or drive, down the hill either to the GP area or the tourist session entrance.

the tourist entrance at the ring

the diner… supposed to be like an American diner I think

the toll area to get onto the track.. You use a sort of debit card with an RFID chip they call the ‘ring card’

there are two parking lots on the property near the entrance, along with a much larger grass & gravel area across the street

After taking a few photos on Tuesday night and watching in awe as the number of Porsche 911 GT3’s I saw, let alone GT3 RS’s easily surpassed 20. I went looking for dinner. At the suggestion of the guy running the hotel (Martin) I walked down the hill and to Pistonklaus Ristorante, which is owned by Sabine Schmitz’ parents. They also own a hotel, among other things, which is attached to the restaurant. The streets surrounding the hotel and restaurant were filled cars I almost never see otherwise, including a GT-R, a couple GT3 RS’s, other GT3’s, a GT2, a few 911 Turbo’s, an Audi R8 V10, a Z4 M Coupe, a few M3’s (all generations being present), and an F430. Up the hill at another restaurant and hotel was the main part of the “Ring Runners of Sweden” group, which was mostly made up of 911’s, but also had a Lamborghini, Ferrari F430, some fast Mini’s, 135i, and so on. I’ll come back to this group later.

I walked into the Pistonklaus, which happened to be very loud, having no real idea what sort of food they sold. My goal in being there was mostly to hang out with other people who were driving the ring, and to soak up the environment. I ended up being seated at the back of the restaurant, which has large windows facing the back street where most of the cars were parked. Every time a car drove by everyone turned to see what it was. After waiting a bit (they were quite busy, as you can imagine) another guy was seated at the table next to mine. As I went to order my food in English he asked me if I was from the UK. I told him I was American and the conversation started. He was from England and had just driven over in his Z4 M Coupe. He’d driven one lap that night… his first time on the track. We ended up talking all evening. Surprisingly enough the guy who was later seated on the other side of Brit’s table was an Aussie who was living in the UK and had also just driven over (or ridden, on his bike) and was hoping to spend some time on the GP course on Wednesday. So all three of us talked until about 11:30 that night. I then walked back up the hill to my hotel and crashed.

I’m parked in a Parkplatz back in Germany now while traffic moves slowly on the A8 behind me. I’m on my way toward Wolfsburg tonight, where I’ll post another update.. the big one from Nürburg.. if I have time.

I drove the car around quite a bit later today with two other people in the car. It sounded like it was working quite hard at 130+ kph, and the fuel consumption suffered, but I still averaged about 6.5l/100km with mostly highway driving… not too bad. It’s about the same as my wagon at home in these conditions. I had just hoped for a diesel car here so my consumption would be even lower on my long drives I have planned. Diesel is about EUR 1.09/L here, and gas is about EUR 1.30/L or so. It’s a big enough difference that driving a gas car will cost me more than I would have liked.

I really wish I could have my car here. It would be so much more fun to drive, get similar mileage, and still be cheaper to fill up. That said, this one isn’t bad. I have already forgotten several times that I’m driving a mk6 though because it looks and feels, inside, just like a mk5. It’s definitely a mk5.5 to me.

I love seeing all the European cars. Seeing Mercedes and Audi’s pass me on the Autobahn in the unrestricted areas is a truly religious experience… wow.

We went to ‘Worms’ today… south/southwest of Frankfurt am Main. It has a huge cathedral that was built in the 1200s (I believe), on top of where an older church used to be. It’s so old that it has been upgraded/rebuilt in different architectural periods. It’s quite amazing to see a building so old that it has never really been “done” being built or worked on. I took several photos of this church in & out, so I’ll post those later. We walked around the town center a bit, had some ice cream, which was interesting. It was more like gourmet ice cream compared to what we usually have in the US.

We then wandered east and north a bit through the countryside.. meandering through some small towns into the hills. I was extremely beautiful and the roads were awesome (though not very wide, and without lane markings, so it’s impossible to really “enjoy” them).

I have quickly realized that due to the construction and ’stau’ areas the speed limit changes quite a bit on the autobahn. It’s almost impossible to keep a consistent speed. You can go from unrestricted to 100, to 80, and then to 60 kph all in about 300 meters, and then 500 meters later you go straight back to unrestricted.

Today is Sunday. Almost all stores are closed. So to buy a coke I had to go to on of the rest stops on the autobahn. The cost of the .5L bottles were about 1.80 EUR.. a liter was nearly 3 EUR. That’s insane. After seeing this I will definitely need to go to a supermarket and pick up a pack of .5L or so bottles and stay away from the filling stations.

As a lot of people know, the Fanta drinks here are not the same as “Fanta” in the US. It tastes better here for sure. They also have “Mezzo Mix”, which is cola mixed with fanta orange. It’s quite good and I wish they sold it in the US. I also am really enjoying having fresh non-HFCS Coke. We can get this in the form of “Mexican Coke” in the US, but it’s usually a little older since it has taken time to arrive from Mexico.

It’s now about 8pm here and I’m trying to decide whether I want to stay another night with the friend in Darmstadt and then head out in the morning (I’ll have about 1.5 days to get to Nürburg), or whether I should head out tonight so I can have a little more time to drive and see things. I think I just decide as I’m typing this though. Staying here tonight saves me some money, and I definitely need to save money where I can on my daily costs (food, overnight, and fuel). So I suppose I’ll start out early tomorrow morning and drive northeast of Frankfurt before looping back west toward Köln and then back down along the Rhein before getting to Nürburg Tuesday evening.

So at this point I’m not really sure where I’m going to stay while at the ring. I had wanted to stay nearby so I could experience some of the atmosphere from the people and the cars that had traveled to the Eifel Mountains to experience motoring bliss. Now I may just settle for experiencing the Green Hell. I doubt I’ll complain too much

In the mean time, I’m just finishing up a few last pre-trip issues, working on a packing list, and counting down the days until the plane takes off. Ten days to go!

click the image for more photos.