The Nürburgring

Only months after my racing introduction at the Porsche Leipzig factory, I found myself once again behind the wheel of a race-ready torpedo blastpheming the environmental conscience I try so hard to achieve. Reducing my virtual water quota or using natural power was left in a cloud of carbon smoke and tire bits. Please evereyone raise their glass to the Earth; I promise to continue crusading tomorrow. Prosit!

The Nürburgring is a 22.8km / 12.9m racetrack that was carved thru forest paths. Those of you not from the Midwest should understand that the German terrain here has "elevation", and by that I mean the dips, bumps, drops and other general unevenness that remains when a glacier doesn't void the creativity Bob Ross loved to portray. Changing elevation sprinkled with 73 turns and topped with speed results in one gigantic roller coaster. Multiplying that by you as the passenger almost resulted in aborting what little I ate today. And to you Grand Turismo victors: of course you understand how being spanked feels when reading about it on wikipedia. Try the real thing.. I promise you won't forget it.

To top it off, today was more special than usual: a company named RTS reserved the entire Nürburgring. I'm told a normal race day sees 100 or so cars on the track. Today I don't recall seeing more than 20 cars on the track at any given time. A 13 mile track with maybe 20 cars produces few meet and greets amongst those 73 turns. But nothing felt better than being bitch-slapped by the Porsche GT2 and club Aston Martin Vanquish pushing an extra 30km/h thru those turns you're sliding thru. Try following either of those... I dare ya.

Pictures are on their way, as they are spread amongst variouos equipment - none of which is in my posession at the moment. Also, we have video! Take Dramamine before you watch it tho. With any luck, you'll not just see

our adventure but HEAR the beautiful sound of my patented Nürburgring slide.. followed by Victor's "NICE".

I don't usually dedicate things, but this one goes out to my racing Hardy Boy:

Jim, because I somehow channeled Jim's 16 year old insane driving persona, albeit on a world-famous race track, regained consciousness, and then started driving like a responsible adult..