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By day, the main users are car manufacturers, who test new models on the track. Major sports-car makers such as Jaguar and Aston Martin have built permanent centres here, and up to 20 major marques regularly test here. In recent years, Nürburgring endurance has increasingly been seen as a benchmark within the industry, and tyre and brake manufacturers have also set up shop. “The Nürburgring has been through a difficult few years,” says Jaguar’s Gordon Snoddy. “But testing here is a critical part of what we do.”
And boy, do the cars get tested. A lap of the Nürburgring puts a vehicle through 10 times the intensity of a normal road. We throw the poor cars into each bend, braking hard and accelerating early. Just as I start to get cocky, there’s a smash up ahead. Another journalist has clipped a barrier and careered on to a verge, where his car has stopped, a crumple of blue metal and airbags. We’re first on the scene and pull over. The driver’s fine but the car is a mess.
After the first two laps we change cars. This time, knowing what I’m letting myself in for, I’m petrified. My hands shake as I’m shown to a real sports car: a low black convertible with drug-dealer wheels, called the XKR-S. This is too beautiful to smash up. But once on the track, I know better what to do: just point the wheel at the car in front and stay heavy on the throttle. Encouraged by this, Tim takes us faster and faster. We even overtake other cars. This is racing!
Not surprisingly, the Nürburgring is still a major race venue. One of the most popular is the 24-hour touring car championship, which takes place in May. And though Formula One stopped using the Nordschleife in 1976, by 1984, once that dedicated circuit was built in the Südschleife, the F1 circus returned. Since 2007, the German Grand Prix has alternated between Hockenheim and here; next year it’s the Nürburgring’s turn again.
But the financial crisis has thrown all that in doubt, not least as the circuit doesn’t have the funds to pay the considerable fees needed to host an F1 race. The F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone is reported to be a fan of the Nürburgring, and there have been rumours he might save the track by buying it. But Michael Frison is horrified at the idea. “No! We’re very opposed to that,” he says firmly. “The Nürburgring has always been publicly owned. It’s would be like privatising water. The ring is a national monument, and deserves special protection.”
Certainly, the circuit has a cultish following. Frison, an IT project manager for Ford, lives in Cologne now, but comes to the ring every weekend. Regulars are known as “ringers”, and it’s not unusual for groups of Britons to travel over every weekend during the season, which runs from April to October. Many have notched up more than 1,000 laps. The freedom to take any machine you want on so fast and varied a track for the price of a round of drinks is clearly addictive.
And all this despite reminders of the track’s dark side everywhere. Ambulances and rescue lorries wait ominously at the start. Tracts of the circuit are covered in brightly coloured graffiti, some of which are tributes to the dead. Most fatalities are motorcyclists, but exact figures are hard to ascertain. For example, a death at the scene of the accident will be recorded as such; but there are stories of people who die later in hospital being recorded as just injuries. Perhaps the constant risk of death is what makes this such a close-knit tribe. There is also the sense of achievement that comes with any endurance event. “I grew up here and have done everything that you can do on that track,” says Frison. “We camped there at the 24 hours [championship]. I started the Save the Ring campaign, but I don’t want to lay ownership of that. I want the ring to be a community. The ring is a national monument, and deserves special protection.”
When I call Ecclestone’s office to ask whether he might be interested in a purchase, he rules it out, stating categorically, “I will not be buying the Nürburgring.” However, he adds that he is currently in negotiations for the German Grand Prix to go ahead, and has already offered to waive the fee in exchange for 100 per cent of the revenues.
The story of the Nürburgring is one of greed and financial mismanagement. It may also be one of fraud and corruption, as next month’s trial will reveal. A spokesman for the EU says they have nothing to add to their statement about their investigation into the German government bail-out, though its wording is unusually pointed: “The Commission has doubts whether these measures promote services of general economic interest or alleviate a funding default caused by the financial and economic crisis.” It adds that: “At this stage the Commission has strong doubts that infrastructure for motorsport can be exempted from state aid rules and that a leisure park and race circuit could be considered as services of general economic interest that would not be provided by market forces alone.
The Commission cannot also exclude that the beneficiaries were in financial difficulty at the time when the measures were granted. If confirmed, this would mean that none of the measures could be found compatible under the then applicable temporary rules for supporting business during the crisis.” When I ask whether the money would have to be repaid if the commission finds Germany has broken the rules, a spokesman says it would. But there is no money in the pot. Already, liquidators have been appointed, who may carve up the site and sell off some assets to get some return for creditors. The fact is, it’s in nobody’s interest to close the Nordschleife. Some locals might be happy never to hear the sound of a V8 engine accelerating out of the Flugplatz crest again. But after 85 years, the noise pollution argument hardly stands. As for me, by the time I’m on my sixth lap, I’m furious nobody has told me about the Nürburgring before. This is the most fun I’ve had in a car. I finally emerge, a stone lighter, my clothes a bain-marie of sweat. Flashbacks of the hairiest moments haunt me for days after. The only low point comes when I agree to be shown how it’s really done. I hop into Tim’s car, and he does what’s known as a “hot lap”, which immediately became the most frightening experience of my life. Stomach churning, it takes all my resolve not to give him a hot lap. Still, at least I’ve lived to tell the tale.
For more on the campaign to save the Nürburgring, visit savethering.org
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Hopefully they won't have to repay all the 500-odd million Euro's to the Govt!
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