[krishnaprasadgg]

Part 3.1 Bologna Central to San Marino GP

Now that the Ducati factory pit stop was finished, we boarded our train to Catolica a small coastal town just one stop away from the stop of San Marino GP track. Now the reason why we couldn't get off the first stop was that all the accommodation options for that town were fully booked up some 6 months before the race event. So if you ever intend to attend any popular GPs do your hotel reservation much in advance.

We reached Catollica railway station and we had a good 6-7 km of walking to do to reach our hotel for the day. Now, this was one walking session we enjoyed to the core. The small town was filled to the brim with people, all in a sea of yellow, that's when you know you are in Rossi country. As we approached the coastal area the unmistakable sounds of bikes were booming into our ears.

Lunch




It was nothing short of a carnival mood. Each building in each street was decorated with the flags of different riders. I hope I don't need to say whole flags were found the most and whose was found the least.

Streets of Catollica




ANyways, almost all restaurants were at capacity, finding a spot to have lunch was becoming very difficult when luckily we got a spot one big restaurant around and we ordered and dug in. We were seated towards the sidewalk and were enjoying the constant in and out of different riding groups and bikes all here for the same biking event, the GP.

Streets of Catollica




No matter how much I try to put in words it will fall short. Nothing short of electrifying. You have to be there to understand it. And to think that we were going to attend the GP just a few miles away from the home of the legend himself was nothing short of surreal.



Anyways we checked in to our hotel. This too was run by a sweet lady. She spoke in broken English and helped us with everything we needed. She then went on to tell us that this is the busiest time of the year for them and businesses boom during this period. Every single shop no matter it is a restaurant or grocery shops or ice cream shops, all had t-shirts and flags to sell. That's the level of excitement/rush here.

Anyways, we then checked in to our room and asked the hostess on how to get to the circuit as of course, you guessed it, we had no way to reach there other than public transport. Hearing our situation she laughed for quite some time leaving us tense as to what we have gotten ourselves into. but then she said not to worry, there are free bus shuttle services arranged by the VR46 fan club and Rossi himself that take all fans from the surrounding towns to and fro the circuit on Race day and she gave us a pamphlet with all the bus timing and stops information we needed. Well, now that was sorted.

Details of the circuit and shuttle bus services available for free




Next, we were wondering what to do for the rest of the day when again she chipped in and told that there is also a free bus shuttle service that takes people to Tavulia(The Mecca for VR46 fans)and back that too free of charge. We left at that opportunity and got ready and went to the stop to board our bus to Tavulia.

On the way to tavulia


Walking along the streets to reach to the top


The Famous church


Stunt show in progress




Once we reached there we walked around the spot and were keen on getting into the VR46 store to buy some merch to wear for the race and also to take some souvenirs back home to remember the day by. I ended up spending over 300 Euros in merchandise and gifts from here, yup that was almost 1/3 of my budget for the entire trip and I still had a week left worth of expenses left.

Queue at the fan club


Goosebumps







The queue to gain entrance to the VR46 shop was huge, we had to wait over 2 hours in line to be able to get in. All this while there was a big stunt show/ music festival going on in the famous church street. We spent some time there too and were debating if we should try and get to the Motoranch and who knows maybe we can catch a glimpse o the Doctor himself and the VR46 Academy riders, but that was not to be, waiting around for getting into the shop we did not realize time pass by and it was quickly beginning to darken outside. So we quickly went back to the pickup point and went back to our stop in Catollica. Now we were all excited for race day.

Street scenes before race day












Air show by the lone plane in the sky


Sticker bomb



On our way back to the hotel waiting for raceday

[krishnaprasadgg]

Part 3.2 The San Marino GP

It is finally the race day. We woke up early and got ready pretty quickly mostly in the excitement of the races coming up in the day. We went down for the complimentary breakfast that was offered at the Hotel we were staying at. I have to say this, it was probably the best breakfast I had in the entire duration of the trip. Fresh Bread and Toast, Omelettes, Croissants, and freshly squeezed Orange Juice. It was just so fulfilling.

As we were getting ready to leave for the GP we were faced with a new concern. Our bus to take us after the GP towards Rome and the Vatican was very late at night at an hour past midnight and our hotel checkout time was an early morning today. That meant we would have to go to the GP with our bags and spend the rest of the day post the races with the backpacks on our back which was a scary thought. So as a last resort we asked our hostess if it would be possible to store our luggage in a storage room at the Hotel, to which she happily asked us to keep our stuff in our room itself and that no extra charges would be levied for this. We were extremely happy to hear that. It was a huge burden lifted.







So next, we headed out to the bus boarding point to take us to the circuit. It was early in the morning but the rush and excitement among the people were very apparent. There was a huge line of people waiting for this bus service and we were worried for a minute that it would tough to get a bus in time for the WUP. But that worry too was short-lived as we got into a bus within 30-45 mins of waiting and we were on our way.





All went well till about 2kms before the circuit and the bus was standstill for over 5 mins, on noticing this when we looked out, we had a shock of our life. it was a proper gridlock as far as we could see. Nothing was moving and total chaos. We noticed lots of people were deboarding the bus and had decided to walk the rest of the distance. We waited for a bit more as we thought if the gridlock eases up a bit we can go till the entrance in the bus but to no avail. In the end, we also ended up walking to the circuit. By this time the Moto3 WUP had already finished, thanks to the traffic en route, it is GP day after all.















This is something I had never imagined, we were 2km and just as we started walking we could hear what was unmistakably the Moto2 bikes running at full chat. Yup, those bikes are damn loud. It gave us instant goosebumps. This was the first time we are hearing race machines at full throttle and that too 2kms away. We were beyond excited to hear the GP bikes too. And not a big surprise but we missed the MotoGP WUP too because of the rush everywhere even walking was going at a slow pace.

Once you reach closer to the GP it gets transformed into a completely different world. It is just a sea of bikes everywhere you see, all makes and models and styles you could imagine in every single direction, revbombs are going off all around, and loud cheering for their favorite riders is already underway.

So for anyone interested, So we had booked the tickets for the "Brutapela Gold" Grandstand or in other words it was the Valentino Rossi fans stand and as a bonus, our seats were placed in such a place that you could get a good view of the start/finish straight and turns 2,3,4 with turn 3 being right in front of us. And the entrance to which is at one end of the circuit from the main entrance. That meant more walking and finally, we reach the boarding point where our tickets were scanned and validated and we entered taking our seats.











This was probably the most exciting thing up to that point in my life. I had never been to a Grand Prix circuit before, nay, I had never been to any circuit ever and this was my first experience at it. Felt pretty lucky to have started with this too. Finding our seats was pretty easy, we were warned that there might be people already sitting there and there is a chance that they might not move even if you ask, in such case to just find seats elsewhere to not cause a scene as things can escalate very easily in situations like these. We were quite worried but luckily our seats were unoccupied and we settled down quite nicely.

[krishnaprasadgg]

Part 3.2 The Race begins

So finally it was race time.

MotoE
To be honest, not many people do take this race very seriously the grandstands were relatively empty for this race, nobody even in the spectators cared for the race much unless someone crashed and crash they did right in front of our grandstand, but us being the first time viewers were watching with keen interest, what was surprising to me was that being an electric bike you'd expect them to be pretty quiet, but those machines are pretty loud.



And more so as our grandstand seating was pretty close to the track with very less runoff space separating us from the tarmac. I'm not going into race results here. But the race was a good one to witness.

Moto3
Oh boy! What can I say, one common theme across all events is how loud the bikes are. If you think the "studs" roaming around on Dios with the chopped exhaust is obnoxiously loud, then Moto3 is going to recalibrate your senses on how loud a 125cc machine can be. Mental is the word to use. The way the bikes move is just amazingly quick and how fast the bike's change direction is even more of a sight to see.





Now we witnessed one very brutal high side crash involving multiple riders in the moto3 race and watching crashes in TV kind of desensitizes us from the brutality of it. Even a relatively small low side is pretty dramatic and noisy to watch in real life. Our respect towards these superhuman riders just increased by many folds.


Moto2

Those sweet sweet Triumph 765 engines. What a pleasure to the ears those engines are. Even though they are deafeningly loud it was just music to our ears. Right from the warm-up cycles to the warm-up laps to the sound of them launching at the race start to pulling away hard the sound they put out is just nothing short of a symphony. The backfiring and pops and cracks when the downshift is even better. Of all the race classes the Moto2 sounds the best.





Mission winnow laps
In the 1 hours gap between the Moto2 and GP races, they were holding the Mission Winnow 2up riding event. That is a promotional event where Mission Winnow selects a few winners from a social media campaign that they run and the winners get to ride pillion on a Descocidicci GP bike which has been modified to fit a pillion seat and the bike was piloted by Randy Mamola and Franco Battaini who are ex-grand Prix racers themselves.

All these pics were taken by my friend Christopher. Only he had the zoom lens big enough to get these.







It was fascinating to watch as they rode just as the Moto3 and moto2 riders were riding but this time with a pillion, when they reach the back straight they were popping wheelies with them on board. Man, what I would not give to be able to be on that bike.





One scary moment that happened was with one rider sitting pillion just as they were exiting corner 3 he applied too much throttle that the tail of the bike stepped out quite a bit, all of us let out a loud gasp and then clapped for the epic save he did with that bike. *Well, pretty sure that the pillions leathers could not be used again that day if you know what I mean

MotoGP




By this time all the grandstands were at capacity and the atmosphere around the circuit was nothing short of electrifying. Now, this was something that we did not expect to see. On their formation lap, as each rider was starting to get off, our whole grandstand was covered in yellow smoke, this was unmistakenly the welcome to none other than Valentino Rossi. Now as the riders were exiting pit lane for the formation lap huge cheers were going around for all the riders, except one, yup you guessed it right, as soon as Marqs number 93 bikes exited pit lane the whole stand was booing at his very loudly. Felt kinda bad because I don't think anyone deserves to be booed at an event just because they are riding better than someone else but what can we do but hope.







Now coming ot the sound of the GP bikes, violent is the word I would use to describe it. The sound they make is so loud and violent you can feel it on your chest. It'd be a pretty good idea to wear ear plug if you are not comfortable with loud noises.

#93


#20




As soon as the Doctor exited pit lane the cheers grew even louder and the stands we were sitting on was shaking from all the jumping around of the people in the stands, but lucky for us the stand held its ground pretty well.
The race as such in from where we were sitting was pretty eventless apart from 2-3 overtakes we got to see. But it was just sad to see Lorenzo and Zarco in the trailing end of the positions just riding around not even in contention/fighting for any position. As it turned out Lorenzo went on to retire at the end of the season and Zarco got fired immediately after this race.

#46






Ah yes, before I forget, all said and done, when you watch a race at the circuit you do not get a good idea of what is happening in the race once they go out of where you are sitting and all you hear is the sound of the bikes leaving/approaching, so you have no clue who is leading or if any overtakes have happened, that was kind of a bummer and that continued for all the moto 2 and GP races as well.

Another thing that I noticed is that these team livery on these bikes is way more bright than what it seems on TV. For example, the colors on the Ducati and Repsol bikes are just amazingly bright.

The M8 Safety car. Look at the size of that wing on the back of it. The exhaust note on the car was something all together different & awesome.






That concludes our GP experience, we returned to our hotel, walking as usual as we had no chance to find the shuttle bus service and anyways we had plenty of time to kill. And surprisingly lots of company too. A huge number of people also chose to walk back from the circuit.

Managed to see only 1 supercar at the GP event and it was this epic 812 superfast and he was making quite a bit of noise as well. Loved every second of it


Post race food




Italian gelato


Walking back to our hotel


Us waiting for our bus. Quite a few more hours to kill

[krishnaprasadgg]

Part 4 Trip to The Green Hell/ Nürburgring Nordschleife

This is the last part of this thread. The pilgrimage to the Nürburgring or its aptly put nickname "The Green hell". Jackie Stewart the legendary ex-Formula 1 driver nicknamed the track "The Green Hell". This particular track is known for claiming the life of one many drivers.

The circuit is so much dangerous that it was removed from the F1 calendar. This year though it is back but it is not the Nordschleife circuit but the separate more safe GP circuit which has proper runoff spaces and more safety standard applied.

Anyway, now that we know why the Nürburgring Nordschleife is considered as the Holy place for all petrolheads. We had to pay a visit. And that cannot be complete by doing a taxi lap around the Nordschleife circuit.

So we had looked into different taxi services that do provide a lap around the Nordschleife circuit and of course, it was to be only during the touristenfahrten days.
What does touristenfahrten mean? Well, during the Nürburgring Nordschleife touristenfahrten days the ring is essentially a one-way toll road highway where any valid road-legal car can enter, strict rules are enforced where no lap times shall be recorded and all road rules such as slower cars on the left lane, making way for faster cars by moving to the left lane, etc need to be followed, if not heavy fines are imposed. And Germany being Germany rules are followed to the T. But the best part is, no speed limits are imposed. So if you want to ride spiritedly then you are allowed to, while respecting the rules of touristenfahrten.

So as I was saying, we were pretty sure about which service provider we wanted to use for the taxi lap. We had chosen Apex racing for it. 90% because I was already aware of their distance as I had been subscribed to their Youtube channel run by Misha Choudrin and Robert Micthell(Owner) of Apex.

These are very knowledgable people when it comes to the matter of the track and their staff is pretty experienced drivers too.

But the only thing is a lap around the ring is super costly. We ended up paying 269 euros for a single lap in the Schirmer M3 GT. They do provide laps in supercars also. They have recently added the GT2RS with the full Manthey Racing kit installed. You can check out their services here.



Detailed video on the Schirmer M3 GT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa1wejvEcRU

Now that that is out of the way lets get into our trip to reach the Nürburgring. It' been 1 week since our MotoGP event and we have been traveling around Italy and France and have finally entered back to Germany for the last 2 days of our trip and we left the best for the last.

As is the trend of our trip, we in our infinite wisdom took upon us to reach the Nürburgring via public transport, which we thought was doable. But alas, Germany had different plans for us. As it turns out the best German public transport could take us closest to the Nürburgring was about 60 km away from it. And to reach this point we had to board around 3 different trains and 1 bus.

The train and bus rides weren't without incident either. 2 incidents stand out for this trip.

First, While we were waiting for train 2/3 at a station, once the train arrived all of us boarded the train and waiting for the train to start, it was reasonably crowded. Now trains in Germany are usually very punctual, they are maybe a minute or so late at most. But here the train was just not moving, even after 5-10 mins of the departure time. Some announcement was going on in the background and visible confusion among many. So at point a kind German lady decided to help us out and translated to us that the announcement was in fact that the train is currently overloaded with passengers and the train will not leave the station until passengers dismount the train. Now people who do decide to dismount can go to the ticket counter and get a coupon worth 30 euros in credit which they can use for their future train rides with no expiry.
Yeah, you heard that right. Passengers can decide who needs to dismount the train. I would imagine at this point in India nobody would be ready to budge or the TC would be manhandled, but No, here people who were not in a hurry patiently dismounted and went to collect their 30 euro coupon. We too decided to dismount as we could afford to catch the next train as our connecting train was anyways a few hours apart. A very peculiar experience nonetheless.

Second, After reaching our final destination by train, we had to reach our final destination till where public transport was available via bus and we were waiting for the bus for about 1 hour or so. Finally, the bus arrived and we boarded, the bus was full with 4-5 seats empty but none of them were together as we wanted to sit in a group so we thought that we will stand in the middle area(it was one of those low floor Volvo buses we have in the metro cities). But within a minute or two, the driver of the bus rushed to the middle of the bus and started shouting at us in German. We could do nothing as we did not understand why he was shouting at us, all while the other passengers were having a chuckle at us. So as it turns out buses that pass through the Autobahn area cannot have people standing in them at any cost. Anyways an angry German shouting at us was probably one of the scariest things to go through during our trip

Anyway, after reaching our final destination till which public transport was available we still had a good 50-60 km left to Nürburgring and we were desperately trying to find a source of transport. We had initially booked 3 seats in the app blah-blah cars which is a platform where you can rent out seats in your car to others who are going to the same destination or someplace in the way. But as it turned out our guy canceled on us last minute sighting some weird reason. So we were left hanging at a very awkward spot. At this point, we were standing at an empty bus stop where a few people were waiting for a taxi to take them somewhere. We explained our situation to them and they told that they will ask their taxi driver to book a cab for us once he reaches.
When the guy did arrive he said that it is a Saturday no other cabs were in the region near to evening time, he then asked us where we wanted to go and we told him Nürburgring, suddenly he offered to take us there himself if we were ready to wait for about an hour because he had to drop his current clients somewhere. Since we had no other option we told him we would wait.
Now the only problem with this arrangement is that there was no guarantee that this guy would come back for us. But I guess the chance to drive to Nürburgring was enticing enough for him that he was back within 40-50 mins. This would be our 3rd and last taxi ride throughout our trip and this was an expensive one, came up close to 80-90 euros.







Once we started the journey we understood why he was so prompt to take us there, the roads were just pure driving bliss. Long-winded curves with grassy plains on both sides with such smooth and well-banked tarmac, and his car being a Mercedes E Wagon it was quite a hoot for him to drive as well.
I do have the video of the drive that my friend had recorded, I'll see if I can get him to upload it onto youtube and I'll post the link here.









Finally, we reached the Nürburgring boulevard, up until that point we had seen it only in pictures and it was such a dream come true to be there. It was beginning to darken outside and the track was about to get closed for the day but still, we could hear cars zipping about around the Nürburgring and it was nothing short of a dream. We finally checked into our room which was a nice cozy studio apartment of sorts.









We also found an awesome decorative piece of a racing wheel that had cracked open because of a ring accident with the slicks still mounted on it. Yup, we were definitely in the right place.



We were pretty exhausted at this point and decided to step out and find the photography area to see what cars we could spot, but ended up getting lost walking around the space and ended up trespassing into someone's private property which we were not aware until we saw the signs. We quickly went back and went in search of a good restaurant. Once we found our way back the sheer number of Porsches we found was crazy, to say the least. As it turns out there was this group called Ringriders of Sweden who had come down for driving the Nürburgring on Sunday and almost every single modern model offered by Porsche was there in their group, from the 911 Carreras and the Gt3Rs, GT2RS, 911R, GT3 Touring. you name it it was there.





It was at this point also I noticed that there were an unusual amount of Corvettes too, this was something that puzzled me, I had noticed that germans have quite a love affair with Corvettes, Camaros and Harley Davidsons. No idea how.

And as expected most of the restaurants were at capacity and only took in people who had a prior reservation and we ended up hunting for a place to eat and finally by sheer utter coincidence we ended up at the place where the Ringriders of Sweden had stopped to eat. Even more fun fact of the restaurant was that they had all these track debris hung on the wall which included a 458 challenge car rear bumper and a quote on the wall that said if you come to the Nürburgring and did not break anything on your car you did not drive the ring hard enough. Seemed fitting given the cars we found around the area.





Anyways, we then had a walk around the area which was mainly filled with offices/R&D departments for many car manufacturers(BMW M division), tire manufacturers(Michelin, Pirelli, Continental), suspension manufacturers(Ohlins) and tuning houses(Renntech). But these are all private areas and no visitors are allowed so nothing much we can do about it.

Anyways, we then headed back to our room so that we can get prepared to leave for our ring lap early morning Sunday. All while hoping that the ring will remain open and won't close for any accidents that happen.

[krishnaprasadgg]

Part 4.2 Lap of The Green Hell/ Nürburgring Nordschleife

Now that it was the day of the ring lap we woke up in time and hurried up to the touristenfahrten entrance and were waiting our turn to go do our lap, and we were hoping that there won't be any crashes today because usually whenever there is a crash the ring is closed for hours at end to get the track safe again for people to drive on and this usually causes a backlog of people who are waiting for their turn in the taxis.

But unfortunately for us just about when we're about to get our turn on the track there was a crash and the track was closed until further notice. We were debating on having breakfast at the famous Hell's Diner which was just next door but decided against it as there was a chance that we might throw up after going for a lap after eating breakfast. So instead we decided to do some car spotting. I'll post the pics of that here.

The AMG GT-R taxi cars from the AMG experience center


Car Park


Bikers lining up for their chance to ride the ring


Beemer


Lamborghini performante


Porsche GT3





The R1, in my favourite color of the 2015-current line up


Mclaren 675. Not sure if its the LT version


Porsche GT3 - Ringrunners of Sweden group

















Ferrari 488


All new Toyota Supra















Rare sighting at the Ring. Props to the owner to take it to the ring. Heard the V10 roar in all its glory



Teh Aventador. Sadly this was the only Aventador we saw the entire trip

[krishnaprasadgg]

Part 4.3 Lap of The Green Hell/ Nürburgring Nordschleife

Anyways in about an hour or so the track was cleared and made safe for driving again we got our chance at our lap. Now the car has 4 seats each of them is carbon bucket racing seats and you are secured in via a 5 point harness. This was my first time in such a harness setting, once you are strapped in you literally cannot move your body other than your neck.



Apart from this all of us are wearing helmets and are connected via radio so that all of us can talk to each other. This was the fun part as we could hear each other very clearly and our driver would often check in on us and talk to us from time to time.





Once we crossed the toll barrier and the tightly arranged cones to prevent people from peeling away parallelly, it was set in such a way that only one car can launch/start their lap at a time. And boy did we start in some spectacular fashion. As soon as we crossed the cones the driver floored the pedal to the metal and the rear of the car stepped out for a second and then just HOOKED, we were pushed back into our seats in an instant, up until this point I have no experienced torque like that in a car.

Lap Video. Unfortunately the part where the car is lunched is not part of the clip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5DKpkseX8A

We were having a hell of a time in the car. I'll post the link to the video of our lap. You will find me sitting in the front seat and my friends in the rear.

I have to say that the braking on these cars is so strong, there was this incident where we were moving at a higher pace when a GT3 suddenly changed lanes from the left to right lane right in front of us and our driver just went full-on hulk mode on the brakes, we were 100% convinced that we were going to rear-end into the GT3 but the car dropped speed and stopped just an inch before the GT3(1:20 onwards timestamp in the video).

You can see the rest of the video to get an idea of the lap. Post this lap my mind was re-calibrated to the concept of what speed, torque, and braking were as opposed to what I had experienced up until that point.

After our lap it took us a good few minutes to get back to our senses. Luckily none of us got sick(Oh the car also had sick bags in each seat, you know just in case you need it. How thoughtful )

Welp! I don't think I can write anything to top the ring lap. So guys, I guess this is where the thread ends. If you stuck with the thread till the end then a big thumpsup to you.

Feels like the thread came to a spot ubruptly and a bit anti-climatic. But there are many more memories associated with this trip but that would take way too long to write and add photos to.

I would also like to say. A lot of the pics you see here are taken by my friends Christopher and Naveen. All the pics I took was on my phone while they were the ones crazy enough to carry expensive camera gear around and take some beautiful pics with it too.

Cheers
Krishna

Fin.

[vb-saan]

Thread moved from Assembly Line to the Travelogues section.

Wonderful travelogue! Thank you for sharing

[krishnaprasadgg]

Originally Posted by vb-san

Thread moved from Assembly Line to the Travelogues section.

Wonderful travelogue! Thank you for sharing

Thanks vb-san for moving the thread. Appreciate the kind words.

Cheers
Krishna

[ds.raikkonen]

Amazing photos! This has been my fantasy eurotrip for quite sometime

What was your lap time at the Nordschleife in the Apex M3 taxi, was it the full lap?

[ChiragM]

Nice travelogue krishnaprasadgg. I've done similar stuff as well when I was in the UK. Attended as many automotive events as possible including track days, Ferrari Racing and Corse Clienti event at Silverstone and F1 roadshow in London as well as spending my weekends in London supercar spotting. Lots of museum visits and factory tours you could do as well in the UK.

First trip to mainland Europe was for the 2017 Geneva Motor Show. Loved that. Sad to know it has been cancelled for now (2021 as well). I would suggest visiting the automobile museum in Mulhouse, France whenever you can. They have an amazing collection and it also has the largest collection of Bugattis in the world and lots of cars from the motorsport world as well.

[krishnaprasadgg]

Originally Posted by ds.raikkonen

Amazing photos! This has been my fantasy eurotrip for quite sometime

What was your lap time at the Nordschleife in the Apex M3 taxi, was it the full lap?

Thanks.
It is totally worth going to Europe, hope you get to go soon once all the current situation simmers down.

The full ring is about 28 km approx. That is 22.8 km Nordschleife(North Loop) excluding the GP track which is bypassed for the touristenfahrten and 7.7 km Südschleife(South Loop, this is not part of the touristenfahrten).

Civilians get access only to the Nordschleife(North Loop). It took us over 9min to do the Nordschleife, do note that you are not supposed to do timed laps during touristenfahrten days.

Even then you do not get to drive the 22.8kms on touristenfahrten days, you get to drive only 20.8 km. As some areas are closed/non accessible and the long straight road is also blocked as flying laps are not allowed.

Originally Posted by ChiragM

Nice travelogue krishnaprasadgg. I've done similar stuff as well when I was in the UK. Attended as many automotive events as possible including track days, Ferrari Racing and Corse Clienti event at Silverstone and F1 roadshow in London as well as spending my weekends in London supercar spotting. Lots of museum visits and factory tours you could do as well in the UK.

Thanks for the kind words Chirag.
That's epic, I'm sure you would have enjoyed it to the core. We wanted to include UK too in our trip , but the Brexit situation made things complicated and then the time and budget constrains as well.

Originally Posted by ChiragM

First trip to mainland Europe was for the 2017 Geneva Motor Show. Loved that. Sad to know it has been cancelled for now (2021 as well). I would suggest visiting the automobile museum in Mulhouse, France whenever you can. They have an amazing collection and it also has the largest collection of Bugattis in the world and lots of cars from the motorsport world as well.

Will do, added it to the list. We already have a new updated list of places to go next time. The ring will be visited again, but this time we intend to drive across EU and to do a lap around the ring. Some other plans included was the Ferrari, Lamorghini and Pagani factory tours(It is available as a package tour even. Makes things easier).
Hiring some rental bikes to do a few mountain passes along France, Switzerland and Germany is also in card. Meticulous financial planning is required, but we are confident that we can pull it off.

Cheers
Krishna

[ds.raikkonen]

Originally Posted by krishnaprasadgg

Civilians get access only to the Nordschleife(North Loop). It took us over 9min to do the Nordschleife, do note that you are not supposed to do timed laps during touristenfahrten days

Without going for a timed run, 9 min is still a decent time mate
By now, I have run both the Nurburgring and Circuit de La Sarthe so many times on games like Race Driver: GRID and NFS: Shift that I can do a virtual lap in my head, waiting to do it for real someday!

[krishnaprasadgg]

Originally Posted by ds.raikkonen

Without going for a timed run, 9 min is still a decent time mate

Yeah, they do use highly skilled and experienced drivers for the taxis and each car is set precisely for the ring. So I guess a good time is guaranteed.

Cheers
Krishna

[ds.raikkonen]

Originally Posted by krishnaprasadgg

Yeah, they do use highly skilled and experienced drivers for the taxis and each car is set precisely for the ring. So I guess a good time is guaranteed.

Absolutely, the undulations on the iconic green hell are enough to catch the best drivers out even on a sunny day.

Did you get a chance to witness the legendary Sabine Schmitz?

[saisailendra]

One of the most interesting posts I've read based on a travel experience. This post and video had created a desire in me to visit the Nürburgring.

Thanks for the detailed post.