The Nürburgring: Driving The Green Hell
- Benson Young
- 6 days ago
- 15 min read
I'm constantly working on new tracks for MyTrackMaps.com. Although I already had map art on the Nürbugring, I decided to start fresh as the nuances of wall art were very different from my vinyl projects. While redrawing the legendary track, I could not help but to think back on my fond memories there.
Back in 2012, I needed some new equipment and technology for my printing business. My usual shopping trips meant going to Chicago for the annual US printing trade show, GraphExpo. However, this year was a little different, and I needed to negotiate directly with my contacts at Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG at Drupa, a global printing trade show taking place in Dusseldorf only every 4 years. Checking the map, I realized that the legendary Nürburgring was on the way to Dusseldorf from my arrival airport in Frankfurt. Of course, I booked myself an extra week to do a bit of sightseeing while in Germany. Sightseeing with a helmet, which is the best kind of sightseeing.
It's difficult to quantify this track in size or scope. At 20 km (12.8 miles) in the current Nordschleife configuration, it's one of the largest permanent tracks in the world. It has existed in various forms since the 1920s, and reached 28.3 km long (17.6 mi) in some variations. Nobody seems to be able to agree on how many actual turns there are, but most will cite between 70 and 160 discrete corners. Virtually all race tracks have numbered turns, and the special corners are often given names. Turn 8 at Laguna Seca is better known as The Corkscrew. Drivers refer to Turn 12 at VIRginia International Raceway as simply Oak Tree. Turn 9 at Monaco is The Tunnel. And when you say The Hairpin at Monaco, nobody needs to clarify that you mean Turn 6.
Without a true consensus on turn numbers at the Nordschleife, the more significant turns or sections are referred to solely by name. Not because they are special, but there's really no way to correctly number them. And because they are special. Actually, that's not true either. Many of them are simply named for the towns they go through. Yes, towns, because the place is fucking huge. There is the town of Nürburg itself, which surrounds a lovely Middle-Ages era castle. The rest to the Nürburgring (literally, "ring around Nürburg") either passes through or encompasses the small towns of Quiddelbach, Herschbroich, Breidscheid, Adenau, and Meuspath. Some of the track sections derive their names from these towns: Adenauer Forst, Quiddelbach Hohe, Breidscheid and more.
Other sections are given self explanatory names. Flugplatz translates to "airfield," and aptly describes the way the track launches you into the sky. Flugplatz is where Jann Mardenborough launched his NISMO GTR during the 2015 VLN race. The most famous turn is probably The Karoussel (Carousel), a tight, steeply banked turn that is known around the motorsports world. One of my local tracks, Atlanta Motorsports Park, took inspiration from The Karoussel for its Turn 4. Other turns like Fuchsröhre ("Fox Hole") and Bergwerk ("Mine") are quite famous in their own right. Bergwerk is particularly notorious, as many crashes and deaths have happened here. Most famously, this was the scene of Niki Lauda's fiery accident in 1976. The corner has since been named after him.
Of course, not everyone knows the turn names, because there are so many. For convenience, there are small signs with numbered kilometer markers so you know where you crashed and the recovery vehicle can locate you. Somehow, they let almost anyone drive on this track during the Touristenfahrten. From around mid March to mid November, the track is open to the public as a one-way toll road, where all the normal traffic rules apply. Cars, motorcycles, tour buses, and trailers are allowed, and passing on the right is strictly prohibited. This makes for a highly accessible and rather interesting driving experience.
There are races held here too. For these, they incorporate the Nordschleife and Südschleife, which is the short grand prix course containing the pits. The resulting course is some 25.4 km (15.8 miles!) around. Being a big fan of endurance racing, the 24 Hours of Nürburgring is a favorite of mine. This track is so large that the 24 hour race has three separate rolling start groups. It takes 8-9 minutes to get around at full speed. You can watch the race, and 25 minutes after the green flag, the leaders are still on lap three.
The length of the Nürburgring isn't the only impressive dimension. Winding through the Eiffel mountains, the track spans over 300 meters (1,000 feet) of elevation change. The famed Laguna Seca has 55 meters (180 feet ) of elevation change, while Spa-Francochamp spans 102 meter (335 feet). The challenging hills of my home track, Road Atlanta, span justs 25 meters (80 feet), but to be fair, you get it all at once between Turns 11 and 12. As anyone who has driven Road Atlanta will tell you, the first time you crest T11 is pretty scary. At the Nordschleife, the sheer size and elevation changes can present very different weather from one section to the next.
Nürburg itself is a lovely little village with a rich automotive and racing history. The legendary race driver, Sabine Schmitz, grew up in Nürburg and became known as The Queen of the Ring. If you haven't seen her fearless VLN race start in 2014, check it out here. Her parents owned the Hotel AM Tiergarten in Nürburg, which is where I stayed for a few days. Checking into the hotel, I met Sabine's mother, Ursula Schmitz. She handed me a room key upon arrival, saying we could sign all the check-in paperwork in the morning (trust is a real thing in German culture). The hotel is located above a charming resturant called the Pistenklause, where you can get a hot stone steak for just a few euros. This is a raw steak put on 500 degree slab of lava stone in front of you, where you cook your own steak, slice by slice. It's not something any lawyer would ever allow in a US restaurant. The morning breakfast was in a small dining area, filled with Sabine's racing trophies. Sadly, Sabine passed in 2021. Rest In Peace.
I arranged for a couple cars to drive at the ring. There are many rental car companies in and around the Ring, and it's wise to rent from one of these vendors, as most regular rental car companies specifically restrict their coverage around the Nürburgring and Touristenfahrten. I went with RSR Nürburg, which provides an instructor, track pass, and helmet in addition to their fleet of interesting cars. I started off day 1 in a Renault Meganne, a small turbo FWD coupe, roughly comparable to a USDM Mitsubishi Eclipse.
I set some reasonable goals for myself at the track. I'd follow three simple rules:
Bridge To Gantry refers to the landmarks that enthusiasts start and stop their timed runs during the Touristenfahrten. You cross under the Bridge at the end of the main straight, and the Gantry is near the end of the Ring at the begining of the straight. This is about 19 km, or 11.8 miles in length. On tourist days, you can't actually do an entire lap at speed, as there is a toll booth on the main straight. Timed runs are actually forbidden, as are video recordings, but that doesn't seem to be enforced. I brought along a GoPro and VBOX for lap timing and data acquisition, which was a pretty nifty bit of kit for 2012.
Of course, day 1 was wet and raining, which is exactly how I did not want my familiarization laps to go. RSR helped get me oriented. I ventured out very carefully. You enter the track at a parking/staging area off the main straight, which is actually an amazing place to hang around. The lot has the ticket center, and the legendary Devil's Diner. Exiting the lot, there is a toll gate, where you swipe your Ring card and head out for your tourist lap.
This is a track that suffers no fools. Only the Isle of Man is more deadly. Jackie Stewart aptly called it "The Green Hell." I'd driven the track many times in various games, and it's always a huge challenge to not crash somewhere at least once per lap. When you actually put wheels on the Nürburgring, it's completely overwhelming. The sheer excitement and awe of finally being in such a legendary place is quickly replaced by reality and anxiety. The track is narrower than it seems in videos and gaming. The curbs are higher and steeper than in US circuits. In most places, there's a guardrail located really close to the track surface. And not far beyond that, big sturdy trees that have no place near a racing circuit. The Nürburgring is like no place else, because you simply wouldn't be allowed to build something similar in the US. It violates so many best practices of modern circuit design, but here it is part of the track's thrilling charm.
Driving the Nordschleife feels more like traveling than racing. There are ambulances, motorcycles, vans and buses on track with you. You blow past them like you are really, really late for work on the most unhinged commute of your life. It's ridiculously terrifying and a must-do for any track enthusiast.
My first laps were extremely timid considering the weather. It was for the best, because I could not remember where any corner went. If I did happen to recognize where I was, the sheer excitement of the experience completely wiped out what turn was coming up next. Not that memorization is easy here. On a typical 12 - 22 turn race track, I can usually figure out the basics in a handful of laps, then really start refining each turn enough to post competitive times. Most tracks last 90 - 200 seconds per lap, so the last lap isn't far from your mind when running continuously. This doesn't happen at the Nordschliefe. With over 70 turns to learn, it would take many dozens of laps to even begin to predict what was around the next turn. And a lot of time passes between these laps. My first laps were in the order of 15 minutes to get from bridge to gantry. You have to pull off between laps as well, so that's another 5-10 minutes to get back on track at best. On the wet track on a busy day, this was 3, maybe 4 laps per HOUR. The northwest corner of the track had heavier rain, which gradually moved east across the circuit over the afternoon, making the conditions ahead very unpredictable. I purchased 5 laps in the Renault and was completely exhausted after the 2 hours it took to complete.
On day 2, before hiking up to see Castle Nürburg, I stopped at the base of the hill at Burgstube Hotel for breakfast. The proprietors were actually Scottish if I recall, and we struck up a conversation about cars and racing, of course. He mentioned how many legends in the industry come through this little town, and the very seat I was in was occupied by Alois Ruf the week before. He suggested I chat the with an older German fellow in the corner. I introduced myself, and I forgot his name immediately. We talked for a bit, and I asked him about his career. He said he used to be in the auto business but sold it off years earlier to Mercedes Benz. Curious, I inquired as to the nane of his company, which he replied "AMG". I had to ask him his name again: Erhard Melcher. His partner was Hans Aufrecht, or the "A", while Melcher is the "M" of "AMG", a little company that modified Mercedes. You may know them now as the spicier models of Mercedes road cars and also part of a racing team.
I spent the day around the track, watching from all the vantage points around the giant perimeter. The 24 Hour race was the following weekend, and big transporters for the racing teams started to come in. Fans were starting to stake out areas to build make-shift viewing stands. The Norschleife a strange paradox. The German people seem to be strict rule-followers, but the fans put graffiti all over the track. Not just on the walls and barriers; they spray paint the track surface itself. The track perimeter is simply too large to fully fence in, and putting enough security personnel around the track is wildly impractical. During the races, fans are known to go out on the track to push cars back to the pits, or strip them down when abandoned. It's wild.
The weather drastically improved on my 3rd day in Nürburg. It was mid-March and this was the first full weekend of the Touristenfahrten, and the first sunny day as well. I went over to RSR to pick up my second car reservation, a Lotus Exige 240S. I had all day to run 12 laps, and it was sunny and warming up nicely.
I'm no stranger to Lotuses. My BFF has owned a couple of Elises and an Exige. I co-drove another friend's Elise for a couple of seasons of SCCA autocross in Louisiana, and wound up keeping it for several months when he ran out of garage space. I love driving them, and they are so light that the lack of real horsepower isn't a problem. A typical USDM Elise puts down around 190hp from its Toyota engine. The addition of a supercharger bumps that up to 240hp and significantly more torque. Not big numbers, but with only 2,000 lbs to move around, it works very well. I much prefer this over the larger Porsches that were available. An Exige is plenty fast enough, and the handling precision is unmatched. For a track that's difficult to navigate and has brutal blind turns, this is definitely my weapon of choice.
The staging parking lot was completely packed with really cool cars. There was everything from ratty track missiles to full blown exotics. Drivers were continuously cycling to the track and cooling down in the lot, so this was like a constantly changing car show. With the accessible nature of the Nürburgring, you see an amazing variety of cars, many of which are never seen in the US. It's truly a gearhead's Mecca to which every enthusiast should make a pilgrimage once in their lifetime.
Driving the Exige under good conditions was a night and day difference compared to the wet laps. The Lotus is easy to position, and by this time, I had developed a bit of muscle memory for when to turn on the track. The chassis and engine worked great, but the steering was the best part. The Exige and Elise have manual steering racks, and with just around 700 lbs on the front axle, it really doesn't need power steering. So your steering wheel is completely unfiltered by hydraulic or electric assist. It's a bit hefty at parking lot speeds, but on the track, the steering wheel keeps no secrets. The road texture and weight tells you exactly what you need to know. That's important, as every Elise/Exige I've driven will understeer at the limit, despite the mid-engine layout and generous body roll. Great steering feel lets you get the most out of the front end.
The gearbox, however, was a train wreck. These Lotuses are not know for having very precise shifters. The cable actuation of the Toyota transmission is great in a front engine application, but when it's pushed behind the driver, there's something lost in the translation. Stock, they are merely okay in a Lotus, especially compared to the precise Honda shifters I'm smitten with. This particular gearbox has had an untold number of ham-fisted renters, and it was terrible. Finding gears was difficult, and the synchros had seen better days. If you stuck a flimsy umbrella into a bucket of gravel, you'd understand what it was like to shift this Exige. My laps were full of missed shifts, double clutching, rev matching and moving into a false gear in order to get into the right one. This was particularly true of downshifting to 3rd gear from 5th, where a trip to 4th was needed to get on the right shift plane. I made the best of it, but it got worse the faster I tried to go.
Still, my lap times dropped steadily on the VBOX. 12:51, 12:42, 12:17, 12:02, 11:37, 11:03, 10:19, etc. Traffic management was challenging, both ahead and behind. My approach speeds got pretty significant, but wow the experienced drivers were OMG fast. I'd think I was doing well but then they would rocket by me with a 50 - 80 kph delta. The legendary Ring Taxis were stupid quick and loose, no doubt to give their passengers their money's worth. There was a wicked fast gang of modified C6 Corvettes (a rare sight in Europe for sure) that called themselves the Ring Wraiths (a clever Tolkien reference). They all had big wings, matching liveries, competition tires, and knew the track very well. I did my best to stay out of the way, while still taking my passes as I could get them.
As tire temperatures creeped up, the tires got a little greasy, so it didn't seem prudent to do back-to-back laps. Combined with the busy traffic and long lines coming on and off the track, it would often be 20 - 40 minutes before getting back onto the Nordchleife. This was fine by me, as it gave me time to unwind and check the data from the VBOX while the tires cooled down. I was stuck in the low 10 minute bracket (10:07 best), mostly due to overly cautious errors. I wasn't very aggressive in traffic either, and the flexible shifter wasn't helping. I took a nice break at the Devil's Diner, and after putting my initials on the wall, went for my last three laps of the trip.
I was knocking off big chunks of time all day. Pulling 10 seconds off a lap is ridiculous at any other track in the world, but it's really the same as knocking a percent or two off on a normal circuit. Navigation was still tough; it takes a long time to remember the turns, much less master them. I still made big mistakes, mainly slowing down in turns that actually went flat out. This kills momentum over huge distances, with a massive time penalty. I did start to remember the critically slow blind turns, which was pretty important in not crashing.
9:58... Mission accomplished, but there was a lot left on the table. The tires, while greasy, started to level off and produce a proportional high pitch squeal as they were stressed. I used this as an audible G-meter, keeping the pitch in the "squeal" range, and backing off when we got to a "squall" sound. This gave me the confidence to do hot-laps, where I'd do a slow cool down taxi and rejoin the toll line instead of pulling off into the staging area after the gantry. The tires were still warm but predictable, and more importantly, the track was fresher in my mind.
I let everything hang out for the last two laps. Though the tires protested loudly, I could overdrive the front end with big, nasty slip angles and still grip through the turns. 9:24, and I still had some change left in my pocket. With the additional confidence in the tires, I cranked up the aggression in traffic. Full throttle early and often. Wind out the screaming engine in every gear. My last lap still had plenty of mistakes: slow missed shifts, cautious passes, yielding to faster cars, and lugging the motor because of that damn shifter. But it I was caning it everywhere else, flat to the floor. My hands moved quickly to cash the checks my feet were writing. I cross under the gantry with 8:55.0 on the timer. I'm done.
Eight minutes and fifty five seconds flat, and there were still drivers that left me standing still. I thought about getting more laps, but exhaustion caught up to me and I needed a break. After stopping, I realized that pushing more could easily get me on a YouTube highlight reel in a bad way. I'd take 8:55, even if there's another 20 - 25 second left at my skill level. I hate viewing this video, because now I can only see what could have been.
But all good things must come to an end, and my pilgrimage was complete. After getting another lump of raw meat on a hot rock, I bid farewell to the Nürburgring and continued on my trip. I went to the Heidelberg factory in Heidelberg itself, and did a little shopping in Manhiem (there's a Hugo Boss outlet store there; I kid you not).
I took a drive on the autobahn to knock another bucket list item off. I topped out my BMW rental at 200 kph in the rain, but got smoked by an Audi station wagon doing at least 50 kph more. Seriously, these Germans can wheel. I found out there are vineyards all over Germany. Apparently it is for local consumption and they don't export much wine. After trying German wine, I can see why they don't export it; it's terrible and nobody else would buy it. My adventures took me to big castles and creepy churches. I took a scenic drive through the Black Forest (another bucket list item checked off) on my way to the amazing Porsche Museum in Stuttgart. I also drove over to France to have lunch in Strasburg.
I'm so fortunate to have these adventures. Looking back on this, it really was a once-in-a-lifetime trip. Now that I've completed the Nürburgring track map, I'm so happy to see it on my wall. I think that's really the best part about having track map home decor. I have such great memories and stories from many of these tracks. Just seeing them on my wall takes me back to some amazing experiences. Remember to always stay on track.
-Benson
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