Speaker 1: Welcome to Car Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio's
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hi, and Welcome to Car Stuff. I'm
Speaker 1: your host Scott Benjamin, and I am Kurt Garren. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm super excited about this show this week because we've
Speaker 1: got a topic that's got a lot of meat to
Speaker 1: it and something that I think that is gonna be
Speaker 1: just right for conversation between the two of us, because
Speaker 1: we both have an interest in this sort of thing anyway, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, a little bit of track driving, a little
Speaker 1: bit of uh, a little thrill seeking. I guess maybe
Speaker 1: we're both kind of not adrenaline junkies, but we both
Speaker 1: like to uh, kind of test the limits of our
Speaker 1: vehicles kind of you know, just get out there and
Speaker 1: have a little bit of fun in them. And I
Speaker 1: think this is something that a lot of people can
Speaker 1: relate to. Maybe not a lot of people have done
Speaker 1: this in the past, of course, I think we're gonna
Speaker 1: find very few of our listeners have actually done this.
Speaker 1: But there are a couple of examples that that I'll
Speaker 1: tell you about in just a moment. So let's just
Speaker 1: jump right into it and I'll tell our listeners what
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about today, And it was kind
Speaker 1: of a question that I had, and it's something that
Speaker 1: I know I've voiced on my other show on car
Speaker 1: stuff in the past, and and I think I've maybe
Speaker 1: answered a little bit and and we've even discussed this track,
Speaker 1: and I'll get to all of this, you understand it
Speaker 1: just a moment. But my question is about the nerber Ring,
Speaker 1: and the nerber Ring has, in the past, i don't know,
Speaker 1: decade or maybe even twelve fifteen years, seem to be
Speaker 1: the place that manufacturers have taken their automobiles to test
Speaker 1: the limits, to see how fast they can lap the Nerburgring.
Speaker 1: And there's a specific part of the nerber Ring that
Speaker 1: they do this in. There's it's it's a it's a
Speaker 1: certain loop that they tested on. We'll talk about what
Speaker 1: it is. Is it's kind of like a level playing
Speaker 1: field for all manufacturers to be able to go and say,
Speaker 1: we can run this track at this speed in this
Speaker 1: amount of time in this car, and that's why our
Speaker 1: car is the best. And if you think you can
Speaker 1: top it, go do it. Yeah. And it offers a
Speaker 1: bunch of different types of conditions as well through the
Speaker 1: surface of the course and the terrain weather and all
Speaker 1: sorts of other obstacles that may get interesting and kind
Speaker 1: of like a something something to brag about. Oh absolutely,
Speaker 1: we'll we'll talk about all of this because there's some
Speaker 1: really there's believe it or not. Even the weather is
Speaker 1: a fascinating topic on this track, and so as the
Speaker 1: like the surface material because it changes over over time,
Speaker 1: over distance rather And maybe one of the coolest things
Speaker 1: about this is that you can go and drive on
Speaker 1: this track if you just have a few dollars in
Speaker 1: your pocket. It doesn't really cost that much money. It's
Speaker 1: officially a toll road. And I know I'm probably not
Speaker 1: giving anything away by saying that right now. And man,
Speaker 1: there's some fascinating things that go along with this whole thing. Now,
Speaker 1: now here's a little bit of background, and I want
Speaker 1: to temper this with this thought. There's a car stuff
Speaker 1: episode on the Nurburgring, and we went through a lot
Speaker 1: of history. We went through the details of how they've
Speaker 1: modified the track, and you know, like you know, the
Speaker 1: different curves and all that stuff and and the barriers,
Speaker 1: and you're just a lot of information about the track itself.
Speaker 1: So there's a ton of history, there's a ton of
Speaker 1: material there about Grand Prixs or you know about Grand
Speaker 1: Prix racing about um, you know, the switchover to Formula
Speaker 1: one and all of that. It's all there. So I
Speaker 1: don't want to I don't want to double up on
Speaker 1: too much of that. And I know that's tough not
Speaker 1: to step on that. So we're gonna We're gonna have
Speaker 1: a little bit of overlap, but not a whole lot. Now,
Speaker 1: there's a few things that I do I do feel
Speaker 1: like we need to repeat. This is just because there's
Speaker 1: some really interesting things about this track that I think
Speaker 1: are important. And one number one, probably the most important
Speaker 1: thing that we need to know about this track is
Speaker 1: that it's insanely dangerous. Insanely dangerous. I mean, it really is.
Speaker 1: And it was designed a long long time ago. I
Speaker 1: think the track was built in what and it's like
Speaker 1: it's a huge, huge track. It's it's what UM well,
Speaker 1: in its current uh form, I think that the overall lap,
Speaker 1: if you uh, the nord Schlift or nord Schleef that
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about, which is the North Loop UM
Speaker 1: is about fourteen It's over fourteen miles, right, okay, so
Speaker 1: over a hundred yeah, oh yeah, that's right. That's that's
Speaker 1: another important point. This is a this is of course
Speaker 1: that goes through the mountains. Yeah, i'd I'd like to
Speaker 1: see what the elevation changes. I think the course of
Speaker 1: a lot. I think that I think that I read
Speaker 1: somewhere that the elevation change is over a thousand feet
Speaker 1: between the start and finish of the of the track.
Speaker 1: So really an interesting track. It's it's fascinating. What do
Speaker 1: you say, A hundred and fifties some turns, they had more,
Speaker 1: they tried to make it safer and uh. And that's
Speaker 1: partly due to Jackie Stewart. Uh. In fact, it's it's
Speaker 1: mostly due to Jackie Stewart and a lot of other
Speaker 1: F one drivers that got together and said, we are
Speaker 1: actually they're actually gonna boycott this race if they didn't
Speaker 1: make some changes. And this this wasn't always the case
Speaker 1: because early on, you know, Formula one, it was it
Speaker 1: was a little bit different. It was it was it
Speaker 1: was fast, sure, but it wasn't quite as fast and
Speaker 1: it wasn't quite as dangerous as it was in the
Speaker 1: late nineteen sixties. And when they started adding some wings
Speaker 1: to the cars and we're at a little more down force,
Speaker 1: so you know where the car stuck to the track exactly,
Speaker 1: and so when they when they would go over some
Speaker 1: of the more I guess pronounced elevation quick elevation changes,
Speaker 1: maybe the car would get lighter than than it should
Speaker 1: have been or yeah, that was I was just trying
Speaker 1: to figure out why the drivers were so afraid of
Speaker 1: this particular track, and that's all I could come up with. Well, see,
Speaker 1: the course got it wasn't that the course changed, of course,
Speaker 1: you know that is the same as it always exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the cars got faster and the car has changed. They're
Speaker 1: probably more dependent on air flowing flowing around it in
Speaker 1: a certain way. Absolutely, they're not. Cars aren't supposed to
Speaker 1: get too far off the correct surface. Yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 1: Cars are designed to be on the track surface. And
Speaker 1: we've talked about this with you know, the thrust SSC
Speaker 1: and you know all the other cars that are going
Speaker 1: fast and essentially every car that we talked about so
Speaker 1: far on the fast track. Um. But cars are designed
Speaker 1: to stay low, to stay kind of stuck to the ground.
Speaker 1: The faster you go, the more down force they have
Speaker 1: to have in order to stay on the ground. And
Speaker 1: what happens is that there's some dramatic elevation changes, and
Speaker 1: whether it's just a little rise or um, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like you're coming over a crest and you can't
Speaker 1: see what's going on on the other side of it,
Speaker 1: UM and it drops right off. At this point, the
Speaker 1: cars were going so fast that they were becoming airborne.
Speaker 1: And part of the problem was that with the way
Speaker 1: that the down force was UM designed, I guess on
Speaker 1: these cars it was meant to act like a reverse
Speaker 1: wing to push the car down. So when you get
Speaker 1: air underneath the car, it acts in the opposite way.
Speaker 1: It acts like it's gonna want to lift off. And
Speaker 1: we've seen that in recent years of course with Lama
Speaker 1: and you know other tracks as well. It's not just
Speaker 1: it's not just the nerbor Ring, but but tracks where
Speaker 1: cars become airborne. These road courses are really really dangerous
Speaker 1: for drivers that are going super super fast and UM.
Speaker 1: Back then, you know, back in the late six nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: Jackie Stewart was saying that at the time, and I
Speaker 1: think I've mentioned this another podcast even you know they
Speaker 1: f one podcast is that you know a lot of
Speaker 1: his friends were dying on this on this on these circuits,
Speaker 1: on these Grand Prix circuits, and the Nerburgring was especially dangerous.
Speaker 1: In fact um, one of the facts that came out
Speaker 1: of the Last Car Stuff episode, and I think it
Speaker 1: was something that Bennett mentioned, is that this is hard
Speaker 1: to believe. And I don't know where he dug this up,
Speaker 1: but I do remember him saying this that F one
Speaker 1: drivers had a two thirds chance over five years of
Speaker 1: competition that they would be killed in competition in five years.
Speaker 1: Two thirds chance. That's sixty six percent chance that you
Speaker 1: would die in a race if you raced for five
Speaker 1: years or longer in F one competition at the time.
Speaker 1: And this is like, you know, during the late nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: early nineteen seventies. So Jackie Stewart had a very valid point,
Speaker 1: you know, he said, you know, I'm I'm losing I'm
Speaker 1: losing friends every weekend on these tracks. Safety has got
Speaker 1: improved in some way. Let's start with cars, of course,
Speaker 1: but let's move on to you know, safety equipment and
Speaker 1: tracks and everything. So he wanted improvements everywhere the Nurburgring.
Speaker 1: They respond They changed a lot of the a lot
Speaker 1: of the track, you know, they slowed down some of
Speaker 1: the corners and you know, it made it a little
Speaker 1: bit safer in a lot of ways, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of ways they can design corners to make them
Speaker 1: a little bit better. But overall, still the Nurburgring is
Speaker 1: just an inherently dangerous course for a lot of reasons.
Speaker 1: And I think you you already know a couple of reasons. Why, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I know what you're trying to get a
Speaker 1: I mean the fact that the track is kind of
Speaker 1: laid right on top of these extremely rolling hills in
Speaker 1: the middle of a forest. Um, it's a lot narrower
Speaker 1: than a lot of modern day race tracks are designed
Speaker 1: to be, the surfaces different, the weather conditions are different,
Speaker 1: and then just the general speed at what you're going Um,
Speaker 1: of course is designed at a time when cars didn't
Speaker 1: see speeds like they see now. Sure they were fast,
Speaker 1: but they weren't quite as fast as they were in
Speaker 1: the sixties and seventies. And then even now, I mean
Speaker 1: they're they're incredibly fast. You know, I think I want
Speaker 1: to mention this right now, if that's all right, I
Speaker 1: want to take just a second to say that I
Speaker 1: think the last German Grand Prix that was run at
Speaker 1: the Nurburgring. And that's very specific. Well we'll talk about
Speaker 1: that in a second. But the last one that was
Speaker 1: running at the Nurburgring was and uh, you know, of
Speaker 1: course there were other during Grand Prix. I mean, the
Speaker 1: latest one was in twenty eighteen, I believe, right, or
Speaker 1: was there one in En There might have been one.
Speaker 1: They all right, um, but but yeah, they kind of
Speaker 1: like skip around. So it's not always run at hockenheim
Speaker 1: Ring or at um you know, the Nurburgring. It's kind
Speaker 1: of a mix of the two, or sometimes it's just
Speaker 1: not even either one of those, you know, depending on
Speaker 1: whether they're gonna run something else. Um. You know, you
Speaker 1: mentioned one thing here that another thing that I need
Speaker 1: to mention real quick. The weather. The weather is a
Speaker 1: huge factor in this. Now, this course is so large
Speaker 1: that there is a there there's a town in the
Speaker 1: middle of the track. I mean, there are people that
Speaker 1: live there. There residents that live there throughout the year.
Speaker 1: There's a castle in the middle of the track. That's
Speaker 1: how big this is. And all of the you know,
Speaker 1: the the surrounding property I mean, and the castle goes
Speaker 1: back to like the eleven hundreds or something like that.
Speaker 1: Goes back a long long way. I mean it's an old,
Speaker 1: old castle. Of course. If you ever look at any
Speaker 1: bit of footage that is maybe shot where you know
Speaker 1: there's an airplane fly over, the track itself is beautiful track.
Speaker 1: I mean you would you would just kind of your
Speaker 1: mouth with water wanting to get onto this track and
Speaker 1: drive it because it's such an interesting looking track. It
Speaker 1: looks beautiful, really it does. And that's why Jackie Stewart
Speaker 1: decided he was going to call it the Green Hell
Speaker 1: because he feared it, but it was also beautiful and
Speaker 1: it was green, and you know, the trees are right nearby.
Speaker 1: There's a great sensation of speed and everything. But the
Speaker 1: weather is something that you really have to factor into
Speaker 1: this thing because it could be pouring rain on one
Speaker 1: part of the course and the other part could be
Speaker 1: completely dry and sunny. And we've seen Sir Jackie Stewart
Speaker 1: talk about this and he one one scene is one
Speaker 1: where he was in a rolls Royce and he's still
Speaker 1: in his his his garb right his his his fire
Speaker 1: suit on and yeah, I think a little yeah, I
Speaker 1: think they picked him up in the pits and said, hey, Jackie,
Speaker 1: let's go out and talk about the course a little bit. Here.
Speaker 1: We happen to have this Rolls Royce for you, you know,
Speaker 1: as a convertible, very nice, perfect Yeah, that's right, did
Speaker 1: no problem. Maybe maybe it was even his who knows. Um, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's driving the track and he's discussing what some of
Speaker 1: the surface changes are like and what some of the
Speaker 1: weather changes are like. From what I gather from what
Speaker 1: Stewart said was that the different types of pavement hold
Speaker 1: water different besides the fact that one lap it may
Speaker 1: not be raining, and then the next time you come
Speaker 1: through a certain section that had rained or is currently raining,
Speaker 1: the weight water drains off of the track is different
Speaker 1: as well, So some spots that will dry out quicker
Speaker 1: and some spots that will dry out slower. And then
Speaker 1: water running across the track in a certain way creates
Speaker 1: little streams, so that if you can imagine flying over
Speaker 1: a hill and then setting up for a turn right
Speaker 1: after you jump over this little rise and then it
Speaker 1: being wet on the other side, you know, you can
Speaker 1: imagine how tricky and the I guess just generally sketchy
Speaker 1: this particular track can get when you're racing on it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't wet the previous lap, so you know,
Speaker 1: the things change on this course over the course of
Speaker 1: one lap. It's just it's fascinating to me that you know,
Speaker 1: there there is a weather factor as well in this
Speaker 1: and it it almost reminds me a little bit of um,
Speaker 1: you know, like Pike's Peak or something like that, where
Speaker 1: you might you might encounter a date with sunshine and
Speaker 1: warm weather at the bottom, you get to the top
Speaker 1: and there's a blizzard practically going on. Um it's similar
Speaker 1: to that or well, that's why it maybe the ultimate
Speaker 1: test track in a way. A lot of conditions are different.
Speaker 1: Road surfaces are different. There's concrete slabs, there's bank turns,
Speaker 1: uphill downhill, suspension gets light, gets heavy, like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: It's just it's a place where everybody could go and
Speaker 1: kind of see what they have. You know what. I
Speaker 1: love the idea that you know, everybody's kind of got
Speaker 1: their own opinion about what this course is all about.
Speaker 1: Like the drivers do a lot of them are I
Speaker 1: think a lot of them are afraid of it. And
Speaker 1: I don't think there's anything wrong with that, or at
Speaker 1: least uh, there's a level of respect about the course.
Speaker 1: Well you know honestly. Yeah, yeah, I guess maybe the
Speaker 1: respect is a better way to say it. I mean
Speaker 1: to say they're afraid of it. I mean they do
Speaker 1: it anyway because they've got nerves of steel, right. I
Speaker 1: think I would be afraid of it, really if I
Speaker 1: had to go out and do that. Of course, the
Speaker 1: first time I assume that rookies are afraid of it,
Speaker 1: probably I'm as sure. I'm sure that they are. But
Speaker 1: Jackie Stewart, he said, um in in one of those laps,
Speaker 1: you know he has he does have great respect for
Speaker 1: the course. He does, and I think he has a
Speaker 1: little bit of fear for of it because it is
Speaker 1: a kind of scary thing to drive. You never know
Speaker 1: if you're gonna make it back. He said. He always
Speaker 1: every time he left to go to the German Grand
Speaker 1: Prix at the nurburg Ring, he would stop at the
Speaker 1: end of his driveway, look back at his house, kind
Speaker 1: of like one long moment, and then leave. And he said,
Speaker 1: because I never knew if I was ever going to
Speaker 1: come home from that race. Because that's not dangerous it was.
Speaker 1: And he said, while he was driving this thing, he said,
Speaker 1: you know, I drive this at speed, I'm going a
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy five miles an hour on this course
Speaker 1: at the time he was this is back in again
Speaker 1: in the late sixties, hundred seventy five miles an hour.
Speaker 1: He said, you know, when I if I really were
Speaker 1: ever to walk this course, if I would ever just
Speaker 1: like really take in that, you know, there's no guardrail here,
Speaker 1: and over here there's you know, just pine trees, and
Speaker 1: you know over in this area here, like if I
Speaker 1: go off, I'm going into a stream, you know that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. He said, if I ever, if I
Speaker 1: ever really just took all that in, I probably would
Speaker 1: never drive here ever again. I'd never raced his course.
Speaker 1: And uh, and I think he's got a point. He said,
Speaker 1: the less he knows about the course, the better, and
Speaker 1: that he just knows I gotta go fast and turn
Speaker 1: left right there, right right there, and aim for that
Speaker 1: tree so that I can hit the carousel in the
Speaker 1: right spot. And it's just he knew the course really well.
Speaker 1: But he said, the less he knew about the surrounding
Speaker 1: part of the course, you know, the the dangerous part,
Speaker 1: like if you were to go off course, the better
Speaker 1: off he was. Yeah, so he had he did have
Speaker 1: a healthy respect for it, and you know, I think
Speaker 1: there's more, there's more to it. You know, we listened
Speaker 1: to UM some audio from Boris said who is also
Speaker 1: he's a legendary road racing driver as well. You can
Speaker 1: look up this interview if you want on YouTube. You
Speaker 1: can find the entire Boris said, UM discussion, it's I
Speaker 1: think it's got the title is long. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: UM Steve Littart's podcast. Yes, it's he's a he's a
Speaker 1: he was a crew chief in NASCAR for are several drivers.
Speaker 1: It's Steve Lettart on Location and that's his podcast, although
Speaker 1: this one has video as well, but it was from
Speaker 1: Watkins Glen and there he's discussing, you know, the dramatic
Speaker 1: elevation changes and and if you skip forward to about
Speaker 1: the ten minute mark, that's about where the discussion about
Speaker 1: the Nurburgring starts. And uh, he's talking about he races
Speaker 1: in something that's the twenty four hours of Nurburgring. So
Speaker 1: imagine how grueling that would be on on you know,
Speaker 1: a series of drives. It's not just one driver, obviously,
Speaker 1: but he said something just remarkable here. He said that
Speaker 1: at the start of that race two hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: cars start that race, two hundred and thirty. Imagine starting
Speaker 1: the race with two hundred and thirty cars on the track.
Speaker 1: And we're talking about a track like what we've been discussing,
Speaker 1: a long, long track, you know, with a hundred and
Speaker 1: fifties some hundred fifty six turns, elevation changes, it's you know,
Speaker 1: going to get dark at some point during this race.
Speaker 1: There's weather changes. Uh, there's very little runoff. There's you know,
Speaker 1: the almost no guard rails of mentioned. I mean there
Speaker 1: are some, but you're in an extremely fast cars. And
Speaker 1: he said you if you're in a fast car and
Speaker 1: when he and he was, of course he's in one
Speaker 1: of the top end vehicles. He was passing on average
Speaker 1: fifty cars per lap. Yeah, fifty, I think he said
Speaker 1: something like the faster cars a lot slower cars. Every
Speaker 1: three lap means a sports car races all different kinds
Speaker 1: of categories. Yeah, you know, that can make it dangerous too,
Speaker 1: because you've got slower cars and faster cars on the
Speaker 1: same track. You know, what's interesting And gosh, you know,
Speaker 1: I know we're going way over here, we have to
Speaker 1: stop a moment. But um, what's really interesting? He said,
Speaker 1: and here's our answer. Here he says, it's about a
Speaker 1: nine minute lap for him in the sports car series,
Speaker 1: So you know that Formula one Cars is doing a
Speaker 1: lot faster than I mean, I guess a seven minute
Speaker 1: lap something like that ballpark during the tourist and parting,
Speaker 1: which is the kind of the daily driver events they
Speaker 1: have at the track. Yeah, I think they said like
Speaker 1: a ten minute lap is something to brag about. So
Speaker 1: we'll get there. Well, we'll talk about that soon, but
Speaker 1: I think first maybe we should take a break. I
Speaker 1: love this topic. This is a this is an interesting
Speaker 1: one because the truck has so much history, so much,
Speaker 1: so much going on for it. We're going to talk
Speaker 1: about the manufacturers and what they're doing at the Nrburgring
Speaker 1: because it's not just you know, races that happen there,
Speaker 1: it's it's manufacturers that are going there and using it
Speaker 1: as a test facility, and they're using it as kind
Speaker 1: of a level ground test facility so that you know,
Speaker 1: when one manufacturer says our car can lapped Nerburgring in
Speaker 1: this amount of time, the other manufacturer has a way
Speaker 1: to compare exactly to that time with their own version
Speaker 1: of whatever car that they want. To bring, whether that's
Speaker 1: an all electric car, whether that's a hybrid car, internal
Speaker 1: combustion car, whatever type of car they want to bring,
Speaker 1: sports car, sedan, any of those things. They can claim
Speaker 1: that they have the fastest vehicle based on the timing
Speaker 1: that is consistent that at that track. Now we talked
Speaker 1: about all the other things that are inconsistent. Of course,
Speaker 1: drivers are not going to be consistent. You're not gonna
Speaker 1: have the same driver in uh different manufacturers. Car is
Speaker 1: gonna bring your own driver, you know, whether it's a
Speaker 1: pro or somebody that you know they have in their
Speaker 1: own test track or whatever. Um, there's gonna be the weather,
Speaker 1: there's going to be uh just you know, even um
Speaker 1: atmospheric conditions that day at high pressure, low pressure, wind,
Speaker 1: you know whatever. They're gonna have to deal with all that.
Speaker 1: But the thing is that you know you're on the
Speaker 1: same track, You've got the same distance, you've got the
Speaker 1: same timing facility that you know says like this is
Speaker 1: an accurate time. Everybody gets the same treatment. There's no
Speaker 1: there's no difference in this. It's the exact same distance
Speaker 1: every time and no no difference at all, no variance,
Speaker 1: And you don't have to do like a one run
Speaker 1: one way and one run the other way like you
Speaker 1: do for land speed record. It's just a lap time.
Speaker 1: And that lap time is something that these manufacturers have
Speaker 1: really promoted over the last decade or so, or maybe
Speaker 1: even more. It might be more like fifteen years. I
Speaker 1: haven't really been paying attention, I guess for that long
Speaker 1: to figure out when they started, but it seems like
Speaker 1: for the last decade or so, the Nurburgring lap time
Speaker 1: is a huge deal for sports car manufacturers. So they
Speaker 1: they bring a lot of different cars they bring again,
Speaker 1: there's a huge variance. And and let me tell you
Speaker 1: just a couple of times here and and we'll just
Speaker 1: kind of get the ball rolling here maybe and we
Speaker 1: can we can talk about, you know, um, some of
Speaker 1: these in a little bit more detail, maybe in just
Speaker 1: just a moment, if that's all right. All right, So,
Speaker 1: but number ten on the list is the the Lexus
Speaker 1: l F, a Nurburgring package also a special package just
Speaker 1: for the nerber Ring, right all right? Interesting? Right? The
Speaker 1: time that the lap time is seven minutes, fourteen seconds,
Speaker 1: all right, just in a couple of hundreds of a
Speaker 1: second as well. I'm not even gonna read those so
Speaker 1: seven and fourteen, alright, almost almost seven fifteen. If you
Speaker 1: move up, you know, you get to like the Corvette
Speaker 1: C seven. Then there's this is a surprising one. The
Speaker 1: gumper To Apollo comes in at two and from two
Speaker 1: thousand nine. This is a car from a long time ago.
Speaker 1: The Gumpert Apollo is still number eight on the list.
Speaker 1: It's seven minutes and just under seven minutes and twelve seconds,
Speaker 1: so still really really fast for that car. You go
Speaker 1: up a little bit higher. You got a Mercedes and Nissan.
Speaker 1: There's the g t R. Of course. Uh there's the
Speaker 1: Dodge Viper A c R, which comes in at seven
Speaker 1: oh one point zero three, so just under just shy
Speaker 1: of breaking that seven minute mark. They didn't quite do
Speaker 1: it with a Dodge Viper ACR. Then there's a Porsche
Speaker 1: which is the nine eighteen Spider. They we have the
Speaker 1: first Lamborghini. Oh that's a clue, I just gave away,
Speaker 1: right clue. The first Lamborghini comes in at the number three.
Speaker 1: That's the Hurricane I think, I hope that's the way
Speaker 1: you pronounced that Hurricane Hurricane um which comes in at
Speaker 1: six fifty two. So they actually broke the seven minute mark.
Speaker 1: This is a Porsche g T two r S and
Speaker 1: then the number one car on this list is a
Speaker 1: Lamborghini event the Door s v J which comes in
Speaker 1: and get this is a fast time six minutes and
Speaker 1: forty six minutes forty four seconds point nine seven, so
Speaker 1: just under six minutes forty five seconds, and that's really
Speaker 1: really moving, right, but a smoke. But I want to
Speaker 1: point out one thing here. These cars from one to ten,
Speaker 1: they're all sports cars. Of course, they all come in
Speaker 1: within thirty seconds of each other. And that's how tight
Speaker 1: this race is, right, And we talked about all the
Speaker 1: differences in the track and things that can happen, weather
Speaker 1: conditions and whatnot. And it's funny that they use this
Speaker 1: as a standard and they quibble over thirty second difference,
Speaker 1: and you know, the drivers are all of course, they're different.
Speaker 1: Manufacturers spend a lot of money to go and do
Speaker 1: this right, and they want to be number one. They
Speaker 1: want to at least be in the top ten. And
Speaker 1: I understand, I completely get that. It's it's kind of
Speaker 1: important to keep your sports car in the top ten
Speaker 1: on the fastest cars that you're working right now, because
Speaker 1: that's kind of the standard right, where is a Ferrari
Speaker 1: on this list? Exactly? They stay out of Germany, they say,
Speaker 1: come to Italy where racing. This is the good point.
Speaker 1: They're running on Italian tracks. Yeah, maybe maybe they are.
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe there's a Monza record that I
Speaker 1: don't know about or whatever. But um, the Nurburgring is
Speaker 1: is fantastic for this and it is a level playing field.
Speaker 1: But you make a very good point, Curtain, And we
Speaker 1: talked about this off air we were getting ready for
Speaker 1: this podcast in that I kind of I I like,
Speaker 1: for a short amount of time reading the forums. Uh
Speaker 1: you know that they go along with these numbers, you know,
Speaker 1: like when you we look up the Nurburgring fastest times
Speaker 1: or any article that has to do with like, you know,
Speaker 1: someone breaking a record. I'd like to read the comments
Speaker 1: just for a bit of a short time because quickly
Speaker 1: people get out of control. They start to have a
Speaker 1: flame war about all kinds of different things that really
Speaker 1: have very very little impact on the on the ultimate
Speaker 1: time of these cars, I believe, I think. So. Anyways,
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe maybe there's more to it than I
Speaker 1: than I know, but you and I both kind of
Speaker 1: had a good laugh about that right. Yeah. So, so
Speaker 1: there's minor, minor things that that people think make a
Speaker 1: huge difference in wings like tires, and if the car
Speaker 1: has a racing package built into it, roll bars and
Speaker 1: and that sort of thing. Traction control, you know, the
Speaker 1: driver assist options that may not be conducive to running
Speaker 1: a fast lap may actually help the car run faster.
Speaker 1: All right, there's like three things there that I want
Speaker 1: to mention, Okay, so said um. Traction control and drivers
Speaker 1: this type functions. You know, I I don't know where
Speaker 1: they stand on if those are turned off, turned on,
Speaker 1: or you know whatever. I'm not sure how that all
Speaker 1: works out with real race drivers want very little of that,
Speaker 1: but I would think so, but even if one has
Speaker 1: a little bit of that, they do. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: the crazy part. Okay. So so UM also roll bars. Okay,
Speaker 1: so certain cars are built from the manufacturer with a
Speaker 1: roll bar that's part of the structure of the vehicle itself.
Speaker 1: So that's something that has to be a factor because
Speaker 1: it does stiff in the chassis does make a difference
Speaker 1: in the handle in the vehicle. The other thing, and
Speaker 1: this is one that a lot of people on these
Speaker 1: forums will get just I right about tires. Tires is
Speaker 1: a big one. You mentioned tires is one of the
Speaker 1: first things, and they seem to go crazy over this
Speaker 1: versus like the factory tires versus aftermarket tires. Right, So
Speaker 1: the the main argument here is that, um, and this
Speaker 1: is if I'm getting the right and you tell me, Kurt,
Speaker 1: if you get the same impression or not, or if
Speaker 1: you have a different opinion about this, Okay, But what
Speaker 1: I am understanding is that people are upset that they're
Speaker 1: not using the factory provided tires on the cars to
Speaker 1: do these runs, but they are putting tires on the
Speaker 1: cars that cost Let's say I'm gonna just ballpark this
Speaker 1: and it's general. Let's say that the tires are a
Speaker 1: thousand dollars each or two thousand dollars each, or you know,
Speaker 1: maybe even more super expensive tires. I mean, they're really
Speaker 1: really pricey, great tires, sticky compound, you know all that. However,
Speaker 1: they are available on the market. You can buy the
Speaker 1: like you and I could buy them if we had
Speaker 1: the money, if we wanted to, we could buy that
Speaker 1: same tire from a manufacturer. What a lot of people
Speaker 1: are confusing, I think is the fact that they're not
Speaker 1: using a proprietary race compound that is for a certain
Speaker 1: team or a certain series or something like that that
Speaker 1: you cannot buy commercially on the market. You can't go
Speaker 1: out and find a website where you could buy that tire.
Speaker 1: You have to be part of that team in order
Speaker 1: to get that that compound, that racing compound. And I
Speaker 1: think that's the confusion, because it seems like it seems
Speaker 1: totally fair to me that if you want to put
Speaker 1: a pair of tires, on a set of tires, or
Speaker 1: even brake pads or whatever on the car, that you
Speaker 1: can buy somewhere, you know, aftermarket or wherever from the manufacturer,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever it happens to be. Those are consumables.
Speaker 1: Those seem like, you know, tires were Eventually you're going
Speaker 1: to replace the tires, Eventually you're going to replace the
Speaker 1: break And of course some people, I'm sure, buy Lamborghini
Speaker 1: and the first thing they do is buy a new
Speaker 1: set of tires, tires and brake pads because they want
Speaker 1: to improve the breaking performance. And of course that improves
Speaker 1: your your lap time because you can go harder into
Speaker 1: the turns and you can break faster and come out
Speaker 1: of those turns faster. I mean, of course I understand
Speaker 1: the importance of breaking like a better break compound, a
Speaker 1: better tire compound. I understand all that. I get it.
Speaker 1: But if it's available and it's something that everybody could do, yeah,
Speaker 1: why not? I mean, I guess maybe they're confusing, like
Speaker 1: maybe stock production cars with production cars get a little
Speaker 1: to nit picky about records. Like a production car is
Speaker 1: a car that you can buy with things on it
Speaker 1: that you can also buy. Yeah, I feel the same way.
Speaker 1: I feel the same way. Like if you may get
Speaker 1: a Lamborghini, maybe not a new one, but he used one,
Speaker 1: and you want to go out and bust a record
Speaker 1: at the Nurburgring, but you don't want to have the
Speaker 1: same beat up tires that came on the car when
Speaker 1: you bought it. Used. You want to pop some new
Speaker 1: tires on before you go run the nerveburg Ring. So,
Speaker 1: but you should still be considered you should still be
Speaker 1: considered a stock car exactly, So do it? I mean,
Speaker 1: in that case, you're I guess the other argument would be,
Speaker 1: in order to break that record, you would have to
Speaker 1: go and buy the exact same tire that they put
Speaker 1: onto the factory in order to make a break that record, right, right,
Speaker 1: and not to mention as soon as you run a
Speaker 1: lap or two or three on this a set of tires,
Speaker 1: you might want some new ones. Anyway. What if I
Speaker 1: have a different air filter in the car, What if
Speaker 1: I have a different oil in the car? Does that matter?
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, what if I'm using a different grease,
Speaker 1: you know for the chassis. You know, what if I'm
Speaker 1: all that stuff like it's not not production gasoline. It's
Speaker 1: kind of the same argument though, things that they are consumable,
Speaker 1: things that that you use up you should change when needed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this argument is is just it's it's it's funny in
Speaker 1: a way, but it's also maddening in another way. Let's
Speaker 1: let's talk about tourists and pharton after a break. So
Speaker 1: we we we teased a little bit that we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about something that has a ridiculous name. Uh this
Speaker 1: now as it's a German name, of course, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure that they don't think it's ridiculous. Of course. All
Speaker 1: it really means, I think, if if I had to
Speaker 1: guess what this really means, it just means tourist day, right,
Speaker 1: or tourist driving experience or something like that. But but
Speaker 1: the word is is silly. Yeah, it's it's tourists and partings.
Speaker 1: You can't even say I don't know why I can't
Speaker 1: say it. It's it's we've laughed about this. It's so juvenile.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like I'm like a kid, like a
Speaker 1: little kid when when we say tourist and farton, but
Speaker 1: it is tourist and farting, And all it really means
Speaker 1: is that, um, there's certain days on the nerve burgering.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure a lot of our listeners are already
Speaker 1: aware of this, that you can go and drive on
Speaker 1: the track and you pay a little bit of a
Speaker 1: fee and I don't remember exactly what it is. I
Speaker 1: want to say, it's like thirty dollars or something like that.
Speaker 1: There's there's a list somewhere online. I know that you
Speaker 1: can look up the prices. But the list is a
Speaker 1: little bit terrifying. And I'll tell you why in just
Speaker 1: a moment. It just been ten seconds, I'll tell you.
Speaker 1: But you can go and look at the prices of
Speaker 1: things and find out exactly what it is and when
Speaker 1: it's happening, Because there are certain days when they're having
Speaker 1: other activities. You know, manufacturers have it reserved, or uh
Speaker 1: they have a race or you know, something like that's
Speaker 1: going on. But essentially this becomes like a one way
Speaker 1: toll road. Of course, there's no opposing traffic on this
Speaker 1: little tiny road. But the reason that the list that
Speaker 1: is terrifying is because when you look up the price,
Speaker 1: like to just to drive on the track, they start
Speaker 1: giving you the prices if you crash, what it costs
Speaker 1: to replace the guard rail segments, what it costs to
Speaker 1: have the track team members come out and assist you
Speaker 1: in your car to get out of the car. They
Speaker 1: give you prices for medical help. They give you prices
Speaker 1: for a helicopter to come and fly you off the
Speaker 1: track if they need to, which has happened many times.
Speaker 1: I think, Um, they start giving you like some really
Speaker 1: scary numbers, and they're they're high numbers, they're expensive, but
Speaker 1: maybe look past that, just look at the price of
Speaker 1: entry and know that you can keep yourself under control
Speaker 1: on the track and uh and you'll be fine. But
Speaker 1: you know, from what I've seen, Kurt Um, and you've
Speaker 1: seen some of the footage as well, like when when
Speaker 1: just anybody can go out there and drive you know,
Speaker 1: any car that has and you know, they get their
Speaker 1: engine checked out. They get you know, it's not leaking
Speaker 1: oil or anything. They've got lights, the tires are okay,
Speaker 1: you know, they check out. I'm sure they have a
Speaker 1: little bit of a um a prep you know that
Speaker 1: they have to go through. There's no course, like, you
Speaker 1: don't have to learn any rules, but there are rules
Speaker 1: we'll talk about. Once you get out there. You deal
Speaker 1: with people that are professional, and you deal with some
Speaker 1: people that are absolute fools and everything in between. From
Speaker 1: what I got other, any old car, any old person
Speaker 1: can go out there and do whatever they want to do,
Speaker 1: besides go backwards and do donuts in the middle of
Speaker 1: the track. I mean you, just as long as you're
Speaker 1: going forward and abiding by some basic rules of the road,
Speaker 1: can go out there and have have a good time
Speaker 1: at the Nurburgring. Essentially, those are the rules. Now there
Speaker 1: are other rules that we should talk about. There's a
Speaker 1: there's a funny video about what you should not do
Speaker 1: on the Nurburgring, and I'll mention these. I think there's
Speaker 1: like seven points that you know you're not supposed to do,
Speaker 1: and they all make perfect sense. And they're they're done
Speaker 1: in a funny way. But I'll tell you that I've
Speaker 1: watched many videos of this, and you know that everybody
Speaker 1: loves to watch the failed videos. I guess you know,
Speaker 1: the ones where you know someone's coming around a corner
Speaker 1: and they just lose it and you know, horrible thing happens.
Speaker 1: They destroy their car, they destroy their daily driver or
Speaker 1: maybe it's a tracker. I don't know, but it's probably
Speaker 1: typically a daily driver from the looks of it. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: just people just go out there in their cars, like
Speaker 1: a fun weekend from work, dip into the Nurburgring. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's a little bit of everything. There's there's camper
Speaker 1: vans out there. There's bmw use that you know, the
Speaker 1: cars that have uh you know, full uh you know,
Speaker 1: decal packages and everything. It looks like a race car,
Speaker 1: so maybe it is a track day car, you know,
Speaker 1: a fun toy for the weekend or whatever. But other
Speaker 1: cars they do look like just maybe like the family
Speaker 1: sedan that someone's taken out for fun. You can rent
Speaker 1: a car, you can go out there. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: that too, But you know, those are the fun ones
Speaker 1: to watch. But there's also some great videos. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if you caught these or not, but there's
Speaker 1: some fantastic videos of people that are driving the track
Speaker 1: really well, and some some you know, privateers, I guess
Speaker 1: you know, and I call them privateers. They're not real racers,
Speaker 1: but but people that bring their own vehicle, you know,
Speaker 1: a BMW or Mercedes or something, and they're just really
Speaker 1: skilled and they can really handle it around that track,
Speaker 1: and it's it's really cool to watch. I mean, they're
Speaker 1: really good and they're racing close with other people and
Speaker 1: that's the cool thing. In that discussion from Boris said
Speaker 1: earlier that we mentioned there's a lot of traffic on
Speaker 1: that track and it's a lot of different speeds, so
Speaker 1: you gotta like kind of be accommodating to that and
Speaker 1: the weather and all the conditions and everything. But um,
Speaker 1: if you get somebody, if you can watch somebody who's
Speaker 1: doing this really well with another person maybe that's doing
Speaker 1: really well, they're chasing each other around the track, it's
Speaker 1: fun to watch. It's entertaining. It's just as good as
Speaker 1: any race that you'll ever watch. It really is. It's fun.
Speaker 1: You know, near this track, everybody kind of gathers around
Speaker 1: this one gas station. And around this gas station is
Speaker 1: a lot like when if you can imagine this, and
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people can. When you know,
Speaker 1: people are leaving those caffeine and octane type shows on
Speaker 1: the weekends, and everybody is leaving the parking lot and
Speaker 1: they're kind of doing burnouts and showing off a little bit.
Speaker 1: As they exit the parking lot. There's hundreds of people
Speaker 1: lining the road. They're very very close to the road.
Speaker 1: They've all got cameras out, they have some of them
Speaker 1: have chairs, they've got their own personal cars lining the roads.
Speaker 1: There's fences set up and everything. On these tourist days,
Speaker 1: people line up like that. Near this gas there's particular
Speaker 1: gas station and it's called the E D gas Station
Speaker 1: and it looks this looks like doord ed the ED
Speaker 1: gas station and and um, it's the one that's closest
Speaker 1: to the track. So all of the cars and motorcycles
Speaker 1: and trucks and whatever they tend to fill up there
Speaker 1: on their way to the track, and that means that
Speaker 1: they're full of fuel. They're ready to go out on
Speaker 1: the race track. They're excited, they're kind of adrenalinees going
Speaker 1: and they've got this crowd that's kind of egging them
Speaker 1: on to you know, do a burnout or so. You'll
Speaker 1: find a lot of like it, kind of interesting videos.
Speaker 1: You'll see a little bit of everything. It looks like
Speaker 1: a cruise event or something, you know, where some really
Speaker 1: amazing cars drive by. Also some very plane cars drive
Speaker 1: by that are a little bit maybe souped up, a
Speaker 1: little bit ready for the track, or you know, others
Speaker 1: that are just plane Jane sedans and are just there
Speaker 1: for the fun fun of it. Um. From what I gathers,
Speaker 1: that's just part of the experience of going to the track. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for tourists and parting, Yeah, it's just you go, you
Speaker 1: get your gas and you maybe show your car to
Speaker 1: the crowd a little bit and then onto the track.
Speaker 1: Isn't that The funny thing is because some people will,
Speaker 1: you know, they'll they'll get an accident outside of the
Speaker 1: track because they're trying to show off. But they're they're
Speaker 1: like moments away from the one of the greatest tracks
Speaker 1: in the world, and they're gonna be able to go
Speaker 1: and just push it out right as far as when
Speaker 1: you can go crash on the track instead of in
Speaker 1: front of the the gas very good point. Yeah, very
Speaker 1: good point. Now, thankfully, it seems like there are fewer
Speaker 1: accidents there than at the caffeine and octane type shows
Speaker 1: that that I've seen. It seems more common to see
Speaker 1: people wrecking leaving those For some reason. Um, maybe that's
Speaker 1: the star when at work leading out the before you
Speaker 1: get to the track. If you can't handle the gas station,
Speaker 1: then don't even go to the nerve burgering. No, absolutely,
Speaker 1: all right, So you know that's one thing that's one
Speaker 1: part of it, and you know that's part of this
Speaker 1: little town that's right there within the boundaries of the
Speaker 1: track or near the boundaries of the track. So they
Speaker 1: ask you that you'd be respectful, and that's one of
Speaker 1: the things that we're going to talk about, all right.
Speaker 1: So one of the rules. And again this is coming
Speaker 1: from a video that was kind of like a don
Speaker 1: you know, don't do this on the track, and it's
Speaker 1: very funny in the way that it's done. You can
Speaker 1: find it online on YouTube, and it's just it's it's
Speaker 1: funny in the way that things are phrased. You know that.
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to do it very much justice here.
Speaker 1: You should go and watch this if you get a
Speaker 1: chance because it's kind of comical, but it also has
Speaker 1: some decent footage of what's going on there and and
Speaker 1: tells you some of the rules and explains them a
Speaker 1: little better than I can. But um, now, at first
Speaker 1: we should say that you know, it's open almost every
Speaker 1: weekend and at the last and the last few hours
Speaker 1: of almost every day for this tourist activity. So you
Speaker 1: know they call it tourists, but it's just open for
Speaker 1: people to pay and go on this track. Of course,
Speaker 1: there are track officials there and everything to make sure
Speaker 1: that things are safe. They've got flags and everything to
Speaker 1: keep you in line. Cars can be driven any car,
Speaker 1: bike can be driven on the track as long as
Speaker 1: it's road legal. That's that's one thing. Um. You can
Speaker 1: only here's one of the rules. You can only overtake
Speaker 1: another car on the left. There's no passing on the right.
Speaker 1: If you're passed on the right, you're doing it wrong.
Speaker 1: And that's which is also should be a rule here
Speaker 1: in the United States on any road. It should just
Speaker 1: just don't want to go out there. Who who don't
Speaker 1: know it is a rule the right it's an it's
Speaker 1: an unwritten well maybe even a written probably has written
Speaker 1: as one of them, So overtake on the left, never
Speaker 1: on the right. Okay, that makes sense, right, lap will
Speaker 1: get this. This is interesting because of what we've been
Speaker 1: talking about. If you're going there and thinking that you're
Speaker 1: gonna time your lap, that's not what's gonna happen. And
Speaker 1: I don't want you to have the clock in the car.
Speaker 1: Now this you can time your lap, but you have
Speaker 1: to do it in kind of a roundabout way, so
Speaker 1: you can use your go Pro and you can record
Speaker 1: your session. You know, you can record however you want
Speaker 1: it to do, and of course that's gonna keep time,
Speaker 1: so you're able to go back later and deduce your
Speaker 1: time from the go pro footage. But you're not able
Speaker 1: to have a clock right in front of you as
Speaker 1: you're driving. And they many drivers have said, if you're
Speaker 1: out here for these tourist days and you're watching a
Speaker 1: clock as you go around the track, you're gonna have
Speaker 1: a bad day no matter what, because well, somebody's gonna
Speaker 1: get in front of you in a camper van and
Speaker 1: ruin your time. Right Because there's so much traffic on
Speaker 1: the on the course at any given time, you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to pass, and you know, you might have to
Speaker 1: slow down and do that, and and that's fine. Just
Speaker 1: go out there, even like the guys and girls that
Speaker 1: do it all times said, just go out there and
Speaker 1: have fun. Just go out and have a great time.
Speaker 1: Drive fast, get your adrenaline going, you know, just have
Speaker 1: a good time and know that you've done You've you've
Speaker 1: completed a decent lap. But it doesn't have to come
Speaker 1: down to the exact second, to the exact you know,
Speaker 1: tens or hundreds of a second that that you think
Speaker 1: it does. Just go out and have fun, and it's
Speaker 1: better if you're not watching the clock. And especially you
Speaker 1: know that the track officials don't want you watching it
Speaker 1: because it's going to lead to aggressive driving because if
Speaker 1: you start to fall behind in your time, you're gonna
Speaker 1: try to push it even harder and you're gonna end
Speaker 1: up wrecking probably. So, um, it makes sense when you
Speaker 1: think about it that way, But initially I thought, well,
Speaker 1: that's crazy. They're not letting you time your own lap. Well,
Speaker 1: you can time it. There's also GPS units that you
Speaker 1: can get that will just keep time as you go around,
Speaker 1: So there's no reason to have it there on the
Speaker 1: dash look at and I think you can even you know,
Speaker 1: in your own head, you can just create a little
Speaker 1: variance and you could say like, okay, well, you know,
Speaker 1: and my time was decent. It was nine or it
Speaker 1: was ten minutes and thirty seconds, but I was held
Speaker 1: up for you know, a good twenty seconds of that
Speaker 1: by uh, you know, the Honda Civic or whatever it was.
Speaker 1: It was in front of me. You know. Um, oh,
Speaker 1: don't leave the scene of a crash. Um. So if
Speaker 1: you crash and you know, you bang up a guard rail,
Speaker 1: even if it's just you alone, you're not supposed to
Speaker 1: leave that scene of a crash. Um. You can stay there,
Speaker 1: um and wait for somebody come over and check you
Speaker 1: out and make sure that things all right and get
Speaker 1: things back on track again. I guess, so to speak,
Speaker 1: because because um, there's probably some clean up that has
Speaker 1: to happen, and they want to make sure that, you know,
Speaker 1: the wheel is not going to fall off in the
Speaker 1: next turn. Fluid leaks from the car. They don't want
Speaker 1: you dragon, that's a huge fluids across the track. That
Speaker 1: is a big one because I've seen many videos where
Speaker 1: someone has leaked fuel on the previous you know, the
Speaker 1: previous cars leaked fuel or or oil and four cars
Speaker 1: will wreck, I mean, ruins their day, ruins their year, month, whatever.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's expensive, it's very expensive. So um, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's a that's a huge issue. There's no standing
Speaker 1: on the track. And you and I have both seen
Speaker 1: examples of this in those videos. Uh one one boy.
Speaker 1: One of these videos, a guy nearly loses his legs
Speaker 1: when another car comes by. He barely makes over that wall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he dives over the fence and fall. I think you
Speaker 1: can kind of see him frolling down the other side
Speaker 1: because there was a hill on the other side. He
Speaker 1: tumbled for quite some time. He and yeah, and you
Speaker 1: know he I don't know, he's like flicking off the
Speaker 1: people with the damner. They're yelling something Backeah, Well they're
Speaker 1: probably yelling, idiot is stupid, you know, you know, what
Speaker 1: are you doing? Because he was he was between the guardrail,
Speaker 1: which is I mean, it looked like it was chest
Speaker 1: high and and I don't think it's like a BMW
Speaker 1: that's coming at him really fast. And it did clip
Speaker 1: the wall right where he was, and yeah, he hopped
Speaker 1: over like and just I mean just just half a
Speaker 1: second before it hit him. It's crazy too, because he
Speaker 1: was on the inside of a turn and you wouldn't
Speaker 1: this places where you wouldn't think that a car would
Speaker 1: be crashing into But how that's why there's the rule. Again,
Speaker 1: I don't stand on the side. And I think that
Speaker 1: situation was an oil situation where there was oil or
Speaker 1: something slick on the trail, like, because there were many
Speaker 1: cars that were wrecking in the same turn for no
Speaker 1: good reason. I mean, they're just spinning out for no
Speaker 1: good reason. Um, okay, the next one, Uh, this one
Speaker 1: a little again counterto no drifting, you're not allowed to
Speaker 1: intentionally drift on the Nrburgring and a track. Marshal uh
Speaker 1: will report you if they see you doing doing this drifting. Now,
Speaker 1: I watched videos where you can see that people are
Speaker 1: taking turns intentionally drifting through them. You know, it's if
Speaker 1: you slide a little bit, that's one thing. If you
Speaker 1: are drifting through the turn, that's a big difference. And
Speaker 1: there are people that I've seen intentionally drifting. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: do get reported, and I think I don't know if
Speaker 1: there's a fine involved or if you just are kind
Speaker 1: of banned for maybe that day or that week or
Speaker 1: whatever from the Yeah, um, this last one, this is silly.
Speaker 1: No driving like a maniac. That's the last rule. I mean,
Speaker 1: that was the funniest last rule. Like I thought, I thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be something big here. There's gonna be something
Speaker 1: really you know, monumental here at the end. No driving
Speaker 1: like a maniac because it's on a public road, and
Speaker 1: you know, I guess it does make sense when you
Speaker 1: when you understand this, when you get off the track,
Speaker 1: you are in this little town, you know, if you're
Speaker 1: going to the gas station or wherever. I think this
Speaker 1: is where that they're talking about. Is like, you know,
Speaker 1: you've got all that energy from the track and you
Speaker 1: still are kind of at the track, you know, because
Speaker 1: you're in that area. Don't keep driving like you're on
Speaker 1: the track when you're in the town. I mean, the
Speaker 1: Jones people don't want to deal with that. They would
Speaker 1: have to deal with that every day all day if
Speaker 1: that was the case, and I can imagine that would
Speaker 1: be infuriating. So, uh, they don't drive like a maniac.
Speaker 1: Thing makes more sense when you understand that, Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: this community there and you're really disrupting the community if
Speaker 1: you drive like that through there. You should just leave
Speaker 1: the track situation on the track and then realize that
Speaker 1: you're on a public road after that. Well, what I
Speaker 1: find about all of these rules is they are generally
Speaker 1: just rules of the common sense. All right, So I
Speaker 1: have a one, one quick question for you before we
Speaker 1: wrap up. And I think we already talked about this,
Speaker 1: But um, would you go and drive this track knowing
Speaker 1: what you know about it and seeing what you've seen? Um,
Speaker 1: in your own personal car? Now, of course, rental cars.
Speaker 1: If you rent a car from anywhere other than um,
Speaker 1: a place called a grudge which is right in that area,
Speaker 1: you can rent a sports car and go there. Very expensive.
Speaker 1: You can do it. If you rent a car like
Speaker 1: an Avis or Hurts or whoever, you will be banned
Speaker 1: forever from renting a car from them if you take
Speaker 1: it on the Nerbergring track. So, and we do have
Speaker 1: a listener from car stuff that happened to. He showed
Speaker 1: me the letter, um, so and it's probably worth it courage,
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, he did, he was he was happy,
Speaker 1: he knew, he knew the consequences. But would you take
Speaker 1: your own personal vehicle on the nerber Ring and drive
Speaker 1: it knowing what you know, now it would be fun
Speaker 1: to go out there and and just tool around a
Speaker 1: little bit. Would you be a little just just a
Speaker 1: little bit afraid of some yahoo that's gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: try to like they're trying to break a lap record
Speaker 1: or something. You know that they're gonna cause you to
Speaker 1: to wreck. Because I know you can control yourself, of course,
Speaker 1: but what about the the the part of it that
Speaker 1: you don't have control over a little bit a little,
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel as if you should have that
Speaker 1: fear in general. So it's easier just not to think
Speaker 1: about the other people. And then from what I can tell,
Speaker 1: there's a healthy people just out there having fun, and
Speaker 1: then there's some people that are taking it a little
Speaker 1: too serious. Yeah, and this this is not an event
Speaker 1: to go out there and try to break a track record,
Speaker 1: because first of all, you're not going to there's no
Speaker 1: way you're gonna get even close to the six minutes
Speaker 1: and forty five second time of the Lamborghini, of course not.
Speaker 1: Probably not even gonna get under ten minutes. Probably not.
Speaker 1: So if anyone's planning to go out there, just take
Speaker 1: it easy and have fun with the experience. Good advice. Now,
Speaker 1: I one one little caveat that I want to mention
Speaker 1: here because I think it's worth worth mentioning, is that,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're on the track, I would assume
Speaker 1: that insurance doesn't play a factor in this. Will like,
Speaker 1: I think that insurance is probably off. They're not gonna
Speaker 1: They're not gonna cover anything that happens on that track,
Speaker 1: I think. So that might be the only difference between
Speaker 1: you know, like the risk that you assume when you're
Speaker 1: on the highway and I know there's still a physical
Speaker 1: danger and there's still you know, property damaged danger and
Speaker 1: all that. I get it. But I do think that
Speaker 1: you're financially risking a little bit more when you go
Speaker 1: on this track, and it's worthwhile to look into that
Speaker 1: before you go and before you do this, because you know,
Speaker 1: again I don't have all the details here about this obviously.
Speaker 1: I'm just kind of, you know, giving you an overview,
Speaker 1: and I want listeners to go out and really investigate
Speaker 1: all this and find out what's what's happening there, because
Speaker 1: I think there's some I think there's some fun to
Speaker 1: be had there. Of course, there's a lot of fun
Speaker 1: to be had there. Yeah, So Scott, would you do
Speaker 1: do what I do. This is what everyone wants, you know.
Speaker 1: I think I think that you know, I might. I
Speaker 1: would probably rent a car. I know it's expensive, but
Speaker 1: if I were going to do it, I don't think
Speaker 1: i'd risk my own car out there. Um. I think
Speaker 1: that I would rent a car from this this place
Speaker 1: that I mentioned, this Big Grudge that if you go
Speaker 1: to want to go to a website and check out
Speaker 1: the prices, it's Big Grudge dot d E and you
Speaker 1: can check out what they've got there. They get all
Speaker 1: kinds of sports cars and they're expensive. They're not cheap,
Speaker 1: you know, and you pay for like two laps or
Speaker 1: twelve laps or you know whatever. It's like different rates.
Speaker 1: But I would assume that insurance comes along with that.
Speaker 1: You're probably still paying quite a bit if you wreck it,
Speaker 1: but I bet there's a limp it to it. But anyways,
Speaker 1: it's it's a worthwhile thing to check into. So look
Speaker 1: up the Nervebourg Ring and these tourist days and this
Speaker 1: is one of those things that all you car enthusiasts
Speaker 1: should put on your bucket list. It seems like a
Speaker 1: really great experience. Why not. I'd love to get over
Speaker 1: there to do it and you know. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: if you want, you can contact us and tell us
Speaker 1: if you have done this or if you want to
Speaker 1: go over and do this. We are always on social
Speaker 1: media as well, so you know we're on Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: Instagram where we are car Stuff hs W on all
Speaker 1: three of those. But um, I guess that's about it
Speaker 1: for me, Kurt, how about you? That's it for me?
Speaker 1: Anything else all right? I guess we will see you
Speaker 1: next time, and thanks for listening everyone. Car Stuff is
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts or
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.