Tourist track days are huge at the Nurburgring. You just come with you Sunday best tire set, pay the very seasonable €27 per lap fee and do motorsport. If you're a hardcore fan, you can even get an annual subscription for €1,650.
Thousands of people come every week, but the sad reality of it all is that some of them crash… badly. Here's an example of a crash video, taken only yesterday (May 1st). A Golf GTI driver makes a mistake, coming in too fast. He goes onto the grass and crashes head-on into the barrier. This sends the hot hatch flying through the air.
It's a terrible looking crash to have in a car that's two generations old and not equipped with all the airbags modern Golfs get. However, both the driver and his passenger are fine.
While racing on the Nurburgring is cheap, crashing isn't. Besides the damage to his car, which hopefully in ensured, there are a number of other expenses.
For example, if the Armco safety truck comes out, that's €150, followed by €10 per square meter of debris that needs to be cleared. Since this GTI is totaled, a recovery truck is needed, which is another €250. The damage to the track barrier is also a cost the "crashee" needs to take care of.
Worth it? Yeah, but only if you live to tell the story to your grandkids.
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
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