Speaker 1: Welcome to The Fast Track, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome to The Fast Track.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Scott Benjamin, and I'm joined by my
Speaker 1: producer once again, Kurt Garin. Kurt, how are you doing?
Speaker 1: I'm doing well, Scott, how are you? I'm also doing well?
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm super excited about this show this
Speaker 1: week because We've got a topic that's got a lot
Speaker 1: of meat to it and something that I think that
Speaker 1: it is going to be just right for conversation between
Speaker 1: the two of us, because we both have an interest
Speaker 1: in this sort of thing. Anyway, I met a little
Speaker 1: bit of track driving, a little bit of uh that
Speaker 1: little thrill seeking. I guess maybe we both kind of
Speaker 1: not adrenaline junkies, but we both like to, uh, kind
Speaker 1: of test the limits of our vehicles kind of you know,
Speaker 1: just get out there and have a little bit of
Speaker 1: fun in them. And I think this is something that
Speaker 1: a lot of people can relate to. Maybe not a
Speaker 1: lot of people have done this in the past, of course,
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna find very few of our listeners
Speaker 1: have actually done this. But there are a couple of
Speaker 1: examples that that I'll tell you about in just a moment,
Speaker 1: So let's just jump right into it and I'll tell
Speaker 1: our listeners what we're going to be talking about today.
Speaker 1: And it was kind of a question that I had,
Speaker 1: and it's something that I know I've voiced on my
Speaker 1: other show on car stuff in the past, and I
Speaker 1: think I've maybe answered a little bit and and we've
Speaker 1: even discussed this track and I'll get to all of this,
Speaker 1: you understand it just a moment. But my question is
Speaker 1: about the nerber Ring, and the Nerburgring has in the past,
Speaker 1: i don't know, decade or maybe even twelve fifteen years,
Speaker 1: seem to be the place that manufacturers have taken their
Speaker 1: automobiles to test the limits to see how fast they
Speaker 1: can lap the Nerburgring. And there's a specific part of
Speaker 1: the nerbur Ring that they do this in. There's it's
Speaker 1: it's a it's a certain loop that they tested on.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about what it is. Is it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a level playing field for all manufacturers to be
Speaker 1: able to go and say, we can run this track
Speaker 1: at this speed in this amount of time in this car,
Speaker 1: and that's why our car is the best. And if
Speaker 1: you think you can top it, go do it, and
Speaker 1: it offers a bunch of different types of conditions as
Speaker 1: well through the surface of the course and the terrain
Speaker 1: and weather and all sorts of other obstacles that make
Speaker 1: it interesting and kind of like a something something to
Speaker 1: brag about. So absolutely, we'll we'll talk about all of
Speaker 1: this because there's some really there's believe it or not.
Speaker 1: Even the weather is a fascinating topic on this track,
Speaker 1: and so as the like the surface material because it
Speaker 1: changes over over time, over distance rather and maybe one
Speaker 1: of the coolest things about this is that you can
Speaker 1: go and drive on this track if you just have
Speaker 1: a few dollars in your pocket. It doesn't really cost
Speaker 1: that much money. It's officially a toll road. And I
Speaker 1: know I'm probably not giving anything away by saying that
Speaker 1: right now. And man, there's some fascinating things that go
Speaker 1: along with this whole thing. Now, now here's a little
Speaker 1: bit of background, and I want to temper this with
Speaker 1: this thought. There's a car stuff episode on the nurbur Ring,
Speaker 1: and we went through a lot of history. We went
Speaker 1: through the details of how they've modified the track and
Speaker 1: you know, like you know, the different curves and all
Speaker 1: that stuff, and and the barriers, and it's just a
Speaker 1: lot of information about the track itself. So there's a
Speaker 1: ton of history. There's a ton of material there about
Speaker 1: Grand Prix or you know about Grand Prix racing and
Speaker 1: about um you know, the switchover to Formula one and
Speaker 1: all of that. It's all there. So I don't want
Speaker 1: to I don't want to double up on too much
Speaker 1: of that. And I know that's tough not to step
Speaker 1: on that. So we're gonna We're gonna have a little
Speaker 1: bit of overlap, but not a whole lot. Now, there's
Speaker 1: a few things that I do I do feel like
Speaker 1: we need to repeat. This is just because there's some
Speaker 1: really interesting things about this track that I think they're important.
Speaker 1: And one number one, probably the most important thing that
Speaker 1: we need to know about this track is that it's
Speaker 1: insanely dangerous. Insanely dangerous. I mean, it really is. And
Speaker 1: it was designed a long long time ago. I think
Speaker 1: the track was built in what and it's like it's
Speaker 1: a huge, huge track, it's it's what um well in
Speaker 1: its current uh form. I think that the overall lap,
Speaker 1: if you uh, the nord schlift or nordef that we're
Speaker 1: going to 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 and fifty turns. Yeah, oh yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: That's right. That's another important point. This is a this
Speaker 1: is of course that goes through the mountains. Yeah, i'd
Speaker 1: I'd like to see what the elevation changes. I think
Speaker 1: I think that I think that I read somewhere that
Speaker 1: the elevation change is over a thousand feet between the
Speaker 1: start and finish of the of the tracks. So really
Speaker 1: an interesting track. It's it's fascinating. What do you say,
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty some turns? They had more. They
Speaker 1: tried to make it safer and uh. And that's partly
Speaker 1: due to Jackie Stewart. Uh. In fact, it's it's mostly
Speaker 1: due to Jackie Stewart and a lot of other F
Speaker 1: one drivers that got together and said, we are actually
Speaker 1: they're actually gonna boycott this race if they didn't make
Speaker 1: some changes. And this this wasn't always the case because
Speaker 1: early on, you know, Formula one, it was it was
Speaker 1: a little bit different. It was it was it was fast, sure,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't quite as fast and it wasn't quite
Speaker 1: as dangerous as it was in the late nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: That's when they started adding some wings to the cars,
Speaker 1: and we're add a little more down force, so you
Speaker 1: know where the car stuck to the track exactly. And
Speaker 1: so when they when they would go over some of
Speaker 1: the more I guess pronounced elevation quick elevation changes, maybe
Speaker 1: the car would get lighter than than it should have
Speaker 1: been or yeah, that was I was just trying to
Speaker 1: figure out why the drivers were so afraid of this
Speaker 1: 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, UM,
Speaker 1: and it drops right off. At this point, the cars
Speaker 1: were going so fast that they were becoming airborne. And
Speaker 1: part of the problem was that with the way that
Speaker 1: the down force was UM designed, I guess in these
Speaker 1: cars it was meant to act like a reverse wing
Speaker 1: to push the car down. So when you get air
Speaker 1: underneath the car, it acts in the opposite way. It
Speaker 1: acts like it's gonna want to lift off. And we've
Speaker 1: seen that in recent years, of course with Lama and
Speaker 1: you know, other tracks as well. It's not just it's
Speaker 1: not just the Nerve Orgring, but but tracks where cars
Speaker 1: become airborne. These road courses are really really dangerous for
Speaker 1: drivers that are going super super fast and UM. Back then,
Speaker 1: you know, back in the late six nineteen sixties, Jackie
Speaker 1: Stewart was saying that at the time, and I think
Speaker 1: I've mentioned this another podcasts even you know, the F
Speaker 1: one podcast is that you know, a lot of his
Speaker 1: friends were dying on this, on this, on these circuits,
Speaker 1: on these Grand Prix circuits, and the Nurburgring 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 at.
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 German Grand Prix. I mean the
Speaker 1: latest one was in eighteen I believe, right, or was
Speaker 1: there one? There might have been one they okay, alright, um,
Speaker 1: but but yeah, they kind of like skip around. So
Speaker 1: it's not always run at hockenheim Ring or at um
Speaker 1: you know, the Nurburgring. It's kind of a mix of
Speaker 1: the two, or sometimes it's just not even either one
Speaker 1: of those, you know, depending on whether they're gonna run
Speaker 1: something else. Um. You know you mentioned one thing here
Speaker 1: that another thing that I need to mention real quick.
Speaker 1: The weather. The weather is a huge factor in this. Now,
Speaker 1: this course is so large that there is a there,
Speaker 1: there's a town in the middle of the track. I
Speaker 1: mean there are people that live there. There residents that
Speaker 1: live there throughout the year. There's a castle in the
Speaker 1: middle of the track. That's how big this is. And
Speaker 1: all of the you know, the the surrounding property. I mean,
Speaker 1: and the castle goes back to like the eleven hundreds
Speaker 1: or something like that, goes back a long long way.
Speaker 1: I mean it's an old, old castle. Of course. If
Speaker 1: you ever look at any bit of footage that is
Speaker 1: maybe shot where you know there's an airplane fly over.
Speaker 1: The track itself is is beautiful track. I mean you
Speaker 1: would you would just kind of your mouth with water
Speaker 1: wanting to get onto this track and drive it because
Speaker 1: it's such an interesting looking track. It looks beautiful, really
Speaker 1: it does. And that's why Jackie Stewart decided he was
Speaker 1: going to call it the Green Hell because he feared it,
Speaker 1: but it was also beautiful and it was green, and
Speaker 1: you know, the trees are right nearby. There's a great
Speaker 1: sensation of speed and everything. But the weather is something
Speaker 1: that you really have to factor into this thing because
Speaker 1: it could be pouring rain on one part of the
Speaker 1: course and the other part can be completely dry and sunny.
Speaker 1: And we've seen Sir Jackie Stewart talk about this and
Speaker 1: he one one scene is one where he was in
Speaker 1: a rolls Royce and he's still in his his his
Speaker 1: garb right his he saw his fire suit on, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I think a little little yeah, I think they picked
Speaker 1: him up in the pits and said, hey, Jackie, let's
Speaker 1: go out and talk about the course a little it 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, didn't
Speaker 1: no problem. Maybe maybe he 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 if you can imagine flying over a
Speaker 1: hill and then setting up for a turn right after
Speaker 1: you jump over this little rise and then it being
Speaker 1: wet on the other side, you know, you can imagine
Speaker 1: how tricky and the h 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 like 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 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 least, uh,
Speaker 1: there's a level of respect about the course. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I honestly, yeah, I guess maybe the respect is a
Speaker 1: better way to say it. I mean to say they're
Speaker 1: afraid of it. I mean they do it anyway because
Speaker 1: they've got nerves of steel, right. I think I would
Speaker 1: be afraid of it really if I had to go
Speaker 1: out and do that. Of course, the first time. I
Speaker 1: assume that rookies are afraid of it. Probably I'm sure.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that they are. But Jackie Stewart, he said,
Speaker 1: um in in one of those laps, you know he
Speaker 1: has he does have great respect for the course he does,
Speaker 1: and I think he has a little bit of fear
Speaker 1: for of it because it is a kind of scary
Speaker 1: thing to drive. You never know if you're gonna make
Speaker 1: it back. He said. He always every time he left
Speaker 1: to go to the German Grand Prix at the nerburg Ring,
Speaker 1: he would stop at the end of his driveway, look
Speaker 1: back at his house, kind of like one long moment,
Speaker 1: and then leave. And he said, because I never knew
Speaker 1: if I was ever going to come home from that race.
Speaker 1: Because that's not dangerous. It was. And he said, while
Speaker 1: he was driving this thing, he said, you know, I
Speaker 1: drive this at speed, and I'm going a hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy five miles an hour on this course at the
Speaker 1: time he was this is back in again in the
Speaker 1: late sixties, hundred seventy five miles an hour. He said,
Speaker 1: you know, when I if I really were ever to
Speaker 1: walk this course, if I would ever just like really
Speaker 1: take in that you know, there's no guard rail 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 Orris said, UM discussion, it's I
Speaker 1: think it's got the title is long. It's it's like,
Speaker 1: it's um, Steve Lottart's podcast. Yes, it's he's a he's
Speaker 1: a he was a crew chief in NASCAR for several drivers.
Speaker 1: So it's Steve Lettart on Location and that's his podcast,
Speaker 1: although this one has video as well, but it was
Speaker 1: from Watkins Glen and there he's discussing, you know, the
Speaker 1: dramatic elevation changes and and if you skip forward to
Speaker 1: about the ten minute mark, that's about where the discussion
Speaker 1: about the Nurburgring starts. And uh, he's talking about he
Speaker 1: races in something that's the twenty four hours of Nurburgring.
Speaker 1: So 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, a hundred and fifties,
Speaker 1: some turn, hundred fifty six turns, l vation changes, it's
Speaker 1: you know, going to get dark at some point during
Speaker 1: this race. There's weather changes. Uh, there's very little runoff,
Speaker 1: there's you know, the almost no guard rails of mentioned really,
Speaker 1: I mean there are some, but you're in an extremely
Speaker 1: fast cars and he said, you if you're in a
Speaker 1: fast car and when he and he was, of course,
Speaker 1: he's in one of the top end vehicles. He was
Speaker 1: passing on average fifty cars per lap. Yeah, fifty, I
Speaker 1: think he said something like the faster cars a lot
Speaker 1: slower cars every three laps. A sports car races, all
Speaker 1: different kinds of categories. Yeah, you know that can make
Speaker 1: it dangerous too, because you've got slower cars and faster
Speaker 1: cars on the same track. You know, what's interesting And gosh,
Speaker 1: you know, I know we're going way over here, we
Speaker 1: have to stop a moment, but um, what's really interesting?
Speaker 1: He said? And here's our answer here. He says, it's
Speaker 1: about a nine minute lap for him in the sports
Speaker 1: car series, So you know that Formula one Cars is
Speaker 1: doing a lot faster than I mean, I guess a
Speaker 1: seven minute lab something like that ballpark during the tourist
Speaker 1: and parting, which is the kind of the daily driver
Speaker 1: events they have at the track. I think they said
Speaker 1: like a ten minute laugh is something to brag about.
Speaker 1: So we'll get we'll talk about that soon, but I
Speaker 1: think first maybe we should take a break. Hey, we're
Speaker 1: back and you're listening to the Fast Track with your
Speaker 1: host Scott Benjamin and Kurt Garon. Kurt, how you doing.
Speaker 1: I'm doing well, Still doing well over there, hanging in there.
Speaker 1: I love this topic. This is a This is an
Speaker 1: interesting one because the truck has so much history, so much,
Speaker 1: so much going on for it. We're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: the manufacturers and what they're doing at the Nurburgring because
Speaker 1: it's not just you know, races that happen there, it's
Speaker 1: it's manufacturers that are going there and using it as
Speaker 1: a test facility, and they're using it as kind of
Speaker 1: a level ground test facility, so that you know, when
Speaker 1: one manufacturer says our car can lap to Nurburgring 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. Cars are
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 in 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 a 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 nurbur 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 you get to like the Corvette C seven.
Speaker 1: Then there's this is a surprising one. The gumper To
Speaker 1: Apollo comes in at two to end from two thousand nine.
Speaker 1: This is a car from a long time ago. The
Speaker 1: Gumpert Apollo is still number eight on the list. It's
Speaker 1: 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, a Nissan.
Speaker 1: There's a g t R of course. Uh, there's the
Speaker 1: Dodge Viper ACR, which comes in at seven oh one
Speaker 1: point zero three, so just under just shy of breaking
Speaker 1: that seven minute mark. They didn't quite do it with
Speaker 1: a Dodge Viper a c R. 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 Lamborghini.
Speaker 1: Event the door feed J which comes in and get
Speaker 1: this is a fast time six minutes and forty six
Speaker 1: minutes forty four seconds point nine seven, so just under
Speaker 1: six minutes forty five seconds, and that's really really moving, right,
Speaker 1: but a smoking But I want to point out one
Speaker 1: thing here. These cars from one to ten, they're all
Speaker 1: sports cars. Of course, they all come in within thirty
Speaker 1: seconds of each other. And that's how tight this race is, right,
Speaker 1: And we talked about all the differences in the track
Speaker 1: and things that can happen, weather conditions and whatnot. And
Speaker 1: it's funny that they use this as a standard and
Speaker 1: they quibble over thirty second difference. And you know, the
Speaker 1: drivers are all of course, they're different manufacturers spend a
Speaker 1: lot of money to go and do this right, and
Speaker 1: they want to be number one. They want to at
Speaker 1: least be in the top ten. And I understand, I
Speaker 1: completely get that. It's it's kind of important to keep
Speaker 1: your sports car in the top ten on the fastest
Speaker 1: cars that they're working right now, because that's kind of
Speaker 1: the standard, right Where is a Ferrari on this list? Exactly?
Speaker 1: They stay out of Germany, they say, come to Italy.
Speaker 1: This is the good point. They're running on Italian tracks.
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, maybe maybe they are. I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe there's a Monsa record that I don't know about
Speaker 1: or whatever. But um, the Nurburgring is is fantastic for
Speaker 1: this and it is a level playing field. But you
Speaker 1: make a very good point, curtain, And we talked about
Speaker 1: this off air when we were getting ready for this
Speaker 1: podcast in that I kind of I I like, for
Speaker 1: a short amount of time reading the forums. Uh, you
Speaker 1: 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 or 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 he said, um, traction control and
Speaker 1: drivers sist type functions. You know, I I don't know
Speaker 1: where 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 want to imagine the real race drivers
Speaker 1: want very little of that, but I would think so,
Speaker 1: but even if one has a little bit of it,
Speaker 1: they do. Yeah, that's that's the crazy part. Okay, so
Speaker 1: so UM also roll bars. Okay, so certain cars are
Speaker 1: built from the manufacturer with a roll bar that's part
Speaker 1: of the structure of the vehicle itself. So that's something
Speaker 1: that has to be a factor because it does stiff
Speaker 1: in the chassis does make a difference in the handle
Speaker 1: in the vehicle. The other thing, and this is one
Speaker 1: that a lot of people on these forums will get,
Speaker 1: just I right about tires. Tires is a big one.
Speaker 1: You mentioned tires is one of the first things, and
Speaker 1: they seem to go crazy over this versus like the
Speaker 1: factory tires versus aftermarket tires. Right. So the the main
Speaker 1: argument here is that um, and this is if I'm
Speaker 1: getting this right, and you tell me, Kurt, if you
Speaker 1: get the same impression or not, or if you have
Speaker 1: a different opinion about this, okay, But what I am
Speaker 1: understanding is that people are upset that they're not using
Speaker 1: the factory provided tires on the cars to do these runs,
Speaker 1: but they are putting tires on the cars that cost
Speaker 1: Let's say I'm gonna just ballpark this and it's general.
Speaker 1: Let's say that the tires are a thousand dollars each
Speaker 1: or two thousand dollars each or you know, maybe even
Speaker 1: more super expensive tires. I mean, they're really really pricey,
Speaker 1: great tires, sticky compound, you know all that. However, they
Speaker 1: are available on the market. You can buy the like
Speaker 1: you and I to buy them if we had the money,
Speaker 1: if we wanted to, we could buy that same tire
Speaker 1: from a manufacturer. What a lot of people are confusing,
Speaker 1: I think is the fact that they're not using a
Speaker 1: proprietary race compound that is for a certain team or
Speaker 1: a certain series or something like that that you cannot
Speaker 1: buy commercially on the market. You can't go out and
Speaker 1: find a website where you could buy that tire. You
Speaker 1: have to be part of that team in order to
Speaker 1: get that that compound, that racing compound. And I think
Speaker 1: that's the confusion, because it seems like it seems totally
Speaker 1: fair to me that if you want to put a
Speaker 1: pair of tires on our set of tires, or even
Speaker 1: brake pads or whatever on the car, that you can
Speaker 1: 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 nitpicky about records. Like a production car is a
Speaker 1: car that you can buy with things on it that
Speaker 1: 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 the record
Speaker 1: at the nerve burg Ring, but you don't want to
Speaker 1: have the same beat up tires that came on the
Speaker 1: car when you bought it. Used, you want to pop
Speaker 1: some new tires on before you go run the nerveburg Ring. So,
Speaker 1: but you should still be considered to still be considered
Speaker 1: a stock car exactly. So do I mean in that
Speaker 1: case you're I guess the other argument would be, in
Speaker 1: order to break that record, you would have to go
Speaker 1: and buy the exact same tire that they put onto
Speaker 1: the factory in order to make 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 it's not production gasoline.
Speaker 1: It's kind of the same argument that things that they
Speaker 1: are consumable, things that that you use up you should
Speaker 1: change when needed. Yeah, this argument is is just it's
Speaker 1: it's it's funny in a way, but it's also maddening
Speaker 1: in another way. Let's so let's talk about tourists and
Speaker 1: fartans after a break, We're back and you're listening to
Speaker 1: the fast Track, and I'm your host, Scott Benjamin along
Speaker 1: with Kurt Garren. Kurt, everything's still going right over there.
Speaker 1: I keep checking in every segment. So far, so good,
Speaker 1: so far, so good. Okay, so we we we teased
Speaker 1: a little bit that we're gonna talk about something that
Speaker 1: has a rediculous name, uh this now as it's a
Speaker 1: German name, of course, and I'm sure that they don't
Speaker 1: think it's ridiculous. Of course. All it really means. I
Speaker 1: think if if I had to guess what this really means,
Speaker 1: it just means tourist day, right, or tourist driving experience
Speaker 1: or something like that. But but the word is is silly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a tourist and partons. You can't even say.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I can't say it. It's it's
Speaker 1: we've laughed about this. It's so juvenile. It's like it's
Speaker 1: like I'm like a kid, like a little kid when
Speaker 1: when they we say tourist and farton, but it is
Speaker 1: tourist and farting, and all it really means is that, Um,
Speaker 1: there's certain days on the nerve bagering and I'm sure
Speaker 1: a lot of our listeners are already aware of this,
Speaker 1: that you can go and drive on the track and
Speaker 1: you pay a little bit of a fee and I
Speaker 1: don't remember exactly what it is. I want to say,
Speaker 1: it's like thirty dollars or something like that. There's there's
Speaker 1: a list somewhere online. I know that you can look
Speaker 1: up the prices. But the list is a little bit terrifying.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you why in just a moment. I
Speaker 1: just in ten seconds, I'll tell you. But you can
Speaker 1: go and look at the prices of things and find
Speaker 1: out exactly what it is and when it's happening, because
Speaker 1: there are certain days when they're having other activities. You know,
Speaker 1: manufacturers have it reserved, or uh they have a race,
Speaker 1: or you know, something like that's going on. But essentially
Speaker 1: this becomes like a one way toll road. Of course,
Speaker 1: there's no opposing traffic on this little tiny road. But
Speaker 1: the reason that the list that is terrifying is because
Speaker 1: when you look at the price, like to just to
Speaker 1: drive on the track, they start giving you the prices
Speaker 1: if you crash, what it costs to replace the guardrail segments,
Speaker 1: what it costs to have the track team members come
Speaker 1: out and assist you in your car to get out
Speaker 1: of the car. They give you prices for medical help.
Speaker 1: They give you prices for a helicopter to come and
Speaker 1: fly you off the track if they need to, which
Speaker 1: has happened many times. I think, Um, they start giving you,
Speaker 1: like some really scary numbers, and they're they're high numbers,
Speaker 1: they're expensive, but maybe look past that, just look at
Speaker 1: the price of entry and know that you can keep
Speaker 1: yourself under control on the track and uh and you'll
Speaker 1: be fine. But you know, from what I've seen, Kurt
Speaker 1: Um and you've seen some of the footage as well,
Speaker 1: like when when just anybody can go out there and
Speaker 1: drive you know, any car that has and you know,
Speaker 1: they get their engine checked out, they get you know,
Speaker 1: it's not leaking oil or anything. They've got lights, the
Speaker 1: tires are okay, you know, they check out. I'm sure
Speaker 1: they have a little bit of a um A prep.
Speaker 1: You know that they have to go through. There's no course,
Speaker 1: like you don't have to learn any rules, but there
Speaker 1: are rules we'll talk about once you get out there.
Speaker 1: You deal with people that are professional and you deal
Speaker 1: with some people that are absolute fools and everything in between.
Speaker 1: From what I gathered in this. Any old car, any
Speaker 1: old person can go out there and do whatever they
Speaker 1: want to do besides go backwards and do donuts in
Speaker 1: the middle of the track. I mean you, just as
Speaker 1: long as they're going forward and abiding by some basic
Speaker 1: rules of the road, can go out there and have
Speaker 1: have a good time at the Nerburgring. Essentially, those are
Speaker 1: the rules. Now, there are other rules that we should
Speaker 1: talk about. There's a there's a funny video about what
Speaker 1: you should not do on the nerveburg Ring, and I'll
Speaker 1: mention these. I think there's like seven points that you
Speaker 1: know you're not supposed to do, and they all make
Speaker 1: perfect sense, and they're they're done in a funny way.
Speaker 1: But I'll tell you that I've watched many videos of
Speaker 1: this and and the you know that everybody loves to
Speaker 1: watch the fail videos. I guess you know the ones
Speaker 1: where you know someone's coming around a corner and they
Speaker 1: just lose it and you know, horrible thing happens. They
Speaker 1: destroy their car, they destroy their daily driver or maybe
Speaker 1: it's a tracker. I don't know, but it's probably typically
Speaker 1: a daily driver from the looks of it. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: just people just go out there in their car like
Speaker 1: a fun weekend from work, dip into the yeah, and
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of everything. There's there's camper vans
Speaker 1: out there. There's BMW's that you know, the cars that
Speaker 1: have uh you know, full uh you know, decal packages
Speaker 1: and everything. It looks like a race car, so maybe
Speaker 1: it is a track day car, you know, a fun
Speaker 1: toy for the weekend or whatever. But other cars they
Speaker 1: do look like just maybe like the family sedan that
Speaker 1: someone's taken out for fun. You can rent a car,
Speaker 1: you can go out there. We'll talk about that too,
Speaker 1: but you know, those are the fun ones to watch.
Speaker 1: But there's also some great videos and I don't know
Speaker 1: if you caught these or not, but there's some fantastic
Speaker 1: videos of people that are driving the track really well,
Speaker 1: and some some you know privateers, I guess, you know,
Speaker 1: and I call them privateers. They're not real racers, but
Speaker 1: but people that bring their own vehicle, you know, a
Speaker 1: BMW or Mercedes or something, and they're just really skilled
Speaker 1: and they can really handle it around that track, and
Speaker 1: it's it's really cool to watch. I mean, they're really
Speaker 1: good and they're racing close with other people, and that's
Speaker 1: the cool thing in that discussion from Boris said earlier
Speaker 1: that we mentioned there's a lot of traffic on that track,
Speaker 1: and it's a lot of different speeds, so you gotta
Speaker 1: like kind of be accommodating to that and the weather
Speaker 1: and all the conditions and everything. But um, if you
Speaker 1: get somebody, if you can watch somebody who's doing this
Speaker 1: really well with another person maybe that's doing really well.
Speaker 1: They're chasing each other around the track, it's fun to watch.
Speaker 1: It's entertaining. It's just as good as any race that
Speaker 1: you'll ever watch. It really is. It's fun. You know,
Speaker 1: near this track, everybody kind of gathers around this one
Speaker 1: gas station, and around this gas station is a lot
Speaker 1: like when if you can imagine this, and I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people can. When you know, people are
Speaker 1: leaving those caffeine and octane type shows on the weekends,
Speaker 1: and everybody is leaving the parking lot and they're kind
Speaker 1: of doing burnouts and showing off a little bit. As
Speaker 1: they exit the parking lot. There's hundreds of people lyning
Speaker 1: the road. They're very very close to the road. They've
Speaker 1: all got cameras out, they have some of them have chairs,
Speaker 1: they've got their own personal cars. Lining the roads. There's
Speaker 1: fences set up and everything. On these tourist days, people
Speaker 1: line up like that near this gas there's particular gas
Speaker 1: station and it's called the E D gas Station and
Speaker 1: it looks it looks like doord ed uh 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 adrenalines going,
Speaker 1: and they've got this crowd that's kind of egging them
Speaker 1: on to you know, do a burnout. So you'll find
Speaker 1: a lot of like it, kind of interesting videos. You'll
Speaker 1: see a little bit of everything. It looks like a
Speaker 1: cruise event or something, you know, where some really amazing
Speaker 1: cars drive by. Also some very playing cars drive by
Speaker 1: that are a little bit maybe souped up, a little
Speaker 1: bit ready for the track, or you know others that
Speaker 1: are just plane jeans, sedans and are just there for
Speaker 1: 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 that
Speaker 1: when they can go crash on the track instead of
Speaker 1: in front of the the gas Very good point, Yeah,
Speaker 1: very good point. Now, thankfully, it seems like there are
Speaker 1: fewer accidents there than at the caffeine and octane type
Speaker 1: shows that that I've seen. It seems more common to
Speaker 1: see people wrecking leaving those For some reason. Um, maybe
Speaker 1: that's the star when at work leading out the before
Speaker 1: you get to the track, if you can't handle the
Speaker 1: gas station, then don't even go to the nerve orgering. No,
Speaker 1: absolutely all right, So you know that's one thing, that's
Speaker 1: one part of it, and you know that's part of
Speaker 1: this little town that's right there within the boundaries of
Speaker 1: the track or near the boundaries of the track, So
Speaker 1: they ask you that you'd be respectful, and that's one
Speaker 1: of 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 do
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 chance,
Speaker 1: because it's kind of comical, but it also has some
Speaker 1: decent footage of what's going on there and and tells
Speaker 1: you some of the rules and explains them a little
Speaker 1: better than I can. But um, now, at first we
Speaker 1: should say that, you know, it's open almost every weekend
Speaker 1: and at the last and the last few hours of
Speaker 1: almost every day for this tourist activity. So you know,
Speaker 1: they call it tourists, but it's just open for people
Speaker 1: to pay and go on this track. Of course, there
Speaker 1: are track officials there and everything to make sure that
Speaker 1: things are safe. They've got flags and everything to keep
Speaker 1: you in line. Cars can be driven any car. Bike
Speaker 1: can be driven on the track as long as it's
Speaker 1: road legal. That's that's one thing. Um. You can only
Speaker 1: here's one of the rules. You can only overtake another
Speaker 1: 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 you don't want to go out there. Who who
Speaker 1: don't know? It is a rule the right. It's an
Speaker 1: it's an unwritten well maybe even probably written, probably has
Speaker 1: written and one of them. So overtake on the left,
Speaker 1: never on the right. Okay, that makes sense, right, lap
Speaker 1: will get this. This is interesting because of what we've
Speaker 1: been talking about. If you're going there and thinking that
Speaker 1: you're gonna time your lap, that's not what's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: And I don't want you to have the clock in
Speaker 1: the car. Yeah, now this you can time your lap,
Speaker 1: but you have to do it in kind of a
Speaker 1: roundabout way, so you can use your go pro and
Speaker 1: you can record your session. You know, you can record. However,
Speaker 1: you want it to do. And of course that's gonna
Speaker 1: keep time, so you're able to to go back later
Speaker 1: and deduce your time from the go pro footage. But
Speaker 1: you're not able to have a clock right in front
Speaker 1: of you as you're driving. And they many drivers have said,
Speaker 1: if you're out here for these tourist days and you're
Speaker 1: watching a clock as you go around the track, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have a bad day no matter what, because well,
Speaker 1: somebody's gonna get in front of you in a camper
Speaker 1: van and ruin your time. Right because there's so much
Speaker 1: traffic on the on the course at any given time,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to pass and you know you might
Speaker 1: have to slow down and do that, and and that's fine.
Speaker 1: Just go out there, even like the guys and girls
Speaker 1: that do it all times said, just go out there
Speaker 1: and 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 dash.
Speaker 1: Look at it, 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: when 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
Speaker 1: was it was in front of me. Um. Oh, don't
Speaker 1: leave the scene of a crash. Um. So if you
Speaker 1: 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 sel 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, yeah 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 damn er. They're yelling something back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well they're probably yelling idiot. Is stupid. You know that,
Speaker 1: you know, what are you doing? Because he was he
Speaker 1: was between the guardrail, which is I mean, it looked
Speaker 1: like it was chest high and and I don't think
Speaker 1: it's like a BMW that's coming at him really fast.
Speaker 1: And it did clip the wall right where he was,
Speaker 1: and yeah, he hopped over like and just I mean
Speaker 1: just just half a second before it hit him. It's
Speaker 1: crazy too, because he was on the inside of a
Speaker 1: turn and you wouldn't as places where you wouldn't think
Speaker 1: that a car would be crashing into But how that's
Speaker 1: why there's the rule. Again, I don't stand on the side.
Speaker 1: And I think that situation was an oil situation where
Speaker 1: there was oil or something slick on the trail, like,
Speaker 1: because there were many cars that were wrecking in the
Speaker 1: same turn for no good reason. I mean, they're just
Speaker 1: spinning out for no good reason. Um, okay, the next one, Uh,
Speaker 1: this one a little again counterinto no drifting. You're not
Speaker 1: allowed to intentionally drift on the Nurburgring and a track.
Speaker 1: Marshal uh will report you if they see you doing
Speaker 1: doing this drifting. Now, I watched videos where you can
Speaker 1: see that people are taking turns intentionally drifting through them.
Speaker 1: You know, it's if you slide a little bit, that's
Speaker 1: one thing. If you are drifting through the turn, that's
Speaker 1: a big difference. And there are people that I've seen
Speaker 1: in tensionally drift and yeah, they do get reported. And
Speaker 1: I think, I don't know if there's a fine involved
Speaker 1: or if you just are kind of banned for maybe
Speaker 1: that day or that week or whatever from the Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: this last one, this is no driving like a maniac.
Speaker 1: That's the last rule. I mean, that was the funniest
Speaker 1: last rule. Like I thought, I thought, Okay, there's gonna
Speaker 1: be something big here. There's gonna be something really you know,
Speaker 1: monumental here at the end. No driving like a maniac
Speaker 1: because it's on a public road. And you know, I
Speaker 1: guess it does make sense when you when you understand this,
Speaker 1: when you get off the track, you are in this
Speaker 1: little town. You know, if you're going to the gas
Speaker 1: station or wherever. I think this is where that they're
Speaker 1: talking about is like, you know, you've got all that
Speaker 1: energy from the track and you're still are kind of
Speaker 1: at the track, you know, because you're in that area.
Speaker 1: Don't keep driving like you're on the track when you're
Speaker 1: in the town. I mean, the Jones people don't want
Speaker 1: to deal with that. They would have to deal with
Speaker 1: that every day all day if that was the case,
Speaker 1: and I can imagine that would be infuriating. So, uh,
Speaker 1: they don't drive like a maniac. Thing makes more sense
Speaker 1: when you understand that, Yeah, there's this community there and
Speaker 1: you're really disrupting the community if you drive like that
Speaker 1: through there. You should just leave the track situation on
Speaker 1: the track and then realize that you're on a public
Speaker 1: road after that. Well, what I find about all of
Speaker 1: these rules is they are generally just rules of the
Speaker 1: common sense. All Right, So I have a one, one
Speaker 1: quick question for you before we wrap up, and I
Speaker 1: think we already talked about this, but um, would you
Speaker 1: go and drive this track knowing what you know about
Speaker 1: it and seeing what you've seen? Um in your own
Speaker 1: personal car? Now, of course, rental cars if you rent
Speaker 1: a car from anywhere other than um a place called
Speaker 1: Big Grudge, which is right in that area. You can
Speaker 1: rent a sports car and go there, very expensive. You
Speaker 1: can do it. If you rent a car like an
Speaker 1: Avis or Hurts or whoever. You will be banned forever
Speaker 1: from renting a car from them if you take it
Speaker 1: on the Nurburgring track. So, and we do have a
Speaker 1: listener from car stuff that that happened to. He showed
Speaker 1: me the letter um so and he showed it's probably 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 Nerve Ring and drive it?
Speaker 1: Knowing what you know? Now? It would be fun to
Speaker 1: go out there and and just tool around a little bit.
Speaker 1: Would you be a little bit, just just a little
Speaker 1: bit afraid of some yahoo that's gonna, you know, try
Speaker 1: to like they're trying to break a lap record or something.
Speaker 1: You know that they're gonna cause you to to wreck.
Speaker 1: Because I know you can control yourself, of course, but
Speaker 1: what about the the the part of it that you
Speaker 1: don't have control over a little bit? But I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel as if you should have that fear in general,
Speaker 1: so it's easier just not to think about the other people.
Speaker 1: And then from what I can tell, there's a healthy
Speaker 1: mix of people just out there having fun, and then
Speaker 1: there's some people that are taking it a little too serious.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, and this this is not an event to
Speaker 1: 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
Speaker 1: not 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 damage 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? Do? Oh?
Speaker 1: What I do? This is what everyone wants you. I
Speaker 1: think I think that, you know, I might. I would
Speaker 1: probably rent a car. I know it's expensive, but if
Speaker 1: I were going to do it, I don't think i'd
Speaker 1: risk my own car out there. Um. I think that
Speaker 1: I would rent a car from this this place that
Speaker 1: I mentioned, this Big Grudge that if you go to
Speaker 1: want to go to a website and check out the prices,
Speaker 1: it's Big Grudge dot d E and you can check
Speaker 1: out what they've got there. They've got all kinds of
Speaker 1: sports cars and they're expensive. They're not cheap, you know,
Speaker 1: and you pay for like two laps or twelve laps
Speaker 1: or you know whatever. It's like different rates. But I
Speaker 1: would assume that insurance comes along with that. You're probably
Speaker 1: still paying quite a bit if you wreck it, but
Speaker 1: I bet there's a limit to it. But anyways, it's
Speaker 1: it's a worthwhile thing to check into. So look up
Speaker 1: the nervebourg Ring and these tourist days and and you
Speaker 1: know what you can do, what you can't do, But
Speaker 1: it seems like it's kind of a fun destination. Maybe
Speaker 1: a bucket list in your episode. This is one of
Speaker 1: those things that all you car enthusiasts should put on
Speaker 1: your bucket list. It seems like a really great experience.
Speaker 1: Why not. I'd love to get over there to do it.
Speaker 1: And you know, in the meantime, if you want, you
Speaker 1: can contact us and tell us if you have done
Speaker 1: this or if you want to go over and do this.
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Speaker 1: you want to check out our show's website where it's
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Speaker 1: the fast Track show dot com and check us out there,
Speaker 1: and of course you can leave reviews on Apple podcasts
Speaker 1: or on the I Heart Radio app, or wherever you
Speaker 1: happen to listen to your podcasts. And if you like
Speaker 1: what you're hearing, if you like listening to Kurt and
Speaker 1: I talked about all this stuff, and I think you
Speaker 1: have a friend that might be interested in this kind
Speaker 1: of thing, let them know as well. Tell your friends
Speaker 1: and you know, we're happy to have you as a listener,
Speaker 1: and we're always trying to gain new ones, so we
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Thanks a lot, guys. Thanks. The fast Track
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