Ringkampf is German for wrestling bout. Jeremy Clarkson has been across the Channel to learn the art of hand-to-hand combat and to do battle with the BMW M3 at the annual driver’ competition in one of the oldest and most dangerous fighting rings of all – the Nurburgring, in West Germany – Performance Car
This week, I came 199th in a competition to find the best driver round Germany’s Nurburgring.
What we are talking about here is a performance that could have been bettered by Ray Charles; a performance that was so unutterably awful, no excuse can be accepted. The world now knows what I’ve suspected for some time. I am to driving what Bernard Manning is to Herbalife.
The saga began when the BMW invited someone from the good offices of Performance Car to spend a few days at an annual driving event on what must surely be the world’s greatest race track.
For a host of reasons, none of the proper editorial staff could make it so the offer was passed down through the accounts department, down through the typing pool and down past the man in a shabby overcoat who was enjoying the flavour of a half smoked cigarette butt he’d found in a dustbin outside. Eventually, it landed on my desk.
Organised by a conglomeration of all the European BMW owners’ clubs, the event attracts visitors from as far afield as Norway, California and Wokingham.
The idea is that you spend a week begin coached on the niceties of high speed driving and more importantly, how best to circumnavigate the ‘Ring. You learn the ideal line through every corner, you learn about braking points and where to change gear. You learn about bravery. Well, some people do anyway.
This year, 248 BMW club members descended on the tiny German village of Nurburg in cars, on bikes or in strange plastic things which looked like bladeless helicopters with wheels.
Needless to say, most of the competitors were German, but 22 were from Britain’s BMW Car Club.
And what a crazy assortment they were too. Though they were all wildly different, there was one factor which each had in common with all the others.
None had the typical customer profile that one would normally associate with BMW. None of them lived in South West London. None of them worked in advertising. None of them had a Filofax.
They had a weird assortment of cars, too. There was a 3.2litre CSL Batmobile, and Alpina CSL, a few 325s with steel wheels and wind down windows, a brace of turbocharged B7s, a 2002 turbo driven by a very brave man indeed, an automatic 320 driven by a slightly less brave character and, among other things, a bright red M5 which had been taken there by a curious little man who wore bright green clothes and refused to eat anything.
One youngster who had the dimensions of an elephant turned up without a car on account of the drink driving laws. He wouldn’t have been allowed on the circuit anyway in case the caterpillar on his top lip became a butterfly and put him off.
All week he tried to claim it was a moustache but having watched it closely for some time, I’m inclined to disagree.
Even though I’d been given an M3 for the week, it still took me five hours to reach the ‘Ring from Calais and most of this journey was spent in Belgium; a country where the entire nation does nothing but eat and flatulate.
In England, France and Germany, the M3 attracted envious stares but in Belgium, no-one paid it the slightest bit of attention. One overweight chappie tried to eat the rear spoiler but when he discovered it didn’t contain the required amount of methane, he gave up.
It’s important to stress that I’d taken up the invitation to go because I genuinely thought it would improve my driving. However, various conversations into which I barged on the first night indicated my reasoning was wrong.
Some where there to show everyone just how brilliant they were behind the wheel of a car (or the handlebars of a motorcycle), some, like the elephant man, were there for social reasons, some were there because they enjoy the feeling of being part of a club and some where there out of respect for the Nurburgring circuit itself.
I had heard of it, of course, I knew it was quite long and that Niki Lauda had very nearly met his maker on one of its 187 treacherous bends.
I knew that today’s Formula One namby parnbys are frightened of it and that it is set in some quite pretty countryside.
I was sort of half right. Although the Southern curve has been bulldozed to make way for the characterless Neur circuit round which the 200mph F1 cars now race, the entire Northern loop still exists in all its gyratory, tortuous splendour. It twists and turns and rises and falls for nigh on 14 miles, never running straight and true for more than a few inches at a time.
If the German authorities wished to hold a serious race meeting at the old ‘Ring now, they would need to find 300 marshalls, six helicopters and 20 or so doctors. Plus of course a whoop of hairstylists to keep the tanned drivers happy.
Then they’d need to increase the Armco barriers from two deep to three and, finally bigger run off areas would have to be provided which would mean savaging thousands of acres of pine forest to a degree that not even acid rain can manage.
At present, one only needs hope over the barriers which on occasion are perilously close to the track, and immediately one is shrouded in the eerie silence that’s an integral part of any decent sized wood.
Located 3000 feet above sea level in the Eifel mountains, the surrounding countryside is of a buttock clenching quality but if you really want to make your checks work for a living, you should get a ride round with someone who’s been there before.
The peculiar man in bright green took me round in his M5, an ordeal which demanded a great deal of courage, determination and a plentiful supply of clean underpants.
It seems to go on, like a dreadful fairground ride, for an eternity and I was never quite sure if the funny little man who could barely see over the steering wheel, really did know whether the road went left or right after each brow.
It was with fear and trepidation that I arrived for the first full day’s bullying.
We had been divided up into small groups of 20 or so for the three day training period, the idea being that we would cover one section then move on to another, allowing the people behind to fill our vacant slot, Germans with megaphones in cars with flashing lights policed the scheme so nothing went wrong. Once, I put a foot out of line and learned what it was like to be screamed and flashed at.
Our instructor was a genial expert called Michael Middelhaufe, a BMW test driver who knows the ‘Ring well enough to have given every piece of fauna around its entire length a name. He was notable for two things; his appalling English and his even more appalling shoes.
They were so unusual, I failed to listen to his instructions on our first section, which involved braking hard in a corner and simultaneously missing some cones.
Middelhaufe claimed anti-lock brakes would be a hindrance, which seems to be at odds with what various manufacturers have been ramming down my throat over the past few years.
As I sped towards the corner, it occurred to me that because of his shoes and the distraction they’d caused, I had not listened to what speed I ought to be doing so I slowed down to 80mph which, with hindsight, was still a mite too fast.
If the M3 hadn’t been equipped with anti-lock brakes, I wouldn’t have come to a halt yet. As it was I was damned close to the Czechoslovakian border when serenity returned. It should be said, though, that I didn’t knock anything over except a few megaphone-bedecked marshalls.
Nor did I mangle anything on the slalom but when you consider I was twice as slow as everyone else, this is not surprising.
Things went a little awry on the lane change manoeuvre when I ploughed off the road. You wouldn’t believe me if I said I was hit on the head half way through the exercise by a cassette so I won’t.
Other training outings involved driving a brand new 528i into a barrier for no apparent reason, trying to make a 325i move when its rear wheels were caked in cooking fat, and hurtling round a car park in a Golf with no back wheels.
Frankly, I was most interested in getting to grips with the circuit itself, even though Middelhaufe had said the M3 is ‘a naughty thing’ unlike the M5 which, he claims, is a ‘proper car’.
He was right. You may have recalled elsewhere in this issue that the editor, Mr. Jesse Crosse, manage a fourth place in the Willhire 24 hour race, but I’m afraid I was unable to tame the combination of left-hand drive, a dog-leg gearbox, 200bhp and tyres made by Slumberdown.
In a nutshell, Jesse Crosse knows how to drive fast and well. I don’t.
There are more twists and turns in the Hatzenbach section of the Nurburgring than Silverstone has in its entire length.
And I was given three attempts to get it right. If I had been given 300 attempts, I would still get it wrong for the simple reason that I could not concentrate on where the road went next, where I should be turning in and, most importantly, which gear I should be in on that infernal dog-leg gearbox all at the same time.
Furthermore, I simply daren’t go too fast for fear of crashing. An accident you see would mean I’d get no more BMWs to play with and without BMWs I couldn’t do my job properly. That in turn would mean I’d have to sack my servants that increasing unemployment and therefore allowing Labour to win the next election. Dire, but logical, consequences I’m sure you’ll agree.
The instructor didn’t but I had no more time to de-mystify him because the group behind were champing at the bit.
At the next corner, he showed us the ideal line but I’m afraid I took issue. There followed a lively exchange of views with him asking me if I thought I knew better than Fangio and Stewart and me asking him whether he wanted to know what his terrible shoes tasted like.
The following bend, called Aremberg, was the trickiest piece of road I’d ever seen. You have to fly over the blind brow of a hill, and lift momentarily before turning in to a shallow left-handler much earlier than seems reasonable.
Then you must go hard on the brakes and turn in very, very late for a downhill ninety degree right-hander.
Middelhaufe was struggling to find a more suitable word than valour to describe what a driver needs to do it properly.
‘Balls’, I suggested. ‘Yes’, he said, ‘I want you to show me your balls when you go round here’.
By taking him literally, I ended up missing the apex completely and nearly wrote off BMW’s only press fleet M3.
The training progressed along these lines for three days until I was in such a muddle that I couldn’t sort out which planet I was on, let alone whether I was about to encounter Flugplatz, Hohe Acht or Adenauer Forst.
Certain corners came easily, Brunchen was one which I could take faster than anyone and I had Schwalbenschwanz down to a fine art too because a rather useful lupin (called Steven) was growing at exactly the place where I could let the M3 begin to drift.
Wipperman wasn’t too difficult either though the instructor kept telling me the kerbs were for kissing not bouncing over.
Adenauer Bridge, on the other hand was a pig. Time after time, I went flying around the steepish right-hander before it far too fast so there wasn’t’ a snowball’s chance in hell of someone as uncoordinated as me getting to the other side of the road, braking, studying the gearbox map, executing a change and getting the power on again before the left-hander which followed shortly afterwards.
Over and over again, the instructor explained I ought to slow down, but then part of my problem is that I always know more about everything I’m doing than anyone else. Such outrageous confidence means that I am never nervous before an examination because I’m always utterly convinced I will sail through with flying colours.
Besides, I’ve never really been all that bothered about whether I pass or fail – this is probably why my only qualification is an ____ plus exam in origami.
I wanted to win at the ‘Ring though. It was man and machine versus the greatest circuit in the world and, as a result, the ___wobbles were with me as I lined up on the grid on Saturday morning.
All the instructors, including good old Middelhaufe, were located at strategic points around the circuit and as we drove by they would mark us for correctness of line and speed.
I considered swopping numbers with the oddball in the M5 so they’d think I was him. I considered doing the whole thing in second gear so that it at least sounded like I was going quickly. I considered paying Derek Bell to do it for me but in the end I stood up to the challenge. Nerves of steel.
My spirits were lifted when the poor chap in front of me made two mistakes on the grid. Firstly, he wasn’t in his car when the flag was dropped and secondly, he stalled it on the line.
I think my worst mistake was stopping for a cigarette after the Karussell which sent the attendant marshalls into fits of violent and uncontrollable apoplexy.
Second in the error pecking order was taking a wrong turning and doing two laps of the new circuit and third was the complete pig’s ear I made of the Hatzenback section.
There were other cock-ups too, some of which were my fault, some of which I blamed on my co-driver and map reader, photographer Tim Andrew, and some of which I tried to blame on the car.
The most noteworthy incident was at Schwalbenschwanz where I discovered to my horror that some fool had run over Steven the lupin. Had he been there, I would have drifted nicely over to the other side of the track. As it was I didn’t stop skidding till I was back in Calais docks.
I was totally lost in Metzgesfeld, I suffered from complete brainfade at Bergwerk and while obeying the instructions of instructor Herr Middelhaufe and aiming for Geoffrey the pine tree at the Karusell, I hit a kerb.
All the way round, I looked forward to Brunchen where I would show the judge, a chappie called Fritz Scherb, just how it should be done. Brake hard, back on full power in third, catch the slide, kiss the apex and brush the kerb on the way out.
But sadly a crowd had gathered so I decided to miss out the braking bit. We kissed the apex all right and I held the slide quite well too but to say we brushed the kerb on the way out is an exaggeration. No, it’s more than that. It’s a lie.
We went over the kerb, over the rumble strips and on to the grass where the M3 sorted itself out and rejoined the main track to tumultuous applause from the engrossed assembled throng, who obviously knew a good deal about the finer points of car control.
I had to wait until 11 o’clock that night to discover just how badly I’d done. 17th out of 22 in the group. 199th out of 248 overall and I received an award for being the noisiest newcomer.
According to the scoresheet I was nearly perfect at Aremberg, better than average at Metzgesfeld and bloody terrible everywhere else except Kallenhard, where Middelhaufe said I was diabolical.
The weirdo in his M5 took fourth place overall and Jonathan Hooker in the Batmobile was third.
I tried to claim I’d been going so quickly that they couldn’t see where I was on the track properly, that the judges were all bored by the time I made it round and that they were penalising M3 drivers for being rich sons of bitches. I even tried to argue they were getting at me because of my continual references to the war.
Gently, some burly German took me aside, inserted a piece of lingerie in my mouth and explained that I’d come 199th because I was the 199th best driver.
I haven’t cried so much since Bambi’s mother was shot.
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July 28, 2008
1986 - 1989, Articles