“Here she is,” the head organizer said as he gestured towards the bright yellow hunk of steel and fiberglass sitting in front of me.
“This is it?” I asked with an impish grin on my face.
“ 'This is it?' 'THIS IS IT?' Have you any idea what this is?!”
“It's a RUF Yellow Bird. A Porsche 911 on enough steroids to make your average NFL player look like a 4-year-old girl. I've driven worse.”
I glanced over and had to start laughing at the man standing next to me, completely open-mouthed. Once my laughter subsided, I took my helmet from his hand and opened the door. Looking back at his rapidly recomposing face, I winked. “See you in about ten minutes.”
I'll stop here to set the scene a bit. At this point, I was in the main garage of the Nurburgring's Grand Prix circuit, set down in the Eifel Mountain region of Germany. The organizers were nice enough to shut down the track to the public (normally it's open during the day as a public toll road), solely so I could attempt to set a record time around it. The current record is 8:18.332, but that was set in a car built to global GT3 specifications: a full-out race car. My RUF was not built to any racing specification, it was driven to the track that day from its home in the village of Nurburg. Thankfully for me this day, it was nice and sunny, with a slightly cool temperature; a nearly perfect spring day. I knew the engine would make more power in the cool air and the track surface wouldn't be slick from the heat; I had a fighting chance.
Anyway, back to the story. I hopped in, shut the door, and quickly oriented myself with the controls. Giving the interior a quick look, I noticed that there wasn't much left of it; this car must have had some modifications done.
As I grabbed my helmet and slid it onto my head, I noticed there was a cable added to it and a port on the dashboard that fit. Naturally, I plugged it in and heard the same guy's voice in my ear, saying something about me that, shall we say, shouldn't be repeated. Let's just say it started with 'That arrogant son of a...." I laughed and, hoping this was a two-way radio, said 'You know I can hear you now, right?”
The response I got was “Oh, uhm, right. Sorry about that. Anyway, in case you haven't noticed, there have been some improvements made. The engine has been completely revamped, and there's a sequential gearbox instead of the H-pattern that you're used to. Also, she's been lightened as much as we can without making things unsafe, and the wheels have been fitted with slick tires. Soft ones, too, so you're only going to get a couple laps out of them. She's not as bad as stock, but she's still a temperamental little bitch. Watch yourself out there.”
“Sounds good to me.” Okay, now for the mental preparations. Deep breath, blink a few times. You won't be doing much of either out there. I pushed the clutch pedal in, then hit the ignition switch and starter button. The engine fired up behind me, and made quite the satisfying howl as I prodded the gas pedal a couple times. Okay, the adrenaline's kicking in; your heart's starting to race and your hands are beginning to sweat in your driving gloves. Just focus on the fifteen and a half miles of pavement ahead of you. I reached down and felt the aluminum of the shift knob, and snicked the gearbox into first; the gear number on the small LCD screen in front of me changed from N to 1. Ready to go? I closed my eyes and flicked my smoked visor down; the sun was in my eyes and the last thing I needed was to be blinded. For a second, I just let my mind clear itself of all distractions while I let my muscles slacken for a bit. My mind went completely blank for a minute, then like a fast-forwarded video, the tarmac that I'd be taming laid itself out in front of my mind's eye. Once I finished my mental lap, I looked up, opening my eyes again. The world had perceptively changed. Nothing left but me, the car, and the track. Yeah, you're ready.
I let the clutch out, rolling slowly out of the pitlane onto the actual circuit; the permanent part of the track, I knew, had a different feel to it than the Nordschliefe, but I wouldn't get any practice at that before I went for the record. Not that it would help, any reconnaissance would be negated by the sheer size of the track. One lap around the small part was all I'd have to get acquainted with this feat of engineering someone calls a car.
Coming around the hairpin that Formula 1 uses to stay on the Grand Prix circuit, I had a bit of fun, purposely hanging the tail out in a hugely ludicrous powerslide, both to relieve some mental tension and warm the rear tires up more so I'd have a bit more grip. Temperamental bitch, eh? No problem, I can tame you. Yanking back on the shifter again, I flashed past the start-finish line; the timer at the bottom of the LCD screen began counting up.
The GP circuit, built for Formula 1 racing, is a lot easier to navigate than the Nordschliefe. It's wider, less bumpy, and a lot shorter, so it's easier to memorize, as well as know what''s coming around the next corner. The Nordschliefe is about 5 times as long as the GP circuit, so road conditions can change from lap to lap, and it's easy to get caught out by a bit of dirt or sudden rain shower on one end of the track that wasn't there eight minutes earlier. It's a good thing the start-finish line is on the GP circuit, as it gives you about two minutes to get yourself mentally prepared for this; the track isn't called the Green Hell for nothing.
About 5 kilometers into the Nordschliefe lies one of my favorite sets of corners, Schwedenkreuz and Aremberg. Schwedenkruz is a flat-out left-hander that gives you a really good feeling if you pull it off right, but just an inch off at any point and you're taking a bit of an agricultural expedition. I fully recalled several incidents that I've had through there as I approached the corner at about 170 MPH; I've scraped off quite a bit of paint on that red-and-white Armco guardrail and had no desire to add a layer of canary yellow that day. Unfortunately, the car decided to show me just how temperamental it was, and how quickly the track can bite. As I turned in, I felt the left front tire lose grip, probably from a bit of oil left from some car that had blown its engine. This sent the front end towards the outside of the corner, which usually wasn't a problem. I had practiced for this, and did what was ingrained in my muscle memory; I lifted off the accelerator.
Porsche 911's are rear-engined, which means that instead of the engine being in front of the driver like in most cars, it's behind the rear axle. The Yellow Bird that I was driving, being based off of said 911, was also rear-engined. Rear-engined cars exhibit a trait at speed called lift-off or trailing-throttle oversteer, which means that the rear end likes to become the front end when you suddenly lift off the accelerator while going at a high rate of speed, say, around 170 MPH. I was so busy wrestling the car back onto my intended path that I forgot about this little nugget of information until it was too late.
The rear tires began howling as I suddenly realized the severity of my mistake. Ever heard the saying, “First you say it, then you do it”? Yeah, that thought ran through my head as I careened off the asphalt towards the barrier. I knew trying to save the car was useless at this point, so I let go of the steering wheel to save my wrists from being broken. I remembered thinking something along the lines of “I hope the roll cage holds up...” just before the rear end crunched against the wall with the loudest noise I'd ever heard.
I came to a couple minutes later in quite a considerable amount of pain, but still able to move. Spotting the door handle, I pulled on it. Nothing happened, so I crawled over and opened the other door, clumsily extricating myself from what had minutes before been $350,000 worth of racing beauty. Limping away from the wreckage and towards the ambulance that had just showed up, I turned back and looked at what I had done. You and me, we'll meet again. You may have won this round, but I'll come back—and I'll conquer you. You just wait.
The head organizer was waiting for me in the ambulance with the same grin I had earlier.
“Guess how long it's been.”
“How long?”
“About ten minutes.”
