“You all set?”
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. What about you?”
“Let’s go.”
Meuspath
Rhineland-Palatinate
Germany
Thursday 08 May 2014
With our excursion to Adenauer Forst completed, Jake and I crossed another item off the bucket list and began the lengthy trip back to the school car park where we had left the Mustang several hours before. We retraced our steps until we reached the chicane, whereupon we deviated from our previous route and chose to follow the gravel path instead. It looked far more promising than the fields, and so it was; it took us downhill and onto a tarmac coated access road, devoid of cars but far easier going than the uneven soil and grass of our outbound journey.
“You know Jake, using this road is much better than traipsing through fields.”
“Mmmhmm.”
“Plus, we’ve only been walking for about twenty minutes and I can already see the school.”
“Mmmhmm.”
“You know, it’s almost as if they wanted people to use the ro-”
“Okay shut up.”
We arrived back at the car park as dusk fell. Thirsty, we tried the bottles of water in the trunk; content that they had fared as poorly as those we had bought when traversing Belgium we divested ourselves of our damp hoodies and entered the cabin in search of warmth and somewhere comfortable to sit. Firing up the engine and threading our way back along the narrow roads towards Meuspath we discussed the upcoming Touristenfahrten session – a time when the track is open to anyone and everyone who buys a lap pass.
“So. The Touristenfahrten.”
“Yup. The tourist laps.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“Well we buy a pass from Robert, since he sells them at the hotel. Then we go out there for a run.”
“I wish the weather would improve though. It looks as though it’s going to rain again.”
“You’re not a pro racing driver Jay; you don’t have to boot it. We’re going for the experience.”
Jake’s words made me feel a little calmer about the situation, although I remained torn between two separate mindsets. On the one hand, we had watched countless Nurburgring videos before leaving the UK and had seen many, many people suffer severe accidents at several points on the circuit – even when driving cautiously. Cars shredding their paintwork against the Armco; cars obliterating their body panels by ramming tyre walls; cars whose drivers attempted in vain to correct a skid and ended up rolling over onto the roof. Then I thought back to the Ariel Atom we had seen earlier in the day, every conceivable inch destroyed by a continuous sequence of heavy impacts. The Mustang meant a lot to me (as it still does), not just as a car but as a symbol of a dream realised after so many years of waiting. Part of me didn’t want to even go out there. At all. But then, on the other hand, if I had travelled such a distance to reach the circuit could I really return home and tell everybody that I hadn’t raced?
My mind made up, I swung the Mustang back into my chosen spot in the Rennhotel car park and left Jake to study the circuit map one last time and set up the Go Pro camera we had brought with us. Meanwhile, I went indoors to buy lap passes and put on my lucky driving shoes.
The story of my lucky driving shoes is not, despite what the nomenclature may suggest, some kind of Arthurian legend. The story is in fact far simpler than all that. When I was learning to drive I began by wearing skateboarding trainers, since they were what I wore at that time day in and day out. However, as comfortable as they were, good driving shoes they were not. Too large and too heavy. So I switched to Chuck Taylors by Converse, since their thin soles and lightweight construction allow for a superior feel on the pedals over any other footwear I’ve ever worn. My original Chucks, originally dark blue but now faded, torn and with the metal eyelets parting company with the fabric, hang by their laces in my study as a constant reminder of the adventures I had while wearing them. To replace them, a year or so ago I bought a new pair of Chucks. These are dark grey with black stitching and with a skeletal Uncle Sam on the sides beside a script which reads;
Give Me Liberty or Give Me Chucks
More interesting than the regular versions, I have no doubt in my mind that after what they saw me through that day they too will be kept as mementos of a truly amazing adventure when their time comes. After lacing them up as tightly as the eyelets would allow, I returned to the lobby and spoke with Robert;
“Good evening, Robert. How are you?”
“Very good thank you. And you?”
“As a matter of fact I am a little apprehensive.”
“Why so?”
“I need to purchase a couple of lap passes for the Nordschleife, if that’s possible please?”
“Ah, so you are taking on the Nordschleife?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Well, here you go then. Two lap passes. That’s fifty four Euros.”
“Thank you. Here you go. We’ll see you in a bit.”
“Okay, be careful out there – it’s started raining.”
“I will do Robert, don’t worry.”
“And when you come back – champagne on the house!”
“Although I appreciate the sentiment, neither Jake nor I drink alcohol I’m afraid.”
“We have non-alcoholic champagne, so no problem. See you soon!”
I will never forget Robert’s pronunciation of Nordschleife. I have no doubt that his is the correct pronunciation (after all, Robert does lives next door to the place) but it was the way that his accent so complimented the way he phrased the syllables which reverberates in my mind. Before my time there I had referred to it as the ‘Nord-shh-leaf’. Now I know that it is, in fact, the ‘Nord-shh-life-uh’. Nevertheless, with Robert’s best wishes ringing in my ears I made my way back through the screen door towards the Mustang. It had only travelled a few miles that day and had been given ten minutes or so to cool down from its previous trip. As such I checked the oil and water once more while Jake mounted the Go Pro to the windshield, before we both took our respective seats and I turned the key for what would be the most difficult forty five minutes I have experienced in a motor vehicle, before or since.
The rain spattered against the glass and paintwork as I pulled into the pit area, using the same gate which only hours before had produced McLaren P1s, Ferrari Californias and Nissan GT-Rs. Cars of a completely different calibre to my little Ford. A straw-haired man in a fluorescent jacket stood beside one of the circuit entry barriers and beckoned me forwards as I lowered my window. There were two barriers; one for left hand drive vehicles and one for right. As I came to a halt beside the appropriate one the marshal took from me the first of my lap passes. In a well rehearsed motion he swiped it against the sensor on the barrier, which turned the bulb beside it from red to green and which raised the yellow metal arm in front of the car to clear a path ahead.
“Go go go.”
The marshal returned the lap pass to me with his right hand as he held out his left towards the cones beyond, which were arranged into a speed – reducing slalom to prevent cars from accelerating too harshly until they had fully merged into the flow of the straightaway. In the distance I could see the famous bridge, which for many racers signals the true start of the circuit.
I eased up on the clutch, passed the barrier and headed out, my heart thumping against my chest.
It was time for Jake and I to finally take on ‘Green Hell’.
J D SIMPSON 