The GTS Chronicles - Getting Two/True Sportscars - Delivery Adventure - 2020-2023

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Monday, August 6th, 2023 - To The Green Hell

North to the Nurburgring, plus a birthplace stop

We awoke to a rainy Monday morning. Today was a fairly significant transition point for the GTS Chronicles Euro Delivery road trip: the quest for awesome twisty mountain roads was now behind us, and ahead was the "motorsport" segment of our trip - a three-day visit to the historic Nurburgring race complex, and to the Nordschleife in particular (well, I guess you could say twisty road driving in the mountains is also motorsport-y, but maybe in a less overt way).

Luke's Thoughts

[on the thought of the Nordschleife...]

I've been awake for about an hour, lying in bed in anticipation of going back to that incredible racetrack and revisiting it this time behind the wheel of my own brand-new car. I have to say I'm super glad that we planned it this way, to get to 'The Green Hell' after putting many, many twisty-road kilometres on the cars. The butterflies are back in my stomach a little bit, at the thought of hitting that track at speed in my shiny new car, but having done the distances we have, the way we have, I'm feeling reasonably comfortable at being able to push a little bit when we hit the track.

Anyhow. Because we were essentially just doing a long commute today, the rain did not bother us as much as it had yesterday, when it had interfered with our enjoyment of the mighty Malojapass twisties.

Packing for the day

Our apartment in Dornbirn wasn't associated with any sort of restaurant or hotel, so there was no breakfast to hold us back from heading out. Therefore, we were packed and pulling out of the parking area by about 8:30 a.m. Our route: head north, out of Austria, into Germany, sticking to the main Autobahns. Destination: the towns of Nurburg and Adenau, located in the Eifel hills northwest of Frankfurt. It would be a roughly 500 to 600km drive, meaning that we should be able to get there by late afternoon.

Leaving Dornbirn

The route from our Austrian town to the Nurburgring happened to take us directly past Stuttgart. I recalled a recommendation I had received from our Porsche champion Dave Renner. He had recommended that we get some cool shots of our cars under the mirrored ceiling at the entrance to the Porsche Museum. This was a great idea, and further to that, I liked the idea that we'd be bring our two now-beloved sportscars back to their birthplace, since the museum was in the heart of the Porsche Zuffenhausen manufacturing facilities, where our cars had been built earlier in the year. I envisioned a few commemorative photos and videos of our two beautiful Carmine Red 718 GTSes against a backdrop of the buildings where they were made.

Luke was cool with the idea. GPS Coordinates set for Zuffenhausen, we headed off.

German Autobahns brought us to the outskirts of Stuttgart shortly after 11am, and shortly thereafter, we arrived at Porscheplatz - the central roundabout of the Porsche Zuffenhausen factory complex.

GTS Chronicles Reflections, Porsche Werk 5, Bau 30

Pulling into the Musuem

There was a surprising amount of traffic near the roundabout, and it was a bit of stop-and-go until finally we inched up to Porsche Museum entrance. Luke and I then quickly wheeled our cars into the museum's broad entrance patio, angling them in an attractive way to maximize photo goodness. This area is also where Porsche likes to line up their rental cars - fortunately there were only two rental cars parked here, so we had a fair bit of space with which to work.

Technically this was not a place where regular public traffic or parking is permitted, so we were being a bit rebellious by putting our cars here. We just needed a few minutes, though, and we'd be gone.

I quickly started to set about capturing the photos and clips we wanted: the shots of our cars reflected in the mirrored ceiling of the entryway, the shots of our cars against the backdrop of the Porscheplatz 3-911 sculpture and the main factory buildings. It was then time for some Luke-and-Andrew celebratory shots.

Preparing Museum shot

Visiting the birthplace

Amazing Reflections

I had half-expected that no one would notice a couple of new Porsches parked for a few minutes amidst other new Porsche rental vehicles, but no - this is Germany - where attention to detail is ingrained seemingly from birth. An employee from the museum came hurrying out: "You can't park here", he politely noted. Obviously he had noticed that these were not factory rental cars (probably the plates). I didn't really know what to say (I mean, he was right, of course). I blurted out "oh, we're doing European Delivery, and we just wanted a few shots".

Surprisingly, this worked. He simply said "ok", and went back inside. I'm not sure if it was because it was indeed actually ok for Euro Delivery customers to take a few snaps here, or if he just didn't want to challenge any further, but ... we were granted a reprieve, in any case. We quickly wrapped our shooting and cleared out. That was nice of the employee to let us finish up. Much appreciated!

GTS Chronicles Congratulations

A fine backdrop

Our visit to the birthplace of The GTS Chronicles over, we made our way back to the autobahn and continued our journey north towards the Nurburgring. We did get a few nice stretches of open unrestricted autobahn, allowing us to stretch the legs of our cars, but in other places there was a fair bit of traffic, and we moved along with the more sedate pace of traffic.

Luke's Thoughts

[on the Autobahn experience...]

On the highway, I'm easing into a little derestricted autobahn... 185 km/h with zero effort. Almost scary how drama-less this car is. Stable as a rock and quiet too! The speedo creeps upwards as confidence grows. The behaviour of the other drivers around is also confidence inspiring. Lane etiquette is incredibly disciplined as it absolutely has to be at these kinds of speeds. There's none of the passing on the right hand side no-nos that affect us all in Canada so negatively.

There's a bit too much traffic for us to completely top out, so I end up going not quite as quickly as we did in Andrew's M2, although it's clear that the 718 quicker, and according to the Internet, has a touch higher top speed. Still, 235 km/h is nothing to sneeze at.

The morning rains in Austria had given way to a cloudy but dry day. However, sixty or so kilometres northwest of Frankfurt, as we approached our exit onto the secondary roads leading to the Nurburg area, the skies darkened and it began to rain again.

Autobahn Traffic

Andrew at the helm

Normal day on the Autobahn

To the Nurburgring

To the Nuburgring

The forest roads surrounding the Nurburging were quiet (and very wet) as we made our way to the little hamlet of Adenau. Adenau is one of the four little towns situated in or immediately adjacent to the Nordschleife circuit, and was where we had secured our accommodations.

Luke's Thoughts

[on the upcoming wet lap(s)...]

Wet wet, wet ... it's raining solidly now, but it looks like that despite the traffic, we will make it there in time, just, but our first session at the Nordschleife will be wet and short. That's fine by me. I will be slow because I will be crazy careful! I know it.

Little yellow road signs showed familiar names as we neared Adenau - names of the corners of the track we had come to know so well. We descended into the main street of Adenau and turned left, soon crossing under a banner-covered overpass which we knew was more than just any other overpass - this was a section of the actual Nordschliefe circuit - a part known as Ex-Mühle.

After crossing under the overpass, we were now "inside" the ring. The Nordschleife - being the world's longest race circuit, encompasses a huge area of countryside (I would guess roughly thirty-five square kilometres of land), and is fairly unusual in that there are towns and farms and people living within it. And three of those people who were going to be living inside it for three days were us - at a place called the NringRooms, not far from that underpass we had just driven under.

There's a track nearby

Breidsheid

Not our apartment

We pulled into the driveway for our hotel/apartment. A huge drive-through sign greeted us: Hotel an der Nordschleife. But this was not for us; the NringRooms building simply shared the same entrance. Very race-y themed accommodations around here!

As instructed by our book-in instructions from Arie, our very accommodating concierge, we parked in the communal area, which unsurprisingly contained a lot of other nice/sporty cars. He had reassured us about the parking situation and had quickly answered any questions he had. He was clearly sympathetic to our focus on our cars, and revealed that he was a Porsche guy too, having a 997-generation 911 Turbo himself. We even sent him the links to the GTS Chronicles Instagram page and tracking website, in case he was interested.

Arie soon arrived and met us for a personal check-in. The room was bright, airy and very motorsport themed. Artful pictures of the Nordschleife race circuit were on the walls. Little trinkets had some sort of motorsport theme. There was even an old "Nurburgring" board game on one of the tables.

The balcony outside our room showed just how close we were to the track. It was literally only a few tens of metres away from us, and we could see red-white segments of curbing easily. the Breidsheid access point, used as an exit and as an emergency vehicle access, was almost directly below us. So cool that we were this close to the track.

Unpacking for the Nordschleife

Zee track is zat way

Who can point best?

Before I proceed any farther, I should briefly describe just why Luke and I had allocated three whole days out of our precious European Delivery trip to this place. Really, it was a combination of nostalgia and adrenalin: The Nordschleife - or "North Loop", in english - is one of the world's most famous circuits - and one of the oldest (built nearly one hundred years ago). Formula One raced here for several decades in the fifties, sixties and seventies, and the nickname for the circuit - Die Grüne Hölle, or "Green Hell" - was coined in 1968 by none other than F-1 driver Jackie Stuart. And that brings us to the second half of why Luke and I were into this place: The Nordschleife is the longest race circuit in the world, at approximately 20 kilometres, winding in a narrow manner up and down and through the forest of the Eifel Hills. It has well over a hundred turns, all of which should be memorized, and often lacks runoff areas. It is a notoriously tricky circuit (hence the moniker "Green Hell"). All of that is what made the place such an attraction: an interesting and challenging circuit, rich with motorsport history. It was definitely worth the visit (And a three-day visit maximized the chance of at least one day of dry weather).

So, of course, we were psyched to be here. Not surprising - given all of our years of being F1-fans and of watching various races (like the 24 hours of the Nurburgring), and then practicing this track for hours and hours and hours in a simulator, watching tons of youtube videos of track activity, and then, of course, visiting here in 2018 on the BMW European delivery adventure. Perhaps we didn't have quite the fizz of super excitement we had on our first visit in 2018, when it was all totally brand-new, but still: we were feeling the the excitement of returning to a venue that you knew and which you had missed. Exciting yet familiar.

To that end, we wanted to make the most of our visit. And that meant driving, even though the weather was rainy and cool. We had arrived early enough in the day that there was still time to get onto the track's evening lapping session (the so-called Touristenfahrten lapping sessions). But we had to hurry.

I fired up the laptop and quickly navigated to the "Green Hell Driving" (explanation later) website. I was happy to discover that the account I had created back in 2018 was still active, and I had no problems logging into it. After re-figuring my way around, I purchased a few laps (Touristenfahrten track access is charged per lap). Luke did the same on his phone.

Next we hurried over to the nearby gas station to put in enough fuel to make it around a few times, and then we drove across the inner diameter of the track to the Touristenfahrten session entrance point - a place anchored by a colourful restaurant called the Devil's Diner. Anyone who knows anything about the Nordschleife knows about the Devil's Diner. It's basically a world-famous landmark.

Rustling up tickets

Adenau Gas Station

Devil's Diner in sight

Often Touristenfahrten is busy, and there can be a lineup to get on the track. But today, with the inclement weather, the place was practically deserted. We piloted our way to the entrance station - which is basically a couple of electronically-controlled lift-gates and two card scanner/readers, and presented the necessary QR codes from our phones. BEEP. the lift-gate lifted. The Nordschleife had opened to us!

First lap of the 'ring

We started off pretty slowly, accelerating up only to a very moderate speed along the downhill into Tiergarten, the first turn on the track - usually taken at high speed. Given this was our first real lap here in five years and the conditions were cold and wet made caution the most important attribute for success.

At these lower speeds, the Cayman did not put a foot wrong. Gentle inputs, part-throttle, shifting well below redline. It was more like of a casual drive you might take your grandmother on in the country, rather than a hard-charging, g-force-generating run. Luke's voice crackled over the radio: "It's pretty greasy". Interesting. Maybe he was putting a little more cornering force into the turns than I was. I hadn't detected any slip yet.

Luke's Thoughts

[on the first wet lap...]

The butterflies bounce around on the way to the track entrance, but then they disappear as I scan my app and the barrier swings open allowing me access! Here goes!

We get the first lap in. And boy, is it greasy. Track temperature is only 13C and it seems there's no way in the rain to 'switch the tires on' (sounds like F1 excuses I know!). I take it super-easy and suss out the car and conditions, which don't seem very fun at all. What is going on here? The Boxster is understeering, like, a LOT. It didn't do this at all in the rain in other sections on the trip. Is it the temperature? No, that doesn't make sense, it was cool in the Dolomites in the rain and the car was super-planted and composed at all times then. Tire pressures? No, the onboard display confirms they are just fine. WTF?

Understandably there is almost no one on the track, which is nice as I can just play around a bit and feel the lack of grip. The car is very balanced, so it slides very predictably. But why is it sliding SO MUCH? Clearly Andrew isn't having any such issues as it doesn't take him long to disappear into the distance. I just can't push though. It's totally interfering with my ability to soak up and enjoy the experience. I mean, I'm on the Nordschleife, in a Porsche, the very place that it is truly designed for, and the nervous handling is just too much. I take it super-easy, probing the super-low limits. Slow is smart. At least until I figure out what the heck is going on. I'm sure Andrew is wondering where I've gone.

In the rear view mirror, Luke seemed to be falling away. Hm. Perhaps he was feeling extra cautious due to going around one of the first turns a little too fast. I slowed down a bit more on the straight of the Quiddlebacher Höhe, and eventually he caught up. I kind of wanted to lap together, if possible. More fun that way.

We proceeded through the high speed up-and-down of Flugplatz, gave a lot of extra respect to the high-speed crest of Swedenkreuz, and then braked, slowing way down for the hard right at Aremberg. Again, Luke had made another comment about sliding and had at this point fallen back again.

Down Chris and I (crewmember Chris was riding shotgun with me) went into the Foxröhle - the Foxhole - a dramatically deep down-and-up on the track. Once out of the Foxhole, we very slowly negotiated the tight turns of the Adenauer Forst, then accelerate up to mid-speed again before Metzgesfeld and its big radio tower. Luke inquired to me if I has having any slippage. I responded no. Maybe it was his tires versus mine?

Through ex-Mühle, where I pointed out to Hatko that we could see our apartment, right over there, and then the start of the steep climb out towards the Bergwerk curve. Here I deliberately gave extra throttle on the steep uphill curve and finally was able to induce a little bit of power oversteer. I mean, yeah ... it seemed like the normal amount of "slippyness" one would expect from wet pavement.

Luke's voice crackled over the radio again: "definitely greasy", he reported. Clearly he was having a different experience than I was.

Describing Unnerving Understeer

We completed our wet initial lap. Luke and I pulled into side-by-side spots in the parking lot at the Devil's Diner and got out to compare notes. Luke immediately starts feeling my front tire and his front tire, comparing the temperatures. He had an almost ... an almost concerned look on his face.

"That was pretty nervy, I have to say" he said, then described that even at the very first turn, it was understeer, understeer, understeer ... and then at Hohe Acht, he had got sideways (I hadn't seen that in my rear view mirror). Basically he said his car was understeering everywhere, and a lot.

Our cars were identical. The conditions were the same for both of us. The pavement was the same. Our speeds were similar. Yet Luke's Boxster was losing grip at nearly every turn while my Cayman was not. The only reasonable conclusion is that it was the tires. My Cayman had come with the Porsche-spec Pirelli P-Zero tire, and Luke's Boxster had come with the Porsche-spec Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires. Clearly, in these particular conditions, those Michelins simply did not have the grip that my Pirellis did. Surprising. And here I was back in April complaining that I had not won "The Michelin Lottery"!

Luke's Thoughts

[on our differences in grip...]

We pull in after a lap and discuss. Andrew has had decent grip with his Pirellis. Me, with my Michelins, not so much. I don't think that I was driving like a wuss or anything. The only thing we can think of, is that it is a particular tire/track surface combination that Michelins just do not love, as that is the only difference between our two cars really. We know it's not solely a wet-weather thing as they were supreme in the earlier cold and damp, and even monsoon-like rain we had encountered. A frustrating mystery for sure and I am somewhat bummed.

With the wet weather and the low (especially for one of us) grip levels, we decided to forego the extra lap we probably could have done, and instead headed for dinner at one of the nearby restaurants. We chose one in the complex of buildings near the modern racetrack facilities that have been built next to the "new" Nurburgring circuit (the modern 5.1km circuit where present-day Formula 1 races are held).

It was definitely time for another toast. Luke and Andrew each in their own Porsches at the legendary Nurburging complex. Truly a moment for celebration.

Luke's Thoughts

[on escaping the cold wet track...]

There's no time left to manage another lap but I can't say I'm disappointed. It's almost a relief to me that the track is closed for the night, and I can go away and take a break and have a rethink. We go for dinner and take a few photos in front of the F1 pit facilities, and I try to shake my mood, without too much success. After dinner, I somewhat glumly head back to the apartment to ponder the track scenario some more. Is it me? Is it the tires? Is there something wrong with the car? Is it me? Is it me? After all that anticipation, what a downer. Hopefully tomorrow is a little better.

(to read more of Luke's thoughts from this day, check out his blog post)

A Toast to The Chronicles

Luke and the Crew-chief

The Racing Tourist

So, that's all there is to say about our drive to the Nurburgring area and our first experiences there. Despite the rain, it had been great so far, and we had high hopes for drier weather over the next few days!

Side note: Our crewmember Hakto seemed to have upped his A/V game, ever since we arrived in the Nurburg area. I had noticed that he was getting ahead of us and having the camera rolling almost at all times. Good job!

Interactive trackmap with photo points - August 6 - click map to view

Interactive trackmap with photo points - August 6 - click to view

August 6 - Drive Data

Start Time: 8:42a.m.

End Time: 11:46p.m.

Duration: 15h3m

Distance: 576.57 km (358.26 mi)

Average Speed: 38.3 km/hr (23.8 mph)

Start Elevation: 1561ft (476m) *

Max Elevation: 2376ft (724m) *

Min Elevation: 279ft (85m) *

End Elevation: 1112ft (339m) *