The truth about the Nurburgring? Nobody actually gives a damn about it, once their laps are over. Throughout the last few years, the Green Hell has had some infernal times of its own and now it seems worse than ever. How does the introduction of chicanes to limit the speed sound? Before you start throwing rotten tomatoes at me, you should know this is one of the ‘Ring management’s proposals to make the track safer.
The Nurburgring’s Facebook page shows a little survey the officials have introduced. The Nordschleife is in trouble and its owners are expecting you to vote the best way to save it.
The poll, which was designed using a free online tool and seems to have taken no longer than 15 minutes to put together, has a few simple questions for us all. Basically, we are asked to choose between four main paths: Changing the track layout, Installing extra fences/crash barriers, enforcing speed limits or limiting the racecars that lap the ‘Ring.
I am kidding you not. While I see the protective elements update as the obvious choice here, the Russian billionaire who acquired the Nurburgring last year thinks it’s OK to also propose alternative methods.
Sure, let’s throw a chicane here, a speed limit there - let’s just scrap all the records set to far! I don’t even know what’s worse, that or forcing race machines to wear special Nordschleife kit (I’m quoting here).
Motorsport has such a poor audience these days, simply due to the lack of a proper show. While we’re at it, why not bring the speed down to, say, 130 km/h. You and me can do that on the highway, so racing drivers should be able to keep things under control.
Bespoke aero packs for the ‘Ring? When carmakers focus so much on what should be done exclusively to conquer the Nordschleife, we end up with street cars that have a rear seat delete, or a driver’s kidneys’ delete.
Sure, racecars and street vehicles are two different breeds, but it’s not like this bid to make the Nurburgring safer hasn’t affected the cars we drive on the street already. I’m talking about Koenigsegg here, which has been waiting for weeks now to set a ‘Ring record for its One:1.
The Swedish Megacar (1,341 HP/1,360 PS) may hold the world record for a production car 0-300-0 km/h task, but it simply can’t show us how fast it can go round the Green Hell. That’s because the track management has been enforcing more and more speed limits to keep the track safe and, as of last month, manufacturer Nurburgring records are impossible to set.
It all started back in late March, when a deadly VLN crash saw a Nissan GT-R NISMO racecar taking off, crash-landing through the protection fence and over a group of spectators.
A five-year-old would’ve realized that extra protection on the side of the track was required to keep racing from claiming lives. But here we are in July, with compromising speed limits and wondering if we should change the course of Nurburgring history altogether instead of using the obvious solution.
Well, as I said, the issue doesn’t just lie with the management of the ‘Ring. The problem is that carmakers and the public alone refuse to understand we all need the Nurburgring as handling-measuring tool, not a marketing gimmick or a Sunday morning car meet argument.
Let’s think about the 0 to 100 km/h sprint and the top speed for a moment. These two figures are far from offering us a complete view on a vehicle’s driving dynamics and yet the world needs them. Just like we need our Nurburgring lap times.
It seems that nobody wants to be fair in the relationship with the 20.8 kilometers (12.9 miles) of iconic German asphalt. Speaking of which, it’s curious how the recent history of the Nurburgring is comprised of cash-cow-milking management changes.
Sure, there will always be questionable characters willing to take advantage of poor financial situations, but where are the automakers? I’m talking about an initiative such as the one that currently sees Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and China’s Baidu search engine joining forces to buy navigation from Nokia to avoid Google dominance.
Remember those drivers who attend the public days and crash in the first bend or overtake on the right? If they used their time to do some performance driving research instead of keeping themselves busy with applying Nurburgring stickers before hitting the track, Touristenfahrten sessions wouldn’t have reached their current ridiculous risk level.
But such preparation would require common sense. And it seems nobody wants to put that in the same sentence with “Nurburgring”. Here, have some tragicomedy fun with the survey here.
The poll, which was designed using a free online tool and seems to have taken no longer than 15 minutes to put together, has a few simple questions for us all. Basically, we are asked to choose between four main paths: Changing the track layout, Installing extra fences/crash barriers, enforcing speed limits or limiting the racecars that lap the ‘Ring.
I am kidding you not. While I see the protective elements update as the obvious choice here, the Russian billionaire who acquired the Nurburgring last year thinks it’s OK to also propose alternative methods.
Sure, let’s throw a chicane here, a speed limit there - let’s just scrap all the records set to far! I don’t even know what’s worse, that or forcing race machines to wear special Nordschleife kit (I’m quoting here).
Motorsport has such a poor audience these days, simply due to the lack of a proper show. While we’re at it, why not bring the speed down to, say, 130 km/h. You and me can do that on the highway, so racing drivers should be able to keep things under control.
Bespoke aero packs for the ‘Ring? When carmakers focus so much on what should be done exclusively to conquer the Nordschleife, we end up with street cars that have a rear seat delete, or a driver’s kidneys’ delete.
Sure, racecars and street vehicles are two different breeds, but it’s not like this bid to make the Nurburgring safer hasn’t affected the cars we drive on the street already. I’m talking about Koenigsegg here, which has been waiting for weeks now to set a ‘Ring record for its One:1.
The Swedish Megacar (1,341 HP/1,360 PS) may hold the world record for a production car 0-300-0 km/h task, but it simply can’t show us how fast it can go round the Green Hell. That’s because the track management has been enforcing more and more speed limits to keep the track safe and, as of last month, manufacturer Nurburgring records are impossible to set.
It all started back in late March, when a deadly VLN crash saw a Nissan GT-R NISMO racecar taking off, crash-landing through the protection fence and over a group of spectators.
A five-year-old would’ve realized that extra protection on the side of the track was required to keep racing from claiming lives. But here we are in July, with compromising speed limits and wondering if we should change the course of Nurburgring history altogether instead of using the obvious solution.
Well, as I said, the issue doesn’t just lie with the management of the ‘Ring. The problem is that carmakers and the public alone refuse to understand we all need the Nurburgring as handling-measuring tool, not a marketing gimmick or a Sunday morning car meet argument.
Let’s think about the 0 to 100 km/h sprint and the top speed for a moment. These two figures are far from offering us a complete view on a vehicle’s driving dynamics and yet the world needs them. Just like we need our Nurburgring lap times.
It seems that nobody wants to be fair in the relationship with the 20.8 kilometers (12.9 miles) of iconic German asphalt. Speaking of which, it’s curious how the recent history of the Nurburgring is comprised of cash-cow-milking management changes.
Sure, there will always be questionable characters willing to take advantage of poor financial situations, but where are the automakers? I’m talking about an initiative such as the one that currently sees Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and China’s Baidu search engine joining forces to buy navigation from Nokia to avoid Google dominance.
Remember those drivers who attend the public days and crash in the first bend or overtake on the right? If they used their time to do some performance driving research instead of keeping themselves busy with applying Nurburgring stickers before hitting the track, Touristenfahrten sessions wouldn’t have reached their current ridiculous risk level.
But such preparation would require common sense. And it seems nobody wants to put that in the same sentence with “Nurburgring”. Here, have some tragicomedy fun with the survey here.
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