Nurburgring Visit
 

I'll be taking an extended honeymoon soon and will be visiting 17 countries in April and May. I'll be passing by Stuttgart (cant miss the Porsche meuseum!) and surrounding cities in Germany in the first week of May, and one place on my list to visit is the Nurburgring.

I'm posting cause I'm curious who has had experience visiting this place, if not having actually driven some portion of the track. Any recommendations on what to see, what's accessible, if it's possible to rent a car and run an open track day, etc.?

Thanks!

You can rent from Rent4Ring, RSR Nurburg and a few other places. It's not what I could call "cheap" but it's totally worth it.


If you're going to the Porsche museum, pre-reg/pre-pay for a factory tour as well -- it's awesome.

Yes it is possible to rent a car and have a tourist drive. There are two tracks that you can try: GP track and Nordschleife. If you want to be safe, then you should try only the GP track. The other is the big one and it is quite dangerous, especially on open (tourist) days. They call it green hell for a reason ...

Plan your trip before you go and check the availability dates in https://www.greenhelldriving.nuerburgring.de/#/landing

Thank you, this link is great. Google isnt translating everything I've been searching through

A tourist drive would definitely be my top 10 on bucket list.

I ran a Suzuki Swift from rent4ring on the nordschleife. The car was great with a friendly setup and the tires had very forgiving breakaway characteristics. Plan to be there for two days at least if you can. The track can close unpredictability for last minute events, accident cleanup, bad weather, etc and you don't want your visit spoiled because you didn't plan enough time to account for these possibilities. Also, try to go weekday mornings as the track will be least busy. I had planned a Friday and Saturday following a business trip and the track ended up being closed Friday and Saturday morning. It was a gorgeous Saturday afternoon though so everybody was at the track and traffic was absolutely nuts! It reminded me of my street racing days growing ups round NYC. :)

I went in summer 2011. Driving the Nordschleife was a bucket list item for me too, so I rented a Suzuki Swift stage 1 from RentRaceCar with one other friend. We did 6 laps each and it felt just right. Doing just one or two laps would have left us wanting more. At that time, one was only permitted to use cameras rented from a little kiosk in the main entry area. Don't know if that's changed since then.

The Nordschleife has the status it has amongst enthusiasts for a few reasons: not just because its dangerous but also because it is simply amazing to drive. I would have trouble being at the Nurburgring and then opting for a GP track run instead of a Nordschleife run. That would be a huge missed opportunity to me.

I was quite nervous before my first lap. At risk of sounding like a complete idiot, I went with no prior track experience and only about 10 hours experience driving a manual transmission. Everyone followed the passing rules very well. I watched my mirrors carefully so I could give faster cars space on the left when safe. Nobody pushed me aggressively. The most dangerous weapons were those who obviously did not know the track. It would be a very good idea to do a few dozen laps on a simulator first, if you can. I'd expect there's more traffic now than ~6 years ago too.

I had a little chase behind a EP2 Civic Si. The Suzuki Swift felt perfect for someone like me. Forgiving, and not fast enough to get into too much trouble. Many corners only required light braking and a downshift. In a car like that, the whole course just flowed together really nicely. Doesn't look like the Swift is available from RentRaceCar anymore, but I had a good experience with them.

Walking through the parking lot was pretty nuts in itself: Carrera GT, GT3 RS4.0s (I saw two), modified GTRs, Corvettes, and endless porsches and bimmers, but lots of interesting other stuff too. Actually, the gas station just on the other side of the main straight had constant interesting traffic too. There's really no replacement to spending your time driving the Nordschleife though.

I haven't been yet, but when I do go I also plan to check out Spa Francorchamps which is in Belgium and not very far away. The Nurburgring is probably amazing, but flying through Eau Rouge at Spa is my bucket list item.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circui...-Francorchamps

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfoVqAt0lIM[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P1QmCswql0[/ame]

Also drink lots of beer, eat chocolate, and go to a soccer game.

- Andrew

Been to Nurburgring, Hockenheim, Silverstone, Indy 2001-2004 F1, but just the drive through the Eifel mountains was amazing and the track very amazing. So far the best track i've been to. Hockenheim, not so nice.

There are also some nice canyon roads outside LA, California. Not very far from Costa Mesa:

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V29hROktPoo"]s2k had fun with frs - YouTube[/ame]

I rented from Rent Racecar. But Rent4Ring is good too. They were closed the day I was there since their cars are on slicks they did not let cars go out in the 35F rainy day. Rent Racecar does have Toyota GT86 and tons of cool cars if you want something cool. Rent4Ring cars are more "race prepped" but the only have Swift and 128i.

Make sure you reserve a car if you go on a busy day or weekend.

I was there on a rainy weekday and I had the track to myself! Was just there in April 2016.

Lol while I appreciate the suggestion, I'm also well aware and frequent GMR, ACH, Malibu, and Ortega amongst other roads. Also, horrible driving in that video...

But this thread is about driving in Germany! :burnrubber:

Bitchin! I'm passing through Belgium and will want to try adding a few more stops there too after reading your post!

So cool, thank you for the input! Getting me excited to go

Also, I apologize for the separate replies, technical difficulties with + button on phone

Just wanted to emphasize that there isn't anything different in Germany. At least on the track side or on the canyon road side. In fact, given the automobile history and the size of the country there are very few tracks! I agree that Nordschleife is special, but only for the professionals who can run the track when is closed for the public. Maybe the most special thing that we have is the autobahn with the no speed limits. I am sure this will be fun for you, but you'll need to have a fast car. Like a fast Audi, BMW or something similar ;)

lol, I rented a VW polo diesel and was able to hit 170Kph . lol But yeh the Audi's are king in the left lane

You are wrong. California canyon roads are nice to have a round, and I live in the Bay Area close to Laguna Seca, Sonoma Raceway, and Thunder Hill but ALL of this pales in comparison to the Nordschldife. It's not even apples to oranges, it's apples to rocket ships.

I hit 205 KPH in my 3cyl Ford Ecosport Rental!!!!

It would only do about 185KPH if there was a little uphill grade :bellyroll:

Wife and I went to Germany for our honeymoon also. The Germany part involved all things cars and LEGO Land. First thing we did the day after landing in Dusseldorf was the Nurburgring. We had a rental through RSR Nurburg, basically their slowest car (Renault Clio, no roll cage or five-point harness) for 10 laps and split the laps 50/50 between the two of us. We also ponied up for an instructor on the day of, even though we tried to learn the track as much as possible with Grand Turismo which helped but the instructor provide a lot of advice in terms of turn in points and recognizing certain markers on the track itself. Our day there also was with Destination Nurburgring, so it wasn't a tourist day. Plenty of really fast cars and drivers, fastest being a race-prepped Aston Martin that day which was pretty awesome to see. Only one incident that day. Did get a ride in a track prepped GT86 (Koni suspension, exhaust, interior strippped, etc.) that day as a coworker came in from Belgium and rented one, really liked how it handled especially around the corners. Met Sabine Schmitz there also as she was doing ride-alongs in her Porsche with RSR Nurburg. Highly recommend RSR Nurburg, great group of people there.

Frozenspeed was there also (along with a number of other photogs), never did get around to buying the original photo but apparently I still can.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2817/9...ba03edde_b.jpg

Other things we did in Germany... Audi, BMW and Mercedes museum along with a factory tour at both Audi and Mercedes. We could have done BMW but the english tours were all booked (you couldn't get in the other non-english tours due to safety requirements). Didn't get a chance to do Porsche, next time though. Other things we did...day at LEGOLAND Deutschland, hike around Berchtesgaden National Park (reminds me a lot of Banff), and Eagle's Nest.

Great information in here! I'm waiting to here about travel authorization at work today for a last minute trip to Neuwied in April. Thankfully that's only about 40min from the Nurburgring, and an open Friday after two days of meetings would definitely end up with me on the Green Hell. Based on responses here, and advice from other friends who have gone, it sounds like RSRNurburg is the way to go. I'd love to do the GT86 with RentRaceCar, but that 350 Euro price gap for 6 laps is steering me toward the Twingo RS from RSR. We shall see though... Fingers crossed that my trip gets approved! haha

We rented a Audi A1 (FWD, gas, manual). Wife and I were playing the game on who could go the fastest. She ended up beating me by a few km, 197km with a tail wind. We only saw ONE 911 at the time and it didn't really go that quick, but man, those wagons, diesels too. A number of Mercedes wagons and Audi avants that just blew right by us as if we were standing still. And the one RS6 that flew by us....

We also had a lesson in road tax, drove into Austria without paying the road tax which we weren't aware of. Huge fine sent by the rental company.

So how does going to the Ring work if you have a normal rental car? Insurance issues with the rental companies?

I'd obviously prefer a car from one of the rental groups at the track, as they're more prepped for track use than anything off of a rental lot. More so asking out of curiosity.

You should NOT take a normal rental car on the ring. Word has been around for years that rental companies have hired people to be at the track to watch for rental cars entering the track and reporting them in. Have read that people were charged for a full set of tires or what not when the car was returned. Even though the ring is a public road, insurance may not covered, if you do want to try and take a normal rental car to the track, ask first.

And if you do go to the track, understand the liability also. Renting from RSR Nurburg and the likes, they go through all of this with you. If you car breaks down and lays down a nice patch of oil, any accidents caused by that oil may rest on your shoulder, including the towing fees for those other cars. If you take out part of the armco, you are also responsible for the repair costs. RSR joked that you don't want to end up on youtube at that one corner where everybody goes off (they nickname it YouTube corner).

I was thinking of going to see F1 in Austria driving from Germany, this is good info! :w00t:

Lol Yeah, I'd figured all of that.

You CANNOT take a regular rental on the ring every single rental agreement for all companies has it in the fine print. You will have no insurance what so ever.


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Also if you book the rental at the track do it in advance for cheaper Insurance deduction if you do bin it.


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