Sept 20th, on Route to Nurburgring and back to cars. You would think we would have had enough by now, but I think it is a thirst that doesn't go away. You crave more and more and the excitement can become a little addictive. For me the problem is afterwards, at least that is my personal observation. It is a bit like a mild depression, nothing can compare to the adrenaline that flows through you when there is a challenge both emotionally and physically. The endorphins flow then it ends and you have to act like a regular person and you walk around a little zombie like. You kick yourself as you know the feeling is a little stupid to complain about, most would not understand, perhaps the Peking to Paris can attest to it, but there it is, it nags at you. So when an opportunity knocks you are off.
So here we are, sitting in the hotel in Adenau, not 20 minutes from one of the most exciting race tracks in the world. Of course it has come to the forefront more recently, for two reasons. One the movie RUSH, about the famous rivalry between Nicki Lauta and James Hunt and two because rumor has it the track may close or at least be changed due to economic restraints. The land is just to valuable.
I posted on Facebook I was going and the biggest response has been' its on people's bucket list to do'.
We left Vancouver yesterday via Calgary. I used upgrade certificates, we fly too much so wanted to try and sleep in one of those Business class sleepers and chose the route through Calgary because it looked empty in business class. I have tons of these certificates. Since Tony and I had to be on the track the next day we both wanted to be fresh. We get to the airport and low and behold we get upgraded from Vancouver to Calgary. That's not going to help. ( where is that darn sarcasm font)
Anyway, arrive in Calgary, told not much of a chance, we do get the upgrade at the 11th hour so what a relief, Except sitting in front of me is a largish man, won't say fat, but he was, who decides to go to sleep right away and commenced snoring much like a fire truck leaving the station. Ok this could be interesting. After a pleasant meal I try to sleep with earplugs. Umm not much luck, I finally doze off only to be awakened by an extremely loud banging and crashing noise, when you are in between sleep and wakefulness it can be disconcerting, especially on a plane. So I fly up, only to see half of the business class group also sitting bolt up right. Well my large neighbour, I guess, was having a nightmare or a fight in his sleep. He made the most unusual guttural sounds. A little frightening to say the least. I slowly relaxed and figured the best I could do was bang my TV loudly shut which might make our sleeping giant stir. It seemed to do the trick and we all settled back to sleep with my neighbour only serenading the cabin with his rhythmic snores. Much easier to take.
Arrived safely in Frankfurt, pick up rental now we drive to Nurburgring. Time to Chill out and prepare for our track time. The drive is about 160kms. Along roads both autoroutes and side roads, which we think we are driving fast on, probably around 150km/ per hour. Still cars went fly by us as if we were standing still. We tried to judge their speed, had to be close to 200 kms/hour. We laughed our rental is gutless but it was fun to see one mature woman, probably about ninety years old, go past us at 20 to 30kms faster, definitely not slowly. Ah Germany, the roads here are great, wonderful surfaces, camber and sweeping turns on undulating hills.
Now out for dinner and early to bed. We are ready with our GOPRO-camera. Hopefully it all works.