Ring Piece

RING PIECE
 
It’s no good. The die is cast. It’s definitely going to happen… And my only hope of retaining some small shred of decorum is to try and synchronise the inevitable with the passing of a particularly loud machine…
 
Green Hell it may have been to Jackie Stewart, but to me -12 hours into this year’s Nurburgring 24 Hour Race, hunkered down in a diminutive hotel bedroom overlooking the start/finish straight, with a complete stranger of the opposite sex a mere swat of a top-shelf glossy away and important muscles clenched to the point of perspiration- Gustatory Hell is a little nearer the mark.
 
Happily, an in-depth survey of entrant engine notes has been all but unavoidable since 197 cars roared, yelled, shrieked and bellowed across the start line at three o’clock this afternoon, and I’ve already identified a brace of Corvettes, several 911s and one particularly angry BMW 1-Series as ideal camouflage for the forthcoming bout of inevitably savage, sauerkraut-induced flatulence that will not be denied.
 
Unhappily, the circuit is over 15.5 miles long, so my chances of successfully holding out in the hope of accurately matching sound signatures are right up there with making love standing up in a hammock… Still, could be worse; I could be out there, camping with the rest of the Car contingent amidst 220,000 incredibly drunk and enthusiastically disorderly firework-, chainsaw- and mobile disco-armed Germans.
 
Welcome, then, to the long day’s journey into night that is our annual long-termer outing. It begins at Oh Christ Hundred Hours that morning with an entirely civilised P&O splosh across the Channel -Range Rover Sport, Skoda Yeti, Renault Clio Cup and BMW X1 snugged in the hull below. A temporary fleet addition in the shape of a VW California is already several hours ahead, playing host to snapper Pajo, Ben P, enough beer to float a rowing boat and absolutely no soap whatsoever.
 
With Land Rover and VW sourced sat navs refusing to concur on either route or journey time, the only given is that there’ll be plenty of time as we dull it out across northern France and Belgium to swap vehicles and compare notes. Suspecting that buzzing grumpily along the autoroute in Renault’s world-of-noise Clio Cup is likely to be about as much fun as a verruca, I pile aboard.
 
Hang on, though…. After the BMW’s flat, bolster-free offering, the Clio’s seat is actually rather comfortable, with bags of support to both thighs and kidneys abetted by a ride quality rather more supple than expected. But the absence of air-conditioning is a bore on this long schlep. Indeed, the interior is entirely primitive. And I don’t merely mean the understandable, weight-saving absence of toys; rather, the actual design and finish looks and feels incredibly dated and plasticky for a car this new –completely at odds with crisp exterior styling which survives better-let-the-doctor-have-a-look-at-that green couture and white alloys with surprising dignity.
 
With the Range Rover Sport dictating stops (so thirsty you have to switch off at the pumps or it gains on you) and having learned nothing whatsoever about the Cup’s on-the-limit handling, I’m quickly into Skoda’s Yeti, whilst Alex Tapley’s dad John emerges from the X1 muttering about wind noise, heavy low speed steering and a propensity to waggle its nether regions disconcertingly in response to motorway helm inputs.
 
The abominably styled Yeti’s clever, no nonsense interior is tidy, quite posh and immediately comfortable. Sadly, though, it’s equipped with the old, 110 bhp version of the VW group’s 2.0 litre diesel, which couldn’t pull a greased stick out of pig’s arse. Put your foot down at 80mph and a barely perceptible increase in momentum is all you may expect; a marked contrast to the oomph on offer from BMW’s similarly chambered, 177bhp oiler. It is, nonetheless, entirely comfortable in the cruise and, but for a whiff of front wheel road roar, no noisier than the X1.
 
All of which leaves me aboard the Range Rover Sport for the last leg –as ever concerned at brand devaluation whilst seduced by creature comforts – serenely thumping along in thirst gear through the rolling, densely forested, schloss-pimpled countryside which hides the Nordschleife so completely from view that there’s always a frisson of map and machete pioneering-spirit associated with finally stumbling across a glimpse of track snaking off with sinister intent through the trees.
 
None of which, of course, applies to the newer Formula 1 circuit appended to the ‘ring for the purposes of this 24 hour outing. Here, where the main road runs parallel to the start/finish straight and paddock, we stumble in a solid mile of utter bedlam. To make matters worse, someone’s made the dreadful mistake of arming every steward with a whistle, and the environs of the main entrance shrill like a third division football referee evening class.
 
From the salubrious environs of VW’s hospitality suite, the view north over the paddock to a distant section of track writhing away through the campsite–clogged trees sums up the bizarre amalgam of high-tech and daring, halitosis and disgusting that encapsulates this extraordinary race meeting.
 
‘What wouldn’t we give for a blue light’ muses Aston Martin’s head of Motorsport, David King, ushering us into a pit garage wherein a V12 Vantage and a Rapide share cramped quarters with a pair of absolutely snorting Lexus LF-As, the latter still swarmed over by so many mithering mechanics they appear beset by Snap-On wielding siafu.
 
David’s referring to the flashing, windscreen mounted light awarded to the top 20 qualifiers, designed to let slower cars know something serious is coming through. But with the emphasis on proving durability, both Astons are equipped with standard engines and transmissions (though enhanced Vantage aerodynamics have cut 20 seconds from its lap time this year), and beating the Lexi, arch class rivals, is the goal.
 
Aston and Lexus shared a pit garage last year too, and that, boys and girls, is how the bewildering Cygnet was born; the good Dr. Bez and his Toyota counterpart clearly having had an it-seemed-a-good-idea-at-the-time, 3.30am, sleep deprivation moment. Indeed, I’m somewhat surprised the poor thing hasn’t been dubbed the Cygnet Ring…
 
By 1.00 pm, the grid has already started to form up. It’s so large that all but the front running R8s, 911s and assorted BMWs have to barge through the throng and then drive the Formula 1 circuit to find their allotted slots at the other end of the start/finish straight. Making excellent, at-a-glance thermometers, a veritable blizzard of vacuum-packed pit lane babes confirm just how chilly it is today in the stiff breeze. Most notably in the case of the Livestrip.com entry, which is escorted by so many astonishingly pneumatic popsies that they could easily pick the car up and carry it, coffin-style, to the grid.
 
After an eerie, ten minute silence in which 197 cars unleashed in three staggered grids complete a rolling start lap of the circuit, the lead group finally tears into view, hammer down. All blazing headlamp and blue lamp belligerence, it resembles a mass rescue service dash to a downed airliner, with added din…
 
Within just two laps, the leaders are all over the back markers like a cheap suit, and that sets the stage for the next few hours. At every point of the circuit cars are thicker on the ground than ticks on a sheepdog, and there’s no guarantee of the correct line into a corner being available. This early in proceedings, it’s commonplace to witness as many as five cars of wildly differing performance thump line abreast in a corner, braking and bravery sorting the wheat from the chaff. Spectacular stuff.
 
As evening falls, a whistle-stop tour of some of the circuit’s more dramatically twisted bowel sections merely confirms that the skills on display are light years beyond my aspirations. Under-winged Corvette’s thump past with rear wheels a foot off the ground at over 150mph and, as the sun sinks slowly in the west, a lone Lotus Excige spontaneously combusts in the east, passing us at 140mph, solidly ablaze from the B pillar back.
 
After dark, our long termers gather at a second VW hospitality area established beside the Little Carousel. Here a posse of California campers huddle together for warmth in a small fenced compound thoughtfully decorated with Union Jacks. It’s instantly dubbed Stalag Luft Scheisse by the adjacent Grime Hell of 100,000 or so sloshed German campers who, having been chugging frothy Pilsner to crap, volume 11 Teutonic techno for a week solid, are already entirely the würst for wear.
 
And so the night wears on. But even the remarkable comfort of VW’s artfully forged, four-bed Californication cannot shut out the relentless combination of race-bred powerplants, firewood-chewing chainsaws and migraine-inducing disco. So, as the clock strikes three, I slope off back the hotel to see just how much snoring, belching, breaking wind and otherwise absent-mindedly excavating one part of the anatomy with another I can get under my belt before S-J, Our Lady of the Handbag, follows suit.
 
There’s something vaguely surreal about stepping onto your hotel balcony to find the race to which you (almost) fell asleep still going strong the next morning. Attrition has been dealt an unusually strong hand overnight, and an uncomfortably large selection of R8s and 911s are now notable by their absence. Both Astons are still rasping along, however, as is a Lone LF-A, making a noise which, though utterly fabulous, is far too high in pitch to have been any use to me last night…
 
Ferry crossings swamped by that volcano, we must away before the close of play, and my ‘ring piece must close prematurely. Spanking the map westward, however, our long termers still have further nuggets of input to impart: The Yeti, for instance, has a blind spot the size of a Transit van when driven on the wrong side of the road. The imperious Range Rover Sport remains Oliver Reed-thirsty no matter how carefully you pedal. The
 
Clio Cup is bored rigid on the motorway, and the BMW X1 which S-J dubs claustrophobic? I’ll let Alex T’s dad sum up: ‘Ultimate Driving Machine? No… Joy? No…’
 
Shame really. We know BMW can get it so right. After all, against the odds, an M3 GT2 has just won the Nurburgring 24 Hours.