Guys,

I`m back from the greatest fun I`ve ever had in my life. Nürburgring Nordschleife is the most dangerous and murderous track in the world, so people say... And I`m glad I took it as one of my first...

It`s nothing more than an old and twisty road, filled with hell of brutal curves, ups and downs...... All through the whole lap at 8k+rpm except one or two times in fith gear..... Every single curve is good for a pretty drift...

I met Dutch ITR (hey Ken, hope you are back healthy with your friends) and Type R Chris from germany (we`ll meet again soon, ok ?).

I`m so proud of my ITR which I could handled safe and fast as hell through the corners...

But we saw some cars and motorcycle crash... (every weekend some people die on that track, it`s normal insanity in Germany)... I saw minivans with whole family and grannie entering the track, lots of Porsche GT3, Elise, Ferraris..

I took 60km of this insane fun and in my last lap I was able to outperform some other fast cars and three motorcycles.

It`s not only the driving... What counts is to get familiar with the track course...
Coming down a straight hill in 4th at the limiter, hard breaking and shifting to 2nd just to let her slip through the curve at full throttle.....damn

Now I really know what this car makes a fast car.. Not for a second I lost trust in my R.

But what`s more important: I know I`m not that bad in handling the most difficult track in the world ... And that`s what makes me proud of myself just a little bit

 

My ideal "European Vacation".

Are there any particular inspections I'd have to pass if I had my turbo ITR shipped to Europe for such a vacation? Ed

 

Its fun having the car at the limit!
btw do you have a map of the course?

 

Sounds frigging awesome.

btw, are you an American living in Germany or a German? I ask 'cuz your English is very good.

 

so jealous

aleph, who is trying to memorize the track via GPL (and has maybe the first 6 corners down so far )

 

Haha... THANK you.
I`m a pure German who learned english in school lots of years ago...

I`ll post some pics soon, a pic of the track also.. But what you can`t see on that picture is the up and downhill. There are two situations where the cars makes a jump over a hill and right after that you have to hit the brake very hard because you see a tight right-curve coming (which leads you down from that hill)..

Andre, a friend of mine had a camera mounted behind the window of his black ITR and followed me on the track. I`m just waitung for the CD with the mpeg file.

Because of any inspections for shipping the car to Germany for a track day you should ask the UK guys around. I saw LOTS of UK-ITR`s yesterday.
I wouldn`t be surprised to meet some of those here on the board..

All in all we had something between 30 and 40 ITR`s that weekend. It was hell of fun.

I remember Dutch ITR`s first comment after he finished his first lap.. I asked him "Hoe did you like it ?" And he answered: "ye ye..... it`s VERY dangerous. You can`t see the curve coming".

 

Pure Germans driving Hondas to the limit! Couldn't get any better than that, haha.

On a side comment, I was wondering if Hondas get treated any differently over there because of all the fancy schmancy type of cars. For example, I would personally laugh at an ITR if I was driving a GT3!

 

You doubt we can ? Be sure we do...

I don`t know if one or more of the lots of GT3 drivers laugh at us.. I only know that a guy named Jan from the Idol Motorsports team overtook a GT3, driven by an A-license driver (I saw him arrive in front of the Porsche with my own eyes) and told it nothing special.

The fact that so many people living near the north loop driving an ITR speaks for itself. On this track you can beat amost every stronger car with a well balanced ITR. To have enough power is good but having a perfect suspension kit is what really counts there (and driving skill + track course experience for sure).
I overtook two racing-motorcycles inmid of the "carussell" and left them far behind me because they never had a chance to take advantage of their mighty straight line acceleration. And I am not an experienced track-driver.

And finally to answer your question:
I don`t think anyone laughs at us..

 

dang, it sound so awesome... I can't wait for pictures and movies!

And, wow... 30-40 ITR's at a hardcore track! I wonder how many ITR's exist in Europe... Did you refer any of them to Honda-Tech.com?

 

Yes, the track is the ultimate crazy experience!!! No chance to be really fast, if you don't know where the next curve is coming... you take the uphill with full throttle and have no idea what's coming behind, 'cause u can't see a damn thing!!!
For me it was extra difficult, 'cause i drove my one and only lap at wet conditions...
the track was really slippery and i lost control of my ITR's *** in one tight corner!!!

I couldn't do any more laps, 'cause my brakepads had no more break power after the first lap - yes, i hit the brakes to often and hard, but it was really wet and i have never driven here before... and the pads have over 90.000km know... time to buy some new ones...

Sven, when you have the onboard video stuff i would like to get it too... i will send you my videos when i'm finished with coding it... i have my onboard lap, then you 3 ITR's filmed at brünchen and some good videos of other driver's like a real fast Accord Type R racing behind a porsche, etc.

And don't forget: our next experience should be Hockenheim - i can't wait to do that, just need my new brakepads installed...

 

@Cosworth:
There may be 5000 ITR`s in Europe I think.... good boys, some of them.

Chris,
go and get your (Panther)-brake pads.... and let`s rock`n roll....

I took great advantage of my new rims. Andres brakes seemed to be heaten up a lot while mine felt cool and still strong between the laps....

I´ll burn a CD for you when I get mine from Andre...

 

Sven, i think the problem with my brakepads was: they're too old and the hard braking did the rest!!! I will get new Ferredos as soon as possible and then i'm ready to go... Hockenheim is wating for us!!!

Cool, i can't wait for the CD!!! I will send you one with my videos on!!! It's too big to upload, my onboard lap is 80MB (DIVX)...

 

He he.... Hockenheim, yes.

But be sure I will enter the North Loop again as soon as possible. Always mess with the best....

 

Like i said on Saturday, i want to get some driving experience at Hockenheim, 'cause it's not that hard... but for sure i want to drive the green hell again - next time at dry conditions!!!

 

Yup! I'm back in one piece. The track was awesome. I drove 2 laps on saturday, one on wet (dangerous, but I was just exploring it), one on half dry track and 2 laps on Sunday.

BTW. Where were you guys on Sunday?????

That evening we analysed the video and Gansan's video (S2000 prototype) and we made pace notes like in rally racing!!!
Sunday was completely dry and we used those pace notes!!!
You need pace notes if you don't know what's coming after a hill. You can go through most of them flat out except one curve after a hill.

Here is a map:

http://foto.nurburgring.de/web/image...leife_1024.jpg





[Modified by DutchITR1689, 5:22 PM 8/5/2002]

 

Damn, what a fun! Next time I will come too! I have still rev problems with my R.

 

sounds like a wondeful time.

Will
-who like to buy the cd of the on track videos.

 

Sorry Ken, I had to leave on saturday.... I just watched out for you and your friends with the NSX`s but you were not around.
Maybe we`ll see again in SPA or Lausitzring, okay ?

 

We (me and those two NSXs) went to the "Brunchen" curve again at 17:00, and I saw 3 ITRs passing by....
On sunday I was the only one with an ITR.....

I will be in Spa at Sept. 28 and 29. It's an NSX and Type R club (European) day.

Did you see the crashed silver Porsche 911 GT3 on the trailer?


[Modified by DutchITR1689, 3:12 PM 8/5/2002]

 

Could it be the three ITR`s you saw coming down the track had been me (1st), Andre (2nd) and Dirk (3rd) in his white ITR ?
But I remember there had been a towing vehicle on the track at Brünnchen when I passed... so we took it slow there.

I like to come to Spa too.....

 

Yup! That's what I saw!!! It looked like that towing truck was racing too!!!
I'm not going to drive at Spa, because it costs about 400 Euro per day!!! That's almost a year card for Nordschleife....
I'm going to watch and hopefully ride along as passenger in that red supercharged NSX.....

 

Ah, so the three ITR`s had been me and my two mates....
I noticed a security car right before we dived into brünnchen so I went off the gas..... Sad, because I liked to burn some rubber when chicks were watching there

 

I left Saturday, too... i checked the entrance at 18:00, but noone was there anymore...

400 Euro per day for Spa??? Sounds crazy... normaly i wanted to drive there too in September, but not for that price!!!

 

Dang, I was there last Summer and I only saw one ITR. I had a turd of a car, a rented Z3 with what felt like about 50 horsepower. I was passed by everything from Volvo wagons to Cobras.