Riding the 'Ring

Besser Fahren auf BMW

(Originally published in the July 2001 issue of the BMWMOA Owners News. You can find out about attending the current class here.)

Two years ago I took an extended vacation in Europe, after shipping my '94 R1100RS over on Air Canada. One of the things I was able to do while I was over there for three months was take the BMW-sponsored track class at the famous Nürburgring. BMW arranges for this class each year, open for drivers of BMW cars and bikes, usually in June. It lasts 3 days and cost me about DM1300 ($750 at the time). Included were three lunches and the banquet dinner on the last day. Over a hundred people participated, mostly in bimmers, but also there were 8 sidecars, 6 Ecomobiles, and about 20 regular beemers.

The Nürburgring was built in 1927. It's located in northwest Germany, in an area of beautiful green rolling hills known as the Eiffel, west of Cologne, and actually around the town of Nürburg. (There is often confusion with the Bavarian city of Nuremberg, but they're not near each other.) Technically, it's a one-way public toll road, and when it isn't being used for an event, it's open to the public. Any kind of vehicle that is street legal can get out there and go around, at any speed. Because it's a public road, standard insurance applies.

It's 21 km (14 miles) around the old north track (Nordschleife in German, and also known as The Green Hell), which was used for Formula 1 racing until Nikki Lauda's infamous flaming crash in 1976, just before the turn called Bergwerk. There's just not enough run out in most areas of the track, and a lot of turns have Armco barriers to keep wayward vehicles from falling off a hill or running into a tree. A newer south track, 4 km long and equipped with a beautiful sweeping grandstand, is used these days.

Even if it weren't a racetrack, the Nordschleife would be a great motorcycle road. First of all, it's quite scenic, running through the verdant countryside, through vales and over hills. If you've got the time while running the circuit, you can see the ruins of the Nürburg castle. It rises and falls almost 1000 feet, and the steepest gradients are 16% up and 11% down. Other features of the track are a variety of high speed blind turns (Aremberg going downhill, Brünnchen, flat, and Bergwerk and Hohe Acht, uphill), several long straights (over 2 km/1.2 miles long at Döttingerhöhe!), and a bumpy, 270° Karussell (carousel). Because of the length of the track, the weather can actually change as you traverse the course. It's a beautiful, exciting, and challenging ride!

I checked in at the conference center that's a part of the Nürburgring complex on my arrival. I had booked ahead a single room at a gasthaus (B&B style accommodations, but I could have booked a hotel room), and it turned out to be very close by the track complex. I also got my package for the class, which included some big number stickers, which I put on the side panels of the fairing at a rakish angle -- and which my ego has prevented me from removing, even yet. The entrants were broken into about 15 groups; most of them for cars, but also 4 motorcycle groups (2 for sidecars and Ecomobiles, 1 motorcycle group for German speakers and 1 for English speakers).

(An Ecomobile is a 2 wheeled enclosed monocoque fuselage with tandem seating under a Plexiglas canopy, with a K100 drive train and instrumentation. There are training wheel style outriggers that can be lowered when the vehicle slows or stops. A Swiss company builds them and charges about $50k for them, which includes a week of training to drive them.)

Our group was lead by an ever smiling Englishman on an R1100S. It was made up of about 8 Irish, a Welsh (don't call him English!) living in Yorkshire and 3 Yanks. The Irish were led by the the importer and sole BMW dealer in Ireland. The two other Americans were actually living in Ireland, and found out about the class via the dealer as well. I got my information from MOA Global Touring advisor, Court Fisher, and arranged it all by fax.

The class covered three days at the 'ring. Because the course is so big, it was divided into a dozen sections, and each group got about 3 hours of detailed instruction on each section. (Overflow groups spent some time at the indoor go kart racing track.) The instructor led us through each turn, pointing out the preferred line or lines through each turn, and what reference points to look for. He gave us demonstrations, and then we rode through the section a number of times, getting critiqued after each one. We waited at the end of the section for everyone to finish, then rode back to the start of the section to do it again. This went on for a day and a half, and then there was a half day of free lapping on the track, to put it all together. The instructors were present and available for advice and help on specific points.

It seemed like every turn held new surprises, and new insight to be gained. The Hatzenbach turns seem to stretch the apexes later and later, to keep moving through them all. The S turn at Adenauer Forst winds across the face of a knob, making it hard to see exactly where the road is going. The golden apexes are in odd locations, but if you don't follow that line, the last, tight, flat turn will get you. At Bergwerk, a hill gets in the way of seeing around this apparently tight right hander, which opens up on the other side. It takes a certain amount of faith to stay on the gas into the turn, in order to enjoy being flung wide out of it on the other side. A number of the turns look like two separate turns until you get up to speed, when they can be put together to make one bigger turn, especially at Brünchenn.

Finally, the last half day was used for a "final exam" for everyone. With 30 seconds to 2 minute intervals, we set out around the course, trying to demonstrate a correct line. No timing was done, just an appreciation for how to tackle each unique curve. Instructors were present at different corners, and deducted points for miscues as each bike (or car) went by.

That evening we had an awards banquet. I came away with 3rd place! As a part of the banquet we were treated to a video of the "King of the Ring", the rider with the fastest time, something like 7:46 (which averages out to just a hair over 100 mph). His performance was amazing, bouncing off the tiger teeth from one side of a corner to the other. Because I video taped several of my runs, I later found that I was within spitting distance of 10 minutes. Oh well, I've been accused of being half fast before, and undoubtedly will again.

The course was different than the track courses I've taken here (Reg Pridmore's CLASS and Keith Code's California Superbike School). Partly that was determined by the track. It's great length meant that the circulating instructors weren't just around the next bend to watch you. And to a great extent the focus had to be on knowing the course, just for safety's sake. But there also wasn't as much of the focused, school atmosphere; although everyone listened closely to the instructors and watched intently, it was also a lot more informal.

But the same topics still came up and were discussed often. Safety, throttle control, braking, traction. A big result was more confidence with the bike, learning what it and I were capable of. And there's no denying that running around a famous race course is a blast by itself!

The safety aspect showed up in the results. There were no bike crashes or injuries from out of control riders. (The auto drivers had a somewhat less enviable result, with several showing the unmistakable imprint of Armco on their body work. Fortunately, we never mixed it up on the track with the cagers.)

If I have the opportunity again, I will certainly take this course. The camaraderie each evening back at the hotel was great. The excitement as we learned each new corner was intoxicating. The track itself and the area it's in are beautiful. Also present was a professional photographer, shooting pictures of everyone at different points on the track. I was able to get 3 souvenir photos of my Nürburgring experience. Oh, and there was that 3rd place cup, too.