Advice for driving the 'ring in an 09 318?

[///MYSLOW1]

I'm in Germany on business for 2 weeks, so I am headed out to the 'ring tomorrow morning to get in 5 or 6 laps.

Any advice from anyone that has driven the course before? Any good videos I should watch before I go? Where do I buy the lap tickets?

My rental is a 318 with a 6 speed. It's pretty slow, but fun to drive :)

[Defeater]

Don't crash. You can do this by mostly not trying to break any records; just take it easy until your confidence level goes up.

[Kevlar]

http://www.nurburgring.org.uk/

Watch out for rental car company spies... supposedly they don't like it when you track your rental car. ( See the link about 'car hire' ) on the page above.

[DrewDude320i]

How much experience do you have on other tracks? Have you done high performance driver training before?

I would suggest watching hours and hours of videos of the track, and playing it on gran turismo 4 - there are a so many turns that it's hard to remember all of them, and that can put you in a disaster situation if you enter a turn wrong. It's not a very forgiving track.

[Kredithai]

Take your time in the Hatzenbach complex. Take the high side of the karussell if you don't want to go fast round that corner. Be very careful in Adenauer Forst.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj-2PUUSYSg
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj-2PUUSYSg)

[gregmm6]

Drive fast, stay out of the way, don't crash. Have fun.

[jettore]

Maybe you can hire someone there to ride along that knows the track. That's what I would try to do.

[RocketJohn]

You buy the lap tickets at the lil' building to the right of the public entry gates.

Your rental car will have plenty of power to tour the ring, just keep right and stay out of the way... I'd recommend you don't take the rental car on the ring and rent one of the prepped cars onsite from the differnet vendors, much more expensive but much safer and more fun.

[Long6]

When a fast car tries to overtake remember that going right is not always a good idea.
Many drivers have race lines on their mind and you may find yourself with a 911 stuck on your side.
Do not hesitate to use the tun signals to show your intentions when a faster car approaches, it will give the other driver enought time to react and you will not spoil his time ( a lot).

5 laps are not an option in this car.

And for gods sake live the traction ON.

[Kris88]

Have you checked if the track is even open? Also, don't crash :shifty

[s38junkie]

Some great advise on this thread. I would strongly encourage you to pursue other rental options that endorse driving on the Ring, or you may be out a lot of money! My experience with this company was nothing short of fantastic:

http://www.rent-racecar.de/gb/

Prior to showing up, I spent a LOT of time logging laps on GT4 PS2. While it doesn't really help you understand the limits of the car, it definitely helps you with frame of reference on the track. It is very easy to confuse corners / lines and entry / exit speeds since there are so many of them and 12+ miles of track demands careful attention to location.

Here are some videos my wife and I took during our time their last April:

http://www.vimeo.com/s38junkie/videos

Feel free to PM me with any other questions.

[Sicnessk4]

Nice videos!

i would definatly suggest going around it with a instructor first.

[MIMI1]

have you played ps2? gran turismo

get the layout worked out after a few laps of slower driving because if you mis-judge a corner for another the least of your worries will be the armco at 90 Euro a meter per 1 section

do the math 3 on average in a section each come in 4 meter parts
270 x 3

you get the idea

i was there a few weeks ago rented an alfa from rsr nurburg had a blast

[BradR127]

Here ya go... This was just posted on another thread:

http://www.bmwusa.com/Standard/Content/Experience/Gallery/MediaGalleryVideos.aspx?videoguid=00a8ed0b-b405-4ec4-a5e0-536735670143 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BCrburgring)


have you played ps2? gran turismo

+1 on Gran Turismo. The tracks are great (and supposedly extremely accurate) re-creations.

[MIMI1]

+1 on Gran Turismo. The tracks are great (and supposedly extremely accurate) re-creations.

Keep in mind its just for the layout and turn reference.

When you get there, there are other factors such as immense drops and bumps which will send you places at high speed. Your brain will have trouble coping with some of the negative and positive Gs from elevation change.