Zonda

I assume most of you know who Congaman is and this is his story from a week in Germany at the Ring and Autobahn! This car is so much better than on paper!

I tried to translate the story word by word and it ended up a bit weird here and there but hopefully you'll understand

Late at night on the 4th of September I met up with a bunch of Ring Runners at the docks in Trelleborg for a trip by boat to Travemünde in Germany. It was a nice experience to meet up with the Ring Runners and their cars.Ferrari F430 became like a standard car during the week mainly because there was about 10 of them with us. Apart from them there was a 360CS and a bunch of different Porsche's.


On the ferry

After some cartalk and a beer or two it was time to go to bed. 7.30 the next morning the boat arrived to Travemünde and the about 30 cars rolled of the boat in a long line with "Ring Runners Of Sweden" decals on the sides.



The large amount of cars must've been very provoking . Someone must've alarmed the German sherrif who followed us all the way from Travemünde to Nurburg. The police stopped us several times to see our license and registrations and also lectured us several times that we shouldn't think that we can practice any illegal streetraces in Germany. They probobly thought we were some kind of Gumballers or something like that.


A short paus somewhere on the Autobahn

Despite the intrusive watch by the sherrif, lots of roadchanges, trucks and common mess we finally arrived at the windy roads that lead to Nurburg.



Well in Nurburg we checked into the hotel Zur Burg which is owned by a grumpy old lady with large white hair. (a bit like Dame Edna). The hotel was nice and clean and quite close to the "Ring".

Now all I had to do was get my stuff into the room as quick as possible and head down to the Ring for some quick laps!


Preperations


Me trying to find my way around the Ring

After two days of free driving the Scuderia Hanseat course began. Draw up at 7.30 every morning on the GP circuits's straight. Sure it was early but was releaved by the sight of approximately 250-300 sportcars from around the world. One of the finer animals was a Porsche Carrera GT (not a Ring Runner member).





There were even some fine cars among the Ring Runners:









The Scuderia Hanseat Course revealed itself to be carried out very professionaly and with common German precision. You got to learn the track in sections, which showed itself to be very good because after a while I started to recognise parts of the ring.


Are we in the racingline?


Learning the correct way around the carousel

After a finsished course we headed back home. The journey back home started at 5.00 sunday morning. Because of the early hour the roads were almost empty all the way to Hamburg. So it could be made at high speed. Me and Anders who were in my car decided to do a top speed test somewhere on a nice straight on the Autobahn. We measured the velocity with GPS to 328km/h in the first attempt and 331 in the second. Incredible considering the official top speed of the car is 320km/h!? The GPS is getting checked to make sure it works alright. I still have a hard time believing the car is so fast. 331km/h was achieved in 5th gear and at 6300rpm (the redline is at 7000rpm) so there should be more speed available. The car was still accelerating, we had to brake because an Alfa turned into the left lane at a very bad moment. We just managed to slow the car down to avoid impact. I'm not saying the car is that fast untill I get the GPS check result.

This was my first trip to the Nurburgring. But the poison got to me and I'm already dying to get back there. The car behaved flawless on the track and the brakes revealed themselves to be very good despite being stock. My own performance was terrible though so I won't talk any about them. On the other hand it can only get better the next time!!! :-D

Just_me

Congamans journey isnt over yet. More adventures will come before this year is over

Zonda

Hopefully I'll have the effort to to translate them too:P

Depends on the relevance as well.

Just_me

I will take part in one of his adventures and you will hear about it here later on from me

dOmInIX

What a great experience! Must be awesome to go to the best track in the world with people that are as crazy as you are for cars, with some of the best machines! Damn! Thanks for this Cristian!

Zonda

Can't wait Andreas and thanks Dominic

zetableh

Heh, I think Congaman is learning firsthand what we Americans mean when we say "there's no replacement for displacement" :-D

Congaman

Very true!

I can tell you that the Z06 behaved very good on the Ring! It held up to the Porsches and Ferraris without a problem which is amazing as the myth over here in Europe is that American car cant handle turns and bends.

Thanks to Zonda for the good job on translating my post from the Swedish forum zatzy.com.

I addition to my story I also made a film from the journey to the Green Hell. Click the link:

- ONLY REGISTERED AND ACTIVATED USERS CAN SEE ALL LINKS - CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Zonda

No problem Christian

Outstanding editing skills as always

7 mil extra, LMAO

zetableh

I laughed out loud at the drifting segment.