The Nürburgring

It’s 12.9 miles of test-track that the auto manufacturers love to use as a standard for performance. But why there? Scott and Kurt explore some of the more colorful characteristics of The 'Ring, and fill you in on some tips that you can employ to stay safe if you wish to test your mettle on "The Green Hell".

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Car Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio's
How Stuff Works. Hi, and Welcome to Car Stuff. I'm
your host Scott Benjamin, and I am Kurt Garren. You know,
I'm super excited about this show this week because we've
got a topic that's got a lot of meat to
it and something that I think that is gonna be
just right for conversation between the two of us, because

(00:20):
we both have an interest in this sort of thing anyway, Um,
you know, a little bit of track driving, a little
bit of uh, a little thrill seeking. I guess maybe
we're both kind of not adrenaline junkies, but we both
like to uh, kind of test the limits of our
vehicles kind of you know, just get out there and
have a little bit of fun in them. And I
think this is something that a lot of people can
relate to. Maybe not a lot of people have done
this in the past, of course, I think we're gonna

(00:42):
find very few of our listeners have actually done this.
But there are a couple of examples that that I'll
tell you about in just a moment. So let's just
jump right into it and I'll tell our listeners what
we're gonna be talking about today, And it was kind
of a question that I had, and it's something that
I know I've voiced on my other show on car
stuff in the past, and and I think I've maybe
answered a little bit and and we've even discussed this track,

(01:04):
and I'll get to all of this, you understand it
just a moment. But my question is about the nerber Ring,
and the nerber Ring has, in the past, i don't know,
decade or maybe even twelve fifteen years, seem to be
the place that manufacturers have taken their automobiles to test
the limits, to see how fast they can lap the Nerburgring.

(01:25):
And there's a specific part of the nerber Ring that
they do this in. There's it's it's a it's a
certain loop that they tested on. We'll talk about what
it is. Is it's kind of like a level playing
field for all manufacturers to be able to go and say,
we can run this track at this speed in this
amount of time in this car, and that's why our

(01:45):
car is the best. And if you think you can
top it, go do it. Yeah. And it offers a
bunch of different types of conditions as well through the
surface of the course and the terrain weather and all
sorts of other obstacles that may get interesting and kind
of like a something something to brag about. Oh absolutely,
we'll we'll talk about all of this because there's some

(02:06):
really there's believe it or not. Even the weather is
a fascinating topic on this track, and so as the
like the surface material because it changes over over time,
over distance rather And maybe one of the coolest things
about this is that you can go and drive on
this track if you just have a few dollars in
your pocket. It doesn't really cost that much money. It's
officially a toll road. And I know I'm probably not

(02:28):
giving anything away by saying that right now. And man,
there's some fascinating things that go along with this whole thing. Now,
now here's a little bit of background, and I want
to temper this with this thought. There's a car stuff
episode on the Nurburgring, and we went through a lot
of history. We went through the details of how they've
modified the track, and you know, like you know, the
different curves and all that stuff and and the barriers,

(02:50):
and you're just a lot of information about the track itself.
So there's a ton of history, there's a ton of
material there about Grand Prixs or you know about Grand
Prix racing about um, you know, the switchover to Formula
one and all of that. It's all there. So I
don't want to I don't want to double up on
too much of that. And I know that's tough not
to step on that. So we're gonna We're gonna have
a little bit of overlap, but not a whole lot. Now,

(03:12):
there's a few things that I do I do feel
like we need to repeat. This is just because there's
some really interesting things about this track that I think
are important. And one number one, probably the most important
thing that we need to know about this track is
that it's insanely dangerous. Insanely dangerous. I mean, it really is.
And it was designed a long long time ago. I

(03:34):
think the track was built in what and it's like
it's a huge, huge track. It's it's what UM well,
in its current uh form, I think that the overall lap,
if you uh, the nord Schlift or nord Schleef that
we're gonna talk about, which is the North Loop UM
is about fourteen It's over fourteen miles, right, okay, so

(03:56):
over a hundred yeah, oh yeah, that's right. That's that's
another important point. This is a this is of course
that goes through the mountains. Yeah, i'd I'd like to
see what the elevation changes. I think the course of
a lot. I think that I think that I read
somewhere that the elevation change is over a thousand feet
between the start and finish of the of the track.
So really an interesting track. It's it's fascinating. What do

(04:18):
you say, A hundred and fifties some turns, they had more,
they tried to make it safer and uh. And that's
partly due to Jackie Stewart. Uh. In fact, it's it's
mostly due to Jackie Stewart and a lot of other
F one drivers that got together and said, we are
actually they're actually gonna boycott this race if they didn't

(04:38):
make some changes. And this this wasn't always the case
because early on, you know, Formula one, it was it
was a little bit different. It was it was it
was fast, sure, but it wasn't quite as fast and
it wasn't quite as dangerous as it was in the
late nineteen sixties. And when they started adding some wings
to the cars and we're at a little more down force,
so you know where the car stuck to the track exactly,

(05:00):
and so when they when they would go over some
of the more I guess pronounced elevation quick elevation changes,
maybe the car would get lighter than than it should
have been or yeah, that was I was just trying
to figure out why the drivers were so afraid of
this particular track, and that's all I could come up with. Well, see,
the course got it wasn't that the course changed, of course,
you know that is the same as it always exactly. Yeah,

(05:23):
the cars got faster and the car has changed. They're
probably more dependent on air flowing flowing around it in
a certain way. Absolutely, they're not. Cars aren't supposed to
get too far off the correct surface. Yeah, exactly right.
Cars are designed to be on the track surface. And
we've talked about this with you know, the thrust SSC
and you know all the other cars that are going
fast and essentially every car that we talked about so

(05:46):
far on the fast track. Um. But cars are designed
to stay low, to stay kind of stuck to the ground.
The faster you go, the more down force they have
to have in order to stay on the ground. And
what happens is that there's some dramatic elevation changes, and
whether it's just a little rise or um, you know,
it's like you're coming over a crest and you can't
see what's going on on the other side of it,

(06:07):
UM and it drops right off. At this point, the
cars were going so fast that they were becoming airborne.
And part of the problem was that with the way
that the down force was UM designed, I guess on
these cars it was meant to act like a reverse
wing to push the car down. So when you get
air underneath the car, it acts in the opposite way.
It acts like it's gonna want to lift off. And
we've seen that in recent years of course with Lama

(06:30):
and you know other tracks as well. It's not just
it's not just the nerbor Ring, but but tracks where
cars become airborne. These road courses are really really dangerous
for drivers that are going super super fast and UM.
Back then, you know, back in the late six nineteen sixties,
Jackie Stewart was saying that at the time, and I
think I've mentioned this another podcast even you know they

(06:50):
f one podcast is that you know a lot of
his friends were dying on this on this on these circuits,
on these Grand Prix circuits, and the Nerburgring was especially dangerous.
In fact um, one of the facts that came out
of the Last Car Stuff episode, and I think it
was something that Bennett mentioned, is that this is hard
to believe. And I don't know where he dug this up,
but I do remember him saying this that F one
drivers had a two thirds chance over five years of

(07:14):
competition that they would be killed in competition in five years.
Two thirds chance. That's sixty six percent chance that you
would die in a race if you raced for five
years or longer in F one competition at the time.
And this is like, you know, during the late nineteen sixties,
early nineteen seventies. So Jackie Stewart had a very valid point,

(07:34):
you know, he said, you know, I'm I'm losing I'm
losing friends every weekend on these tracks. Safety has got
improved in some way. Let's start with cars, of course,
but let's move on to you know, safety equipment and
tracks and everything. So he wanted improvements everywhere the Nurburgring.
They respond They changed a lot of the a lot
of the track, you know, they slowed down some of
the corners and you know, it made it a little

(07:55):
bit safer in a lot of ways, and there's a
lot of ways they can design corners to make them
a little bit better. But overall, still the Nurburgring is
just an inherently dangerous course for a lot of reasons.
And I think you you already know a couple of reasons. Why, Yeah, yeah,
I think I know what you're trying to get a
I mean the fact that the track is kind of
laid right on top of these extremely rolling hills in

(08:16):
the middle of a forest. Um, it's a lot narrower
than a lot of modern day race tracks are designed
to be, the surfaces different, the weather conditions are different,
and then just the general speed at what you're going Um,
of course is designed at a time when cars didn't
see speeds like they see now. Sure they were fast,
but they weren't quite as fast as they were in

(08:36):
the sixties and seventies. And then even now, I mean
they're they're incredibly fast. You know, I think I want
to mention this right now, if that's all right, I
want to take just a second to say that I
think the last German Grand Prix that was run at
the Nurburgring. And that's very specific. Well we'll talk about
that in a second. But the last one that was
running at the Nurburgring was and uh, you know, of
course there were other during Grand Prix. I mean, the

(08:58):
latest one was in twenty eighteen, I believe, right, or
was there one in En There might have been one.
They all right, um, but but yeah, they kind of
like skip around. So it's not always run at hockenheim
Ring or at um you know, the Nurburgring. It's kind
of a mix of the two, or sometimes it's just
not even either one of those, you know, depending on

(09:18):
whether they're gonna run something else. Um. You know, you
mentioned one thing here that another thing that I need
to mention real quick. The weather. The weather is a
huge factor in this. Now, this course is so large
that there is a there there's a town in the
middle of the track. I mean, there are people that
live there. There residents that live there throughout the year.

(09:39):
There's a castle in the middle of the track. That's
how big this is. And all of the you know,
the the surrounding property I mean, and the castle goes
back to like the eleven hundreds or something like that.
Goes back a long long way. I mean it's an old,
old castle. Of course. If you ever look at any
bit of footage that is maybe shot where you know
there's an airplane fly over, the track itself is beautiful track.

(10:01):
I mean you would you would just kind of your
mouth with water wanting to get onto this track and
drive it because it's such an interesting looking track. It
looks beautiful, really it does. And that's why Jackie Stewart
decided he was going to call it the Green Hell
because he feared it, but it was also beautiful and
it was green, and you know, the trees are right nearby.
There's a great sensation of speed and everything. But the

(10:22):
weather is something that you really have to factor into
this thing because it could be pouring rain on one
part of the course and the other part could be
completely dry and sunny. And we've seen Sir Jackie Stewart
talk about this and he one one scene is one
where he was in a rolls Royce and he's still
in his his his garb right his his his fire
suit on and yeah, I think a little yeah, I

(10:45):
think they picked him up in the pits and said, hey, Jackie,
let's go out and talk about the course a little bit. Here.
We happen to have this Rolls Royce for you, you know,
as a convertible, very nice, perfect Yeah, that's right, did
no problem. Maybe maybe it was even his who knows. Um, Yeah,
he's driving the track and he's discussing what some of
the surface changes are like and what some of the
weather changes are like. From what I gather from what

(11:07):
Stewart said was that the different types of pavement hold
water different besides the fact that one lap it may
not be raining, and then the next time you come
through a certain section that had rained or is currently raining,
the weight water drains off of the track is different
as well, So some spots that will dry out quicker
and some spots that will dry out slower. And then
water running across the track in a certain way creates

(11:29):
little streams, so that if you can imagine flying over
a hill and then setting up for a turn right
after you jump over this little rise and then it
being wet on the other side, you know, you can
imagine how tricky and the I guess just generally sketchy
this particular track can get when you're racing on it. Yeah,
and it wasn't wet the previous lap, so you know,

(11:50):
the things change on this course over the course of
one lap. It's just it's fascinating to me that you know,
there there is a weather factor as well in this
and it it almost reminds me a little bit of um,
you know, like Pike's Peak or something like that, where
you might you might encounter a date with sunshine and
warm weather at the bottom, you get to the top
and there's a blizzard practically going on. Um it's similar

(12:11):
to that or well, that's why it maybe the ultimate
test track in a way. A lot of conditions are different.
Road surfaces are different. There's concrete slabs, there's bank turns,
uphill downhill, suspension gets light, gets heavy, like you mentioned,
It's just it's a place where everybody could go and
kind of see what they have. You know what. I

(12:31):
love the idea that you know, everybody's kind of got
their own opinion about what this course is all about.
Like the drivers do a lot of them are I
think a lot of them are afraid of it. And
I don't think there's anything wrong with that, or at
least uh, there's a level of respect about the course.
Well you know honestly. Yeah, yeah, I guess maybe the
respect is a better way to say it. I mean

(12:51):
to say they're afraid of it. I mean they do
it anyway because they've got nerves of steel, right. I
think I would be afraid of it, really if I
had to go out and do that. Of course, the
first time I assume that rookies are afraid of it,
probably I'm as sure. I'm sure that they are. But
Jackie Stewart, he said, um in in one of those laps,
you know he has he does have great respect for
the course. He does, and I think he has a
little bit of fear for of it because it is

(13:13):
a kind of scary thing to drive. You never know
if you're gonna make it back. He said. He always
every time he left to go to the German Grand
Prix at the nurburg Ring, he would stop at the
end of his driveway, look back at his house, kind
of like one long moment, and then leave. And he said,
because I never knew if I was ever going to
come home from that race. Because that's not dangerous it was.
And he said, while he was driving this thing, he said,

(13:35):
you know, I drive this at speed, I'm going a
hundred and seventy five miles an hour on this course
at the time he was this is back in again
in the late sixties, hundred seventy five miles an hour.
He said, you know, when I if I really were
ever to walk this course, if I would ever just
like really take in that, you know, there's no guardrail here,
and over here there's you know, just pine trees, and

(13:56):
you know over in this area here, like if I
go off, I'm going into a stream, you know that
kind of thing. He said, if I ever, if I
ever really just took all that in, I probably would
never drive here ever again. I'd never raced his course.
And uh, and I think he's got a point. He said,
the less he knows about the course, the better, and
that he just knows I gotta go fast and turn
left right there, right right there, and aim for that

(14:16):
tree so that I can hit the carousel in the
right spot. And it's just he knew the course really well.
But he said, the less he knew about the surrounding
part of the course, you know, the the dangerous part,
like if you were to go off course, the better
off he was. Yeah, so he had he did have
a healthy respect for it, and you know, I think
there's more, there's more to it. You know, we listened

(14:38):
to UM some audio from Boris said who is also
he's a legendary road racing driver as well. You can
look up this interview if you want on YouTube. You
can find the entire Boris said, UM discussion, it's I
think it's got the title is long. It's it's it's
UM Steve Littart's podcast. Yes, it's he's a he's a

(14:58):
he was a crew chief in NASCAR for are several drivers.
It's Steve Lettart on Location and that's his podcast, although
this one has video as well, but it was from
Watkins Glen and there he's discussing, you know, the dramatic
elevation changes and and if you skip forward to about
the ten minute mark, that's about where the discussion about
the Nurburgring starts. And uh, he's talking about he races

(15:19):
in something that's the twenty four hours of Nurburgring. So
imagine how grueling that would be on on you know,
a series of drives. It's not just one driver, obviously,
but he said something just remarkable here. He said that
at the start of that race two hundred and thirty
cars start that race, two hundred and thirty. Imagine starting
the race with two hundred and thirty cars on the track.

(15:40):
And we're talking about a track like what we've been discussing,
a long, long track, you know, with a hundred and
fifties some hundred fifty six turns, elevation changes, it's you know,
going to get dark at some point during this race.
There's weather changes. Uh, there's very little runoff. There's you know,
the almost no guard rails of mentioned. I mean there
are some, but you're in an extremely fast cars. And

(16:03):
he said you if you're in a fast car and
when he and he was, of course he's in one
of the top end vehicles. He was passing on average
fifty cars per lap. Yeah, fifty, I think he said
something like the faster cars a lot slower cars. Every
three lap means a sports car races all different kinds
of categories. Yeah, you know, that can make it dangerous too,

(16:23):
because you've got slower cars and faster cars on the
same track. You know, what's interesting And gosh, you know,
I know we're going way over here, we have to
stop a moment. But um, what's really interesting? He said,
and here's our answer. Here he says, it's about a
nine minute lap for him in the sports car series,
So you know that Formula one Cars is doing a
lot faster than I mean, I guess a seven minute
lap something like that ballpark during the tourist and parting,

(16:46):
which is the kind of the daily driver events they
have at the track. Yeah, I think they said like
a ten minute lap is something to brag about. So
we'll get there. Well, we'll talk about that soon, but
I think first maybe we should take a break. I
love this topic. This is a this is an interesting
one because the truck has so much history, so much,

(17:08):
so much going on for it. We're going to talk
about the manufacturers and what they're doing at the Nrburgring
because it's not just you know, races that happen there,
it's it's manufacturers that are going there and using it
as a test facility, and they're using it as kind
of a level ground test facility so that you know,
when one manufacturer says our car can lapped Nerburgring in
this amount of time, the other manufacturer has a way

(17:30):
to compare exactly to that time with their own version
of whatever car that they want. To bring, whether that's
an all electric car, whether that's a hybrid car, internal
combustion car, whatever type of car they want to bring,
sports car, sedan, any of those things. They can claim
that they have the fastest vehicle based on the timing
that is consistent that at that track. Now we talked

(17:52):
about all the other things that are inconsistent. Of course,
drivers are not going to be consistent. You're not gonna
have the same driver in uh different manufacturers. Car is
gonna bring your own driver, you know, whether it's a
pro or somebody that you know they have in their
own test track or whatever. Um, there's gonna be the weather,
there's going to be uh just you know, even um
atmospheric conditions that day at high pressure, low pressure, wind,

(18:13):
you know whatever. They're gonna have to deal with all that.
But the thing is that you know you're on the
same track, You've got the same distance, you've got the
same timing facility that you know says like this is
an accurate time. Everybody gets the same treatment. There's no
there's no difference in this. It's the exact same distance
every time and no no difference at all, no variance,
And you don't have to do like a one run

(18:33):
one way and one run the other way like you
do for land speed record. It's just a lap time.
And that lap time is something that these manufacturers have
really promoted over the last decade or so, or maybe
even more. It might be more like fifteen years. I
haven't really been paying attention, I guess for that long
to figure out when they started, but it seems like
for the last decade or so, the Nurburgring lap time

(18:55):
is a huge deal for sports car manufacturers. So they
they bring a lot of different cars they bring again,
there's a huge variance. And and let me tell you
just a couple of times here and and we'll just
kind of get the ball rolling here maybe and we
can we can talk about, you know, um, some of
these in a little bit more detail, maybe in just
just a moment, if that's all right. All right, So,
but number ten on the list is the the Lexus

(19:17):
l F, a Nurburgring package also a special package just
for the nerber Ring, right all right? Interesting? Right? The
time that the lap time is seven minutes, fourteen seconds,
all right, just in a couple of hundreds of a
second as well. I'm not even gonna read those so
seven and fourteen, alright, almost almost seven fifteen. If you
move up, you know, you get to like the Corvette

(19:38):
C seven. Then there's this is a surprising one. The
gumper To Apollo comes in at two and from two
thousand nine. This is a car from a long time ago.
The Gumpert Apollo is still number eight on the list.
It's seven minutes and just under seven minutes and twelve seconds,
so still really really fast for that car. You go
up a little bit higher. You got a Mercedes and Nissan.

(19:59):
There's the g t R. Of course. Uh there's the
Dodge Viper A c R, which comes in at seven
oh one point zero three, so just under just shy
of breaking that seven minute mark. They didn't quite do
it with a Dodge Viper ACR. Then there's a Porsche
which is the nine eighteen Spider. They we have the
first Lamborghini. Oh that's a clue, I just gave away,
right clue. The first Lamborghini comes in at the number three.

(20:22):
That's the Hurricane I think, I hope that's the way
you pronounced that Hurricane Hurricane um which comes in at
six fifty two. So they actually broke the seven minute mark.
This is a Porsche g T two r S and
then the number one car on this list is a
Lamborghini event the Door s v J which comes in
and get this is a fast time six minutes and
forty six minutes forty four seconds point nine seven, so

(20:45):
just under six minutes forty five seconds, and that's really
really moving, right, but a smoke. But I want to
point out one thing here. These cars from one to ten,
they're all sports cars. Of course, they all come in
within thirty seconds of each other. And that's how tight
this race is, right, And we talked about all the
differences in the track and things that can happen, weather

(21:08):
conditions and whatnot. And it's funny that they use this
as a standard and they quibble over thirty second difference,
and you know, the drivers are all of course, they're different.
Manufacturers spend a lot of money to go and do
this right, and they want to be number one. They
want to at least be in the top ten. And
I understand, I completely get that. It's it's kind of
important to keep your sports car in the top ten

(21:30):
on the fastest cars that you're working right now, because
that's kind of the standard right, where is a Ferrari
on this list? Exactly? They stay out of Germany, they say,
come to Italy where racing. This is the good point.
They're running on Italian tracks. Yeah, maybe maybe they are.
I don't know, maybe there's a Monza record that I
don't know about or whatever. But um, the Nurburgring is

(21:53):
is fantastic for this and it is a level playing field.
But you make a very good point, Curtain, And we
talked about this off air we were getting ready for
this podcast in that I kind of I I like,
for a short amount of time reading the forums. Uh
you know that they go along with these numbers, you know,
like when you we look up the Nurburgring fastest times

(22:13):
or any article that has to do with like, you know,
someone breaking a record. I'd like to read the comments
just for a bit of a short time because quickly
people get out of control. They start to have a
flame war about all kinds of different things that really
have very very little impact on the on the ultimate
time of these cars, I believe, I think. So. Anyways,

(22:34):
I mean, maybe maybe there's more to it than I
than I know, but you and I both kind of
had a good laugh about that right. Yeah. So, so
there's minor, minor things that that people think make a
huge difference in wings like tires, and if the car
has a racing package built into it, roll bars and
and that sort of thing. Traction control, you know, the

(22:55):
driver assist options that may not be conducive to running
a fast lap may actually help the car run faster.
All right, there's like three things there that I want
to mention, Okay, so said um. Traction control and drivers
this type functions. You know, I I don't know where
they stand on if those are turned off, turned on,
or you know whatever. I'm not sure how that all
works out with real race drivers want very little of that,

(23:17):
but I would think so, but even if one has
a little bit of that, they do. Yeah, that's that's
the crazy part. Okay. So so UM also roll bars. Okay,
so certain cars are built from the manufacturer with a
roll bar that's part of the structure of the vehicle itself.
So that's something that has to be a factor because
it does stiff in the chassis does make a difference
in the handle in the vehicle. The other thing, and

(23:39):
this is one that a lot of people on these
forums will get just I right about tires. Tires is
a big one. You mentioned tires is one of the
first things, and they seem to go crazy over this
versus like the factory tires versus aftermarket tires. Right, So
the the main argument here is that, um, and this
is if I'm getting the right and you tell me, Kurt,

(24:00):
if you get the same impression or not, or if
you have a different opinion about this, Okay, But what
I am understanding is that people are upset that they're
not using the factory provided tires on the cars to
do these runs, but they are putting tires on the
cars that cost Let's say I'm gonna just ballpark this
and it's general. Let's say that the tires are a

(24:21):
thousand dollars each or two thousand dollars each, or you know,
maybe even more super expensive tires. I mean, they're really
really pricey, great tires, sticky compound, you know all that. However,
they are available on the market. You can buy the
like you and I could buy them if we had
the money, if we wanted to, we could buy that
same tire from a manufacturer. What a lot of people

(24:44):
are confusing, I think is the fact that they're not
using a proprietary race compound that is for a certain
team or a certain series or something like that that
you cannot buy commercially on the market. You can't go
out and find a website where you could buy that tire.
You have to be part of that team in order
to get that that compound, that racing compound. And I
think that's the confusion, because it seems like it seems

(25:05):
totally fair to me that if you want to put
a pair of tires, on a set of tires, or
even brake pads or whatever on the car, that you
can buy somewhere, you know, aftermarket or wherever from the manufacturer,
you know, whatever it happens to be. Those are consumables.
Those seem like, you know, tires were Eventually you're going
to replace the tires, Eventually you're going to replace the
break And of course some people, I'm sure, buy Lamborghini

(25:26):
and the first thing they do is buy a new
set of tires, tires and brake pads because they want
to improve the breaking performance. And of course that improves
your your lap time because you can go harder into
the turns and you can break faster and come out
of those turns faster. I mean, of course I understand
the importance of breaking like a better break compound, a
better tire compound. I understand all that. I get it.

(25:48):
But if it's available and it's something that everybody could do, yeah,
why not? I mean, I guess maybe they're confusing, like
maybe stock production cars with production cars get a little
to nit picky about records. Like a production car is
a car that you can buy with things on it
that you can also buy. Yeah, I feel the same way.

(26:10):
I feel the same way. Like if you may get
a Lamborghini, maybe not a new one, but he used one,
and you want to go out and bust a record
at the Nurburgring, but you don't want to have the
same beat up tires that came on the car when
you bought it. Used. You want to pop some new
tires on before you go run the nerveburg Ring. So,
but you should still be considered you should still be
considered a stock car exactly, So do it? I mean,
in that case, you're I guess the other argument would be,

(26:34):
in order to break that record, you would have to
go and buy the exact same tire that they put
onto the factory in order to make a break that record, right, right,
and not to mention as soon as you run a
lap or two or three on this a set of tires,
you might want some new ones. Anyway. What if I
have a different air filter in the car, What if
I have a different oil in the car? Does that matter?
I mean, I mean, what if I'm using a different grease,

(26:56):
you know for the chassis. You know, what if I'm
all that stuff like it's not not production gasoline. It's
kind of the same argument though, things that they are consumable,
things that that you use up you should change when needed. Yeah,
this argument is is just it's it's it's funny in
a way, but it's also maddening in another way. Let's
let's talk about tourists and pharton after a break. So

(27:22):
we we we teased a little bit that we're gonna
talk about something that has a ridiculous name. Uh this
now as it's a German name, of course, and I'm
sure that they don't think it's ridiculous. Of course. All
it really means, I think, if if I had to
guess what this really means, it just means tourist day, right,
or tourist driving experience or something like that. But but
the word is is silly. Yeah, it's it's tourists and partings.

(27:45):
You can't even say I don't know why I can't
say it. It's it's we've laughed about this. It's so juvenile.
It's like it's like I'm like a kid, like a
little kid when when we say tourist and farton, but
it is tourist and farting, And all it really means
is that, um, there's certain days on the nerve burgering.
And I'm sure a lot of our listeners are already
aware of this, that you can go and drive on

(28:06):
the track and you pay a little bit of a
fee and I don't remember exactly what it is. I
want to say, it's like thirty dollars or something like that.
There's there's a list somewhere online. I know that you
can look up the prices. But the list is a
little bit terrifying. And I'll tell you why in just
a moment. It just been ten seconds, I'll tell you.
But you can go and look at the prices of
things and find out exactly what it is and when

(28:26):
it's happening, Because there are certain days when they're having
other activities. You know, manufacturers have it reserved, or uh
they have a race or you know, something like that's
going on. But essentially this becomes like a one way
toll road. Of course, there's no opposing traffic on this
little tiny road. But the reason that the list that
is terrifying is because when you look up the price,
like to just to drive on the track, they start

(28:47):
giving you the prices if you crash, what it costs
to replace the guard rail segments, what it costs to
have the track team members come out and assist you
in your car to get out of the car. They
give you prices for medical help. They give you prices
for a helicopter to come and fly you off the
track if they need to, which has happened many times.

(29:09):
I think, Um, they start giving you like some really
scary numbers, and they're they're high numbers, they're expensive, but
maybe look past that, just look at the price of
entry and know that you can keep yourself under control
on the track and uh and you'll be fine. But
you know, from what I've seen, Kurt Um, and you've
seen some of the footage as well, like when when

(29:30):
just anybody can go out there and drive you know,
any car that has and you know, they get their
engine checked out. They get you know, it's not leaking
oil or anything. They've got lights, the tires are okay,
you know, they check out. I'm sure they have a
little bit of a um a prep you know that
they have to go through. There's no course, like, you
don't have to learn any rules, but there are rules
we'll talk about. Once you get out there. You deal

(29:53):
with people that are professional, and you deal with some
people that are absolute fools and everything in between. From
what I got other, any old car, any old person
can go out there and do whatever they want to do,
besides go backwards and do donuts in the middle of
the track. I mean you, just as long as you're
going forward and abiding by some basic rules of the road,

(30:13):
can go out there and have have a good time
at the Nurburgring. Essentially, those are the rules. Now there
are other rules that we should talk about. There's a
there's a funny video about what you should not do
on the Nurburgring, and I'll mention these. I think there's
like seven points that you know you're not supposed to do,
and they all make perfect sense. And they're they're done
in a funny way. But I'll tell you that I've
watched many videos of this, and you know that everybody

(30:36):
loves to watch the failed videos. I guess you know,
the ones where you know someone's coming around a corner
and they just lose it and you know, horrible thing happens.
They destroy their car, they destroy their daily driver or
maybe it's a tracker. I don't know, but it's probably
typically a daily driver from the looks of it. Yes, yeah,
just people just go out there in their cars, like
a fun weekend from work, dip into the Nurburgring. Yeah,

(30:56):
and there's a little bit of everything. There's there's camper
vans out there. There's bmw use that you know, the
cars that have uh you know, full uh you know,
decal packages and everything. It looks like a race car,
so maybe it is a track day car, you know,
a fun toy for the weekend or whatever. But other
cars they do look like just maybe like the family
sedan that someone's taken out for fun. You can rent
a car, you can go out there. We'll talk about
that too, But you know, those are the fun ones

(31:17):
to watch. But there's also some great videos. And I
don't know if you caught these or not, but there's
some fantastic videos of people that are driving the track
really well, and some some you know, privateers, I guess
you know, and I call them privateers. They're not real racers,
but but people that bring their own vehicle, you know,
a BMW or Mercedes or something, and they're just really
skilled and they can really handle it around that track,

(31:40):
and it's it's really cool to watch. I mean, they're
really good and they're racing close with other people and
that's the cool thing. In that discussion from Boris said
earlier that we mentioned there's a lot of traffic on
that track and it's a lot of different speeds, so
you gotta like kind of be accommodating to that and
the weather and all the conditions and everything. But um,
if you get somebody, if you can watch somebody who's

(32:01):
doing this really well with another person maybe that's doing
really well, they're chasing each other around the track, it's
fun to watch. It's entertaining. It's just as good as
any race that you'll ever watch. It really is. It's fun.
You know, near this track, everybody kind of gathers around
this one gas station. And around this gas station is
a lot like when if you can imagine this, and
I think a lot of people can. When you know,

(32:23):
people are leaving those caffeine and octane type shows on
the weekends, and everybody is leaving the parking lot and
they're kind of doing burnouts and showing off a little bit.
As they exit the parking lot. There's hundreds of people
lining the road. They're very very close to the road.
They've all got cameras out, they have some of them
have chairs, they've got their own personal cars lining the roads.
There's fences set up and everything. On these tourist days,

(32:45):
people line up like that. Near this gas there's particular
gas station and it's called the E D gas Station
and it looks this looks like doord ed the ED
gas station and and um, it's the one that's closest
to the track. So all of the cars and motorcycles
and trucks and whatever they tend to fill up there
on their way to the track, and that means that

(33:05):
they're full of fuel. They're ready to go out on
the race track. They're excited, they're kind of adrenalinees going
and they've got this crowd that's kind of egging them
on to you know, do a burnout or so. You'll
find a lot of like it, kind of interesting videos.
You'll see a little bit of everything. It looks like
a cruise event or something, you know, where some really
amazing cars drive by. Also some very plane cars drive

(33:25):
by that are a little bit maybe souped up, a
little bit ready for the track, or you know, others
that are just plane Jane sedans and are just there
for the fun fun of it. Um. From what I gathers,
that's just part of the experience of going to the track. Yeah,
for tourists and parting, Yeah, it's just you go, you
get your gas and you maybe show your car to
the crowd a little bit and then onto the track.

(33:48):
Isn't that The funny thing is because some people will,
you know, they'll they'll get an accident outside of the
track because they're trying to show off. But they're they're
like moments away from the one of the greatest tracks
in the world, and they're gonna be able to go
and just push it out right as far as when
you can go crash on the track instead of in
front of the the gas very good point. Yeah, very
good point. Now, thankfully, it seems like there are fewer

(34:09):
accidents there than at the caffeine and octane type shows
that that I've seen. It seems more common to see
people wrecking leaving those For some reason. Um, maybe that's
the star when at work leading out the before you
get to the track. If you can't handle the gas station,
then don't even go to the nerve burgering. No, absolutely,
all right, So you know that's one thing that's one

(34:29):
part of it, and you know that's part of this
little town that's right there within the boundaries of the
track or near the boundaries of the track. So they
ask you that you'd be respectful, and that's one of
the things that we're going to talk about, all right.
So one of the rules. And again this is coming
from a video that was kind of like a don
you know, don't do this on the track, and it's
very funny in the way that it's done. You can
find it online on YouTube, and it's just it's it's

(34:51):
funny in the way that things are phrased. You know that.
So I'm not going to do it very much justice here.
You should go and watch this if you get a
chance because it's kind of comical, but it also has
some decent footage of what's going on there and and
tells you some of the rules and explains them a
little better than I can. But um, now, at first
we should say that you know, it's open almost every
weekend and at the last and the last few hours

(35:13):
of almost every day for this tourist activity. So you
know they call it tourists, but it's just open for
people to pay and go on this track. Of course,
there are track officials there and everything to make sure
that things are safe. They've got flags and everything to
keep you in line. Cars can be driven any car,
bike can be driven on the track as long as
it's road legal. That's that's one thing. Um. You can

(35:33):
only here's one of the rules. You can only overtake
another car on the left. There's no passing on the right.
If you're passed on the right, you're doing it wrong.
And that's which is also should be a rule here
in the United States on any road. It should just
just don't want to go out there. Who who don't
know it is a rule the right it's an it's
an unwritten well maybe even a written probably has written

(35:56):
as one of them, So overtake on the left, never
on the right. Okay, that makes sense, right, lap will
get this. This is interesting because of what we've been
talking about. If you're going there and thinking that you're
gonna time your lap, that's not what's gonna happen. And
I don't want you to have the clock in the car.
Now this you can time your lap, but you have
to do it in kind of a roundabout way, so

(36:17):
you can use your go Pro and you can record
your session. You know, you can record however you want
it to do, and of course that's gonna keep time,
so you're able to go back later and deduce your
time from the go pro footage. But you're not able
to have a clock right in front of you as
you're driving. And they many drivers have said, if you're

(36:38):
out here for these tourist days and you're watching a
clock as you go around the track, you're gonna have
a bad day no matter what, because well, somebody's gonna
get in front of you in a camper van and
ruin your time. Right Because there's so much traffic on
the on the course at any given time, you're gonna
have to pass, and you know, you might have to
slow down and do that, and and that's fine. Just
go out there, even like the guys and girls that

(36:58):
do it all times said, just go out there and
have fun. Just go out and have a great time.
Drive fast, get your adrenaline going, you know, just have
a good time and know that you've done You've you've
completed a decent lap. But it doesn't have to come
down to the exact second, to the exact you know,
tens or hundreds of a second that that you think
it does. Just go out and have fun, and it's
better if you're not watching the clock. And especially you

(37:21):
know that the track officials don't want you watching it
because it's going to lead to aggressive driving because if
you start to fall behind in your time, you're gonna
try to push it even harder and you're gonna end
up wrecking probably. So, um, it makes sense when you
think about it that way, But initially I thought, well,
that's crazy. They're not letting you time your own lap. Well,
you can time it. There's also GPS units that you

(37:43):
can get that will just keep time as you go around,
So there's no reason to have it there on the
dash look at and I think you can even you know,
in your own head, you can just create a little
variance and you could say like, okay, well, you know,
and my time was decent. It was nine or it
was ten minutes and thirty seconds, but I was held
up for you know, a good twenty seconds of that
by uh, you know, the Honda Civic or whatever it was.

(38:03):
It was in front of me. You know. Um, oh,
don't leave the scene of a crash. Um. So if
you crash and you know, you bang up a guard rail,
even if it's just you alone, you're not supposed to
leave that scene of a crash. Um. You can stay there,
um and wait for somebody come over and check you
out and make sure that things all right and get
things back on track again. I guess, so to speak,
because because um, there's probably some clean up that has

(38:24):
to happen, and they want to make sure that, you know,
the wheel is not going to fall off in the
next turn. Fluid leaks from the car. They don't want
you dragon, that's a huge fluids across the track. That
is a big one because I've seen many videos where
someone has leaked fuel on the previous you know, the
previous cars leaked fuel or or oil and four cars
will wreck, I mean, ruins their day, ruins their year, month, whatever.

(38:46):
I don't know. It's expensive, it's very expensive. So um, yeah,
that's that's a that's a huge issue. There's no standing
on the track. And you and I have both seen
examples of this in those videos. Uh one one boy.
One of these videos, a guy nearly loses his legs
when another car comes by. He barely makes over that wall. Yeah,
he dives over the fence and fall. I think you

(39:09):
can kind of see him frolling down the other side
because there was a hill on the other side. He
tumbled for quite some time. He and yeah, and you
know he I don't know, he's like flicking off the
people with the damner. They're yelling something Backeah, Well they're
probably yelling, idiot is stupid, you know, you know, what
are you doing? Because he was he was between the guardrail,
which is I mean, it looked like it was chest

(39:30):
high and and I don't think it's like a BMW
that's coming at him really fast. And it did clip
the wall right where he was, and yeah, he hopped
over like and just I mean just just half a
second before it hit him. It's crazy too, because he
was on the inside of a turn and you wouldn't
this places where you wouldn't think that a car would
be crashing into But how that's why there's the rule. Again,

(39:51):
I don't stand on the side. And I think that
situation was an oil situation where there was oil or
something slick on the trail, like, because there were many
cars that were wrecking in the same turn for no
good reason. I mean, they're just spinning out for no
good reason. Um, okay, the next one, Uh, this one
a little again counterto no drifting, you're not allowed to
intentionally drift on the Nrburgring and a track. Marshal uh

(40:12):
will report you if they see you doing doing this drifting. Now,
I watched videos where you can see that people are
taking turns intentionally drifting through them. You know, it's if
you slide a little bit, that's one thing. If you
are drifting through the turn, that's a big difference. And
there are people that I've seen intentionally drifting. Yeah, they
do get reported, and I think I don't know if
there's a fine involved or if you just are kind
of banned for maybe that day or that week or

(40:32):
whatever from the Yeah, um, this last one, this is silly.
No driving like a maniac. That's the last rule. I mean,
that was the funniest last rule. Like I thought, I thought, Okay,
there's gonna be something big here. There's gonna be something
really you know, monumental here at the end. No driving
like a maniac because it's on a public road, and
you know, I guess it does make sense when you

(40:54):
when you understand this, when you get off the track,
you are in this little town, you know, if you're
going to the gas station or wherever. I think this
is where that they're talking about. Is like, you know,
you've got all that energy from the track and you
still are kind of at the track, you know, because
you're in that area. Don't keep driving like you're on
the track when you're in the town. I mean, the
Jones people don't want to deal with that. They would
have to deal with that every day all day if

(41:15):
that was the case, and I can imagine that would
be infuriating. So, uh, they don't drive like a maniac.
Thing makes more sense when you understand that, Yeah, there's
this community there and you're really disrupting the community if
you drive like that through there. You should just leave
the track situation on the track and then realize that
you're on a public road after that. Well, what I

(41:37):
find about all of these rules is they are generally
just rules of the common sense. All right, So I
have a one, one quick question for you before we
wrap up. And I think we already talked about this,
But um, would you go and drive this track knowing
what you know about it and seeing what you've seen? Um,
in your own personal car? Now, of course, rental cars.
If you rent a car from anywhere other than um,

(41:59):
a place called a grudge which is right in that area,
you can rent a sports car and go there. Very expensive.
You can do it. If you rent a car like
an Avis or Hurts or whoever, you will be banned
forever from renting a car from them if you take
it on the Nerbergring track. So, and we do have
a listener from car stuff that happened to. He showed
me the letter, um, so and it's probably worth it courage,

(42:21):
you know, Yeah, he did, he was he was happy,
he knew, he knew the consequences. But would you take
your own personal vehicle on the nerber Ring and drive
it knowing what you know, now it would be fun
to go out there and and just tool around a
little bit. Would you be a little just just a
little bit afraid of some yahoo that's gonna, you know,
try to like they're trying to break a lap record
or something. You know that they're gonna cause you to

(42:43):
to wreck. Because I know you can control yourself, of course,
but what about the the the part of it that
you don't have control over a little bit a little,
I mean, I feel as if you should have that
fear in general. So it's easier just not to think
about the other people. And then from what I can tell,
there's a healthy people just out there having fun, and
then there's some people that are taking it a little

(43:04):
too serious. Yeah, and this this is not an event
to go out there and try to break a track record,
because first of all, you're not going to there's no
way you're gonna get even close to the six minutes
and forty five second time of the Lamborghini, of course not.
Probably not even gonna get under ten minutes. Probably not.
So if anyone's planning to go out there, just take

(43:25):
it easy and have fun with the experience. Good advice. Now,
I one one little caveat that I want to mention
here because I think it's worth worth mentioning, is that,
you know, when you're on the track, I would assume
that insurance doesn't play a factor in this. Will like,
I think that insurance is probably off. They're not gonna
They're not gonna cover anything that happens on that track,

(43:45):
I think. So that might be the only difference between
you know, like the risk that you assume when you're
on the highway and I know there's still a physical
danger and there's still you know, property damaged danger and
all that. I get it. But I do think that
you're financially risking a little bit more when you go
on this track, and it's worthwhile to look into that
before you go and before you do this, because you know,
again I don't have all the details here about this obviously.

(44:08):
I'm just kind of, you know, giving you an overview,
and I want listeners to go out and really investigate
all this and find out what's what's happening there, because
I think there's some I think there's some fun to
be had there. Of course, there's a lot of fun
to be had there. Yeah, So Scott, would you do
do what I do. This is what everyone wants, you know.
I think I think that you know, I might. I

(44:28):
would probably rent a car. I know it's expensive, but
if I were going to do it, I don't think
i'd risk my own car out there. Um. I think
that I would rent a car from this this place
that I mentioned, this Big Grudge that if you go
to want to go to a website and check out
the prices, it's Big Grudge dot d E and you
can check out what they've got there. They get all
kinds of sports cars and they're expensive. They're not cheap,

(44:49):
you know, and you pay for like two laps or
twelve laps or you know whatever. It's like different rates.
But I would assume that insurance comes along with that.
You're probably still paying quite a bit if you wreck it,
but I bet there's a limp it to it. But anyways,
it's it's a worthwhile thing to check into. So look
up the Nervebourg Ring and these tourist days and this
is one of those things that all you car enthusiasts
should put on your bucket list. It seems like a

(45:10):
really great experience. Why not. I'd love to get over
there to do it and you know. In the meantime,
if you want, you can contact us and tell us
if you have done this or if you want to
go over and do this. We are always on social
media as well, so you know we're on Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram where we are car Stuff hs W on all
three of those. But um, I guess that's about it
for me, Kurt, how about you? That's it for me?
Anything else all right? I guess we will see you

(45:32):
next time, and thanks for listening everyone. Car Stuff is
a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts or
my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
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