2011 Ferrari/Alonso

Well, it’s a new year – almost – and the rumor that has resurfaced is about two-time world champion Fernando Alonso going to Ferrari. Of course, this won’t happen until 2011 at the earliest, but it does look as though it will happen. Alonso has not made it any secret that he would like to drive for Ferrari and even the Italian press has reported that the two parties have already made a deal. Fernando Alonso currently has a contract with Renault though 2010 and the two Ferrari drivers, Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa, also have contracts through 2010. The paper also speculated that Raikkonen would be the one to get the big red boot and that it would be a team consisting of Massa and Alonso.

            Ferrari meanwhile, are keeping their distance from the story, but are not totally denying it. Usually this means that a deal has been inked somewhere, and that only time stands in its way. The exact quote from Ferrari is: “We can only repeat that we have two drives signed to the end of 2010.” Wow, really? I think that if all goes according to plan, the driver lineup for the big red machine will be Alonso/Massa in 2011. But that is still a long way away and deals can sour between now and then. However, it does seem as though Massa and Alonso have a friendship (or at the very least a mutual respect) as Alonso desperately wanted Felipe to win the championship this year over rival Lewis Hamilton. He even went so far as to say this with Lewis directly behind him in an interview room. But we have to wait and see if there is even a Formula One in 2011, as it seems that the management will probably still try to screw things up between now and then.

Nurburgring: Part 3

            The town of Nurburg is named for a famous castle that sits on the edge of the town. And I don’t mean outskirts when I say edge, because it is literally within walking distance of the track and is one of the most visible structures around that area. You have to walk up a cobblestone path and past the ruins of a church. When you get there, there isn’t much to see, but you can walk around and go to the top of the tower, which was used by the original planners of the circuit to map out where they wanted the road to go. This town is literally overflowing with history, but there is only so much that can be covered in one day. We walked back down the path after not being able to see much because of the fog covering the area, and went back to the track.

            It had rained fairly heavily when I wasn’t on the track, and was starting to clear up as the day went along. I was happy to see the car was back from its other excursion that day, but our guide was out at the moment. That was fine because that would allow the track to continue to dry in places and give me a better run at the end of the day. Now, because this was probably going to be my only trip to this place, and because we had found the Brunnchen corner area to watch cars, I told my dad that it would be cool for him to take a picture of me driving around that corner. What a memory that would make! Before that could happen though, we were given the car and told to fill it up with gas. I drove the little VW down to the famous filling station and pulled in behind some other, much faster, machinery. We put in the premium fuel and were back on our way to the track. After my dad left for the corner, the guide told me that I was much a much better driver than the guy who had taken the car out after me. I was glad to hear this. He also went on to say that if I felt up to it, he would be comfortable with me taking the car out on my own. I didn’t want this to happen though, because I didn’t feel that comfortable.

            I set out on the third lap of the day, with my guide next to me eating potato chips and taking it easy. I was out to set the world on fire that lap and finally started to feel comfortable finding my way around the track. That was that first lap that I managed to pass another car! Sure it was filled to the brim with tourists, and was a station wagon, but it was still all mine. I overtook that car and felt great. The one corner that I haven’t mentioned driving through, so far, is the Karusell. Mostly this is because I wasn’t allowed to drive through it – or rather, I wasn’t allowed to go down on the concrete. This is for two reasons; the first being that it is extremely hard on the suspension. When I went out on the lap in the passenger seat, the guide drove through the Karusell on the concrete and I can say that it was bumpy, jarring, grating, harsh (choose your own adjective) and that it could easily break something. The second reason was that I was told not to by the guide, for the sake of the car overall. So we went around the top of Karusell, although, by going around the top, I was passed on the inside by an STi in full WRC regalia. It was one of those great memories that will always stick with me.

            From Karusell you blast your way up through the forest and then down through Wipperman and up and to the right toward Brunnchen, which is a left hander down a hill that turns right at the end and then goes back up to the right and into the forest again. I could see my father as I came down the hill and made a great turn through the apex and on for the rest of the lap. That was it! We had it…or so I thought. I was excited to see the picture and how it turned out, but it turns out that dad didn’t get the shot. Luckily, I had one lap left and sent him back out to make sure that he got it this time.

            The day was coming to a close for my last lap, and the track had had time to dry off a little more. This was the lap that I would really start to go for it. Of course I made a few mistakes along the way, but overall, I was extremely pleased with my final lap and the progress I had made in just one day.

            Right from the start I was on it. Down under the bridge at Tiergarten and up toward the Grand Prix circuit I flew. The car was beautiful and there was a drying line for me to follow. I tried to focus all my concentration on the task ahead instead of the amazing scenery for this lap (which is particularly hard), but it all came together. I could feel the tires biting through Hatzenbach and tore through Quiddelbacher-Hohe. Off the gas and ready for the bump at Flugplatz then straight back on the gas and down around Schwedenkreuz. Fuchsrohre is a hairy, downhill slightly curving straight that leads into a corner that many people get wrong; Adenauer-Forst. But I got it right. A quick stab down a gear and then a very fast and tight left right is what is needed to get through this corner. 7 kms down and 14 to go then.

            Things start to get tricky around Metzgesfeld and Kallenhard because the track is predominantly downhill until you get to Ex-Muhle and the bridge over the town of Adenau. From there it is uphill past the curve that catches many Porsches out because of their ability to oversteer – and in fact, there was a nice yellow one in the wall when I went past. Then it is up through the forest and down the extremely fast straight that leads through Bergwerk, past the infamous spot where Niki Lauda had his big accident, and then past Kesselchen and Klostertal (where you need to lift off slightly to get round the corner) and then around the tight right-hander that widens out for the run up to Karussell.

            After the 180, you continue up a steep hill that leads to Hohe Acht and my favorite part of the track. From Hohe Acht through Brunnchen, the road is constantly moving and there are some great uphill and downhill corners that really test what you are made of. One wrong move through any of them, and you will probably end up writing off your car (not to mention paying for all the expensive guardrails and turf that needs to be repaired).

            If you remember, I had sent my dad out again to try and get a picture of me coming down from Eschbach and down through Brunnchen. As I came down the hill I could see him again and really flung the car into the bend. The wheels screeched and squealed and I flew around the corner and up over the next hill a little too fast. Luckily for me, the little car was so easy to balance, that a quick application of some opposite lock saw me catch the slide, and get a nice compliment on that from the guide. Whew! From there, you venture down into Pflanzgarten and catch a little air before dabbing the brakes and turning right to head up a small hill and enter the mini Karussell. The car when through without a hitch and then all that was left of my lap was the long right-hander through Schwalbenschwnaz and then under the bridge at Dottinger Hohe.

            If you are wondering how fast I went and if I kept track of the time, the answers are: 100 mph+ on the straights (really not too bad for a car with only 88 bhp and me and another person to carry around) and no, I didn’t keep track of my time. But I will say that no matter how slow you go around the track, it is over way to quickly and you want to do it again and again. It’s sort of like the motoring equivelant of crack – or so I’ve heard.

            We arrived back at the pits and started chatting while waiting for my dad. He arrived and joy of joys he had a picture of me! And you can even tell it’s me and everything! On the ‘Ring! Woot for that! Then, because we still had some time left – obviously I was much faster than I thought – I tried to convince my dad to drive around the track at least once, but he wasn’t up for it. Our guide was nice enough to take him around the track one more time and so I wandered through the car park again…only to find that a not to well disguised pre-production Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione was ready to take a lap or two around the track. I was close enough to take a bunch of pictures and some video and even get a peek inside the car. Man, that thing has some tail pipes on it that really make a great noise. Plus it was red.

            That night, we stayed at the hotel where we rented our car from. Like I mentioned earlier, the place lies just a few hundred feet up the road from the ‘Ring and was once used by the Mercedes Benz racing team back in the 1930s. Some very famous racing drivers of years past like Rudolph Caracciola and Manfred von Brauchitsch were on the premises and probably even stayed in the room I did (or at the very least walked past it). There is such a rich tradition and history at play in this town that you don’t even realize most of it until you start reading up on it.

            That was the end of my Nurburgring driving experience, but not the last at the ‘Ring itself, because my father and I would travel on through Europe, but return later in the week for one last visit.

Nurburgring: Part 2

            I have decided to split this up into more parts to make for slightly smaller entries in this series. It is all written, but would be very long to have to scroll though the whole thing so I figured I would make it easier to read by simply cutting it up into chunks. Here is chunk number two.

The next day dawned overcast and drizzly, but that wasn’t going to deter me from trying to conquer the mighty Nurburgring. We woke up early and headed down the street to the place where we had rented the car. The Ringhaus is currently run by a bunch of English chaps who are all very knowledgeable about the ‘Ring and have a great car rental service that lies about 300 yards from the entrance. It is supremely easy to get to anywhere you want to in Nurburg because the town is only a few hundred people large. Like most small German towns, it has some really nice scenery and is easy to proceed through as there is only one main road.

            The road that runs 14.7 miles through the Eifel Mountains is a whole other story though. The day really was drizzly and that meant that there would be some slippery spots out there, and would essentially change the track into something totally different from what I had experienced in GT4. I have already said how there is nothing to prepare you for the elevation changes, but there is also nothing to prepare you for driving in the wet on the world’s scariest one-way road. And that is essentially what the ‘Ring is nowadays. It is treated as a one-way toll road and it costs about $30 to do a lap.

            After smoothing out a little snafu that I won’t go into, we had time before we were to go out so we wandered around the car park at the track entrance. If ever there was a place to be a spectator, this is it. The sheer variety of automobilia that turns up is amazing. Almost every car from A-Z was there. Audi RS4s, BMW M cars, Lotuses (or is it Loti?), Mitsubishi Evos, Subaru STis, and of course Minis and Porsches. But I was there for one car and one car only: a Volkswagen Polo. I rented the lowest powered car because a) it cost the least, b) it was available for when we were there and c) it was a capable front-wheel drive vehicle that handled well and hopefully wasn’t going to end up in the guardrails.

            We found our ‘Ring guide and he showed my dad and I the car then took my father out for a lap first. That was a long wait for me. You hope that they come back within ten minutes, but since I didn’t have a watch, I just ended up wandering around the car park looking at Nobles, S2000s and other such vehicles. When they got back, my dad couldn’t believe the ride. My turn was next and the hardest part was trying to fit into that godawfully tiny racing seat. Once I had secured myself, my guide took off. We chatted about the track some, but I really just tried to watch all of his inputs, shift points and turn ins to get a better idea of where to go. The first part of the lap, from the entrance to Tiergarten to Adenauer-Forst is pretty much exactly like it is in the game (except wet in this case). From there to the Karusell things get a little tricky. 7 kms of a lap are ok, but after that, your brain starts to go to mush. The trees rushing by all start to look the same and you just try to mark signs and corners that you remember from the game as you drive along. Although it is a remarkably long lap, it seems all too short when it is over. Coming out of Schwalbenschwanz and through Dottinger Hohe seems like you had just started the lap – especially if you never want it to end.

            We got back to the car park and the instructor told me it was my turn. Well, it was finally time to man up and go for it. Luckily, the driver’s seat was much more comfortable than the passenger’s, so we were off to a good start. Secondly, I didn’t stall the car – check that off the list. And then we were on our way. The first thing I noticed was that the steering was not assisted and was very heavy, but in a good way that really communicated everything I wanted to know through the steering wheel. The second thing about the car was that the clutch take up was very light and that meant the car was exceedingly easy to drive at any speed. The last thing I noticed was that my hands and my feet were shaking slightly. This was a big deal, and it was finally coming true. I came up to the ticket station and handed my car to the man. The gate raised and I pulled onto the track…

            That whole first lap is a blur, I have to be honest. I was fine for the first part, got a little lost in the second and the end came up all too soon. Of course, the other thing about the ‘Ring is that you are supposed to pull over to the right to let faster vehicles pass on the left, and that was a very timid lap for me and I was letting many people go through. My guide kept telling me to let them through on the straights and just worry about the corners for myself. That is good advise, but when you are concentrating on not crashing your rented car, trying to follow the winding forest road and trying to see through the fogged up windows to see if a Porsche or BMW wants to pass is a hard task to accomplish on the first lap.

            After lap one, I was finished with my jitters. All I wanted was to get out and get lap two under my belt. My father was anxiously awaiting my arrival back at the car park and he was extremely happy to see that little black VW roll up without any scrapes on it. Lap two was much the same as the first and I was just happy to be able to push that much harder in some places, while letting the much faster vehicles pass me by. One thing I was thankful for was that because it was raining, I didn’t have to watch for motorcycles on the track; because those guys are scary. The lap was good, but when it was done, and because of a scheduling conflict, we had to give the car up for a couple of hours. But we would return that same day to get the rest of my laps in.