Time for a Nurburgring trip review... As it was the case with my previous reviews, I will have more posts about this trip because there are a some interesting things to see, some interesting videos to see and it would be a shame to create one huge post.
As I think I said previously, in 2009 when I first visited the famous Green Hell, I made a pact with myself to get there at least once a year. Things have gone my way and I was able to visit Nurburging during all these 5 years...
Each time, the trip was different in one way but I had fun in all of my trips and this was no exception...
Compared to my previous trip with the Golf (last year the engine was being replaced so I had to rent a Swift) this trip was nowhere near as scary. I decided to play it safe and not take to many chances.
Performance wise, I had better brakes, larger fenders, different semislicks and a new interior:
- the brakes were really awesome (Boxster calipers, Pagid RS-29 pads, Brembo J-Hook discs and brake ducts) and flawless. I really had no issues with these and could do much more than 3 laps continuously.
- the fenders did their job and there was no rubbing whatsoever
- the semislicks (medium compound Direzza 03G) were miles better than the previous Khumo v70a. But it is not a fair comparison because the temperatures were completely different.
- the new interior is, I think, heavier than the OEM one but safety was my primary concern. Again, the seats and seat belts are awesome (even for the 1000 miles trip to get to Nurburgring).
- the engine was ok but I was really really slow on the full throttle parts of the track and that got me in some trouble... Because of the hot weather, the engine would overheat so I had to do only 2-3 laps in a row.
- the suspension was great. I set it to 9 (front) and 6 (back) and, even though it was not quite on my taste, I did not want to try different setups during this trip. Maybe next year...
Enough of the technical stuff, lets talk about the trip as a whole...
This is the second year I go with a friend of mine, Stefan. He has the blue Golf you will see in the pictures below. His car is a 2.0 TDI (140bhp) with a remap and similar mods to mine (Bilsteing B16, TT arms, bigger brakes, semislicks). Our goal was to have fun and get back home in one piece and as a bonus get below 9 minutes BTG. Being Touristfahrten this was not a must because we knew there will be a lot of traffic and it was not safe to push that hard. We planed for 25 laps each during 2 full days of touristfahrten and 1 day with the track opened for 2 hours. During the first day we've done some warm up laps and we were stunned when we saw that we got to 9.04 without taking any chances (the track was empty during these warmup laps).
The next days, there was a different story though... There were a lot of people on the track and the track was closed for a number of times because of the crashes. And we had a lot of problems with Porsche drivers that didn't want to get out of the way
. They probably hate to see Golfs get past them
... Also had some problems with the bikers who think the circuit is all theirs and they never check their mirrors.
But all in all everything was ok...
As far as my driving goes, I was a little bit scared and I took no chances. I only had issued because of my stupidity and nothing to do with going fast. For example:
- I never hold a car behind me. My philosophy is that if a car gets behind me, he is faster and I let him pass. Because of this I would even let cars get passed on dangerous pars of the track. For example before Fuchsrohre I wanted to let a Porsche pass and I went over the kerbs. The car unsettled (I was doing about 100 mph) and I almost lost control. I should have waited and let the Porsche pass on the next bend...
- I was scared of pushing the brakes to hard with the wheels turned so I used to brake to to little to late. I corrected this error and I decided to use the brakes at 100% and have different lines even if I was not using all of the tracks width.
- I sometimes got over or, even worse, braked on kerbs!
I tried to fix these mistakes and if I did not manage to do that at least I know where I have to work some more.
As far as the laptimes are concern, am I pretty happy with the results. I managed 6 or 7 laps below 9 minutes. I had 8.59, 8.58, 8.57 and the best time of
8.55.9 (I will say 8.56). This is not bad for my standards (please don't forget this is a 160bhp Golf and it weighs 1370kg with the driver), also considering I took almost no chances and that there were no laps without traffic.
The video will be in another post and for now here are some photos:
To be continued...
Thanks for watching!
P.S. Sorry for the long post!
