European Trip 2436 miles (Inc Nurburgring vid)

[Wasso]

Just thought I'd post up a short, okay it will probably be a long thread due to the fact I waffle a lot.

 

I've been back a week now and have finally managed to compress some video's as they were 1.5g long (I took that long to get round the Ring).

 

Story goes like this:

 

 

Friday 20th August leave Birmingham for Harwich to catch the 11:45pm boat. No hickups and all goes well, board the new ferry which was very clean and cabin facilities were superb! Ferry cost £220 return with sleeping arrangements on the way out. Had a couple of drinks then bed!! (Only to be woken dead early in the morning by the Dutch lady over the tannoy speaker which was directly over my head)!!

 

 

Landed at Rotterdam to drive to Amsterdam - pitched tent with no hickups (pop up tent) and headed into the centre for a cup of coffee at the "coffee shop" Had a few drinks - bit of light shopping for dinner tonight and purchase a number of spirits for the Spag Bol that would be cooked by my cullinary hands!! (Yeah Right!!)

 

Next day again a nice sunny day more "Coffee" and then drinks in the evening at Newmarkt. A little word of warning anyone who has been to Amsterdam before will of course know that drinks can be pricey!! Well, this is probably my 6th or 7th time and I've never paid £7 for a pint there ever!! So that's the end of Amsterdam from my European tours!! Not only did we get stung once, but twice!!

 

During the night it rained like no tomorrow - where my mate in his single skin pop up tent was leaning out of his tent in the pouring rain with 2" of water inside his tent Sorry I had to laugh as he was actually holding an umbrella inside the tent it was leaking that much!! That will teach him to get a single later tent! But then my lesson of experience is to bring an airbed - WITH THE BUNGS!! We slept on an airbed which would slowly deflate throughout the night - very uncomfortable!!

 

Packed up in the rain/muddy field and attempted to put away my pop up tent. My mates tent folded no problem, but as my tent was slightly larger had to be folded in a different manner. Lets just say the tent never made it back into the tent bag again that holiday!! Further advice, if you fancy a pop up tent, just throw it away when your done with it on your trip/holiday - I could have spent 3 days trying to get it back in the bag.

 

Monday 23rd August today we are heading to the Nurburgring This is my first ever time to the ring, not only that my first ever track day!!

 

I had prepped my car with the relevant modifications over the last 6 months, which included performance and lightened body parts. I even retired my spare wheel for the trip (a little tip - if you need more space in your boot - remove the spare wheel it came in very hand for loading things like car cleaning bits, dirty clothes and various non important items). There was only 2 purchases that I made which did not quite make it on the car (Hel Braided lines and Motul brake fluid) - I had installed my Performance Friction pads. So we head to the Ring - a good few moments on the various Autobhans to give it some stick - although we wanted to save our spirited driving for the track.

 

We arrive at the empty campsite which was a stones throw from the track. Setup camp and washed the car ready for our drive of 4 laps the next afternoon. So with the afternoon free my mate decided to purchase a gazebo to stand over his single layer tent if it were to rain, and I headed out to find a new airbed!!

 

 

So the gazebo was up, and my and the other half had purchased two kiddies lilo things, one red and one yellow for sleeping on!! They took an age to blow up and were again very uncomfortable and narrow!!

 

So the inorgral day - the RING!! We head out to the track only to be met by an unhealthy amount of Porsche's and Beemers. There was a brand new Morgan can't tell which it was, although someone might confirm.

 

 

I prep the £10 camera's I have 3 but only 2 were working. So I have one on the grill and the second on the dash. Both give totally different perspectives. My mate who drives the Civic Type R was absoloutly bricking it! He had to visit the loo at least twice before getting on the track. I was a little nervous, but nothing worth worrying about. We'd purchased our 4 laps with a view to drive all 4 on the one session. Our first lap was taken very easy and we achived 13 minutes. Our second lap which we found was littered with Porsches once more who thought they were invisible decided to stack their cars into the barrier. A total of 4 crashed on lap 2 with 4 bikes and 2 Porsches! So by now we've experienced what the Ring is all about. My 2nd lap was around 11 and a half minutes, which I was quite pleased with. Although I wanted to get to 10 mins!! I also found that my car was running great around the track with my other half who was crapping herself the entire time!! There was one slight problem - by the time I'd done half the lap my brakes were only performing to 40% of their ability - I have put this down to my OEM brake lines and fluid of which suffered badly due to my tentative drive - due to the fact I was braking at every crest and of course every corner! A lesson to be learnt there I think.

 

We planned to leave the next morning for Chamonix and Mont Blanc, although we still had 2 laps left of the ring and with the track closed we had no alternative but to.......

 

Stay an extra day!!!

 

So we cleaned the cars again and prepared for day two!!

 

Below is a video of lap 3 with camera on the front grill. Please note as mentioned this is only my 3rd time on a track and was very cautious due to my lacking of brakes and my daft mate who wanted to tootle along the track! I think my time was just over 11 mins.

 

 

Here is lap 4 with camera positioned in the car - note - it rained for the first 1/4 of the track and so I was extra cautious.

 

 

So after using up 1 and a half bottles of NOS - wearing out my pads and melting my falken tyres I've got to say it's one of the most addictive and fantastic moments of my life. I have decided that I will return at least once a year.

 

Thursday 26th October We now head to Chamonx/Mont Blanc. Cutting a long story short now as you're probably getting bored. Journey time should have been 7 hours and we took 11. Sat nav chose to avoid toll roads and I never thought to check why it's taking so long. By now we are tired, fed up, used loads of petrol, although the view we got just 70km away from Chamonix made up for it, including the amazing twisty roads on route. Oh and my mate almost ran out of petrol on the way!!

 

 

We arrive at Chamonix around 11:30pm only to find the campsite is FULL. We decide to sleep in the car overnight. Not very comfy I must add sleeping in a ZED!!

 

We are woken early and head to the campsite as people have started to leave allowing us to stay. Oh guess what, it starts to rain again. My mate a little pee'd off says he's going to sleep in the car again as we will be leaving for Paris the next day.

 

So we head up to Mont Blanc to see the Glacier etc. Go shopping in town - purchase alcohol and food for the evening meal - which was a curry - although cooked on the campsite by yours truly!! (Yes it was a Balti mix bag thing).

 

 

So it rains through the night, cars are dirty again, backs are hurting and we are all pee'd off from the weather. Maybe Paris will have better weather.

 

Saturday 28th August We head onto the Toll roads this time (I gave the Satnav a right kick up the ar$e) only to find it would be a costly trip! A tank and a half later - 45 Euro's in toll costs, as well as service station food. P.S. I hate French arrogant drivers. We're doing 90 in the outside lane, Ford Kuga comes up my rear and I mean bumper to bumper with him flashing is outside indicater light. I'm not moving as there is my mate ahead of me and 4 other cars overtaking. I dab the brakes - he still persists with driving dangerously, now he's flashing his lights. So I move over - not that he'd make any further progress. He is now pi$$ing off my mate by doing the same. He moves over and once the traffic had cleared - I thought I'd show him who really is boss. I floored it whilst flashing my lights and waving nicely to move over!! He politely moved over and despite leaving my exhaust dust all over his white car - he proceeded to follow us for the next 200 miles!! Okay but this time he wasn't trying to get past us - and understood the fact our cars were far more powerfull than his!!

 

 

We arrive in Paris - with lovely weather and chose to pick a hotel as we were now fedup of camping. Looked around the sights of Paris - which I've done many a time - but thought it would be a good location for my mate.

 

Up the Eifel:

 

We went out on the final evening (Sunday) to have a curry. Nice place with live music (a bloke playing a sitar - or whatever they are called). We had finished dinner and paid when my mate said "On the QT - RAT!!" I said "WHAT" - he repeated - "on the QT - RAT!!" I said "RAT!" - "yes" he said. And there it was sat in the middle of the curry house twitching it's nose!! I couldn't believe it RAT!! Anyway, we couldn't get our money back, decided best to leave (Oh it's raining again!) and go back to the hotel - hoping that we weren't going to be ill from the curry house.

 

(now I'm getting bored of typing now).

 

So anyway, we head back to Rotterdam, get on the ferry, land at Harwich at 8:30pm for the drive home. I sent my mate down the M1 as it would be better located for him and I took the M40. I had a great drive home and was in the house for 11:30pm. My mate on the other hand didn't arive home till 1:30am as there were mega amounts of roadworks. Ooooops! He wasn't too pleased.

 

That was our trip!!! The car was amazing - spent well over £400 on fuel and thoroughly enjoyed the Ring. Hope you enjoyed my little (I mean long) story!

[nurrish]

Epic

[Wasso]

Cheers fella, I've just checked the video links and for some reason Photobucket has chopped the end of the video's. I guess I'll need to upload them to Youtube - something for tomorrow.

 

I'm also not very happy with the quality after compression!!

 

I've also been thinking how good it would be to organise a Z meet for the Ring. Say like a 4 day trip over the weekend. It's only about 3hours drive from Rotterdam!!

[DoogyRev]

That sounds like you had a great time ...... bar the Rat

[Wasso]

First video uploaded to youtube, but again the quality is terrible. Going to see if I can send up the original file using the larger file option!! (tomorrow)

[350ash]

Sounds like an interesting trip!

 

Just one thing, the red car isn't a Morgan it's a Wiesmann GT MF5.

[Will370z]

Sounds like an epic journey. Nice video of a great circuit, would love to take my zed there one day.

[andlid]

Sweet story mate, chucked more then once

 

The car is driving VERY well! fair play for getting on the ring without prior track experience! So all in what will be different next time ?

[The G Man]

Nice one and a good write up Have did a couple of Epics in my old Rex, looking forward to next years in the 370

[Wasso]

Okay well I've managed to improve the quality of the video, although now for some reason the sound is about 3 seconds behind the action!!??? I give up with this video upload business!! HELP!!!!!!!!!! (I've spent nearly 4 hours uploading just 2 videos!!)

[andlid]

Okay well I've managed to improve the quality of the video, although now for some reason the sound is about 3 seconds behind the action!!??? I give up with this video upload business!! HELP!!!!!!!!!! (I've spent nearly 4 hours uploading just 2 videos!!)

what video format is it?

[Wasso]

It's AVI straight from the £10 cameras. I wanted to edit the films before posting so that just the driving was shown. My final attempt went well with cutting the video but now the sound is out?

[Wasso]

Sweet story mate, chucked more then once

 

The car is driving VERY well! fair play for getting on the ring without prior track experience! So all in what will be different next time ?

 

Next time which I hope will be May next year will be new wheels uprated discs, lines fitted with brake fluid and an overhaul on the suspension setup to give it some tighter stability on corners etc. I've also noticed since the power upgrades that the front end lifts quite high on acceleration and drops on gear change. So suspension is a must for next year.

[andlid]

It's AVI straight from the £10 cameras. I wanted to edit the films before posting so that just the driving was shown. My final attempt went well with cutting the video but now the sound is out?

use windows movie maker

[Wasso]

That's what I tried first and that ruined the quality and the window size of the vid. I can't seem to win.

[andlid]

That's what I tried first and that ruined the quality and the window size of the vid. I can't seem to win.

Ill do a howto and post it I use Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 sometimes but its a PITA to use if youre not used to it.

[Wasso]

Sounds good to me. Nice one

[Wasso]

Something strange is going on here. My original files on my laptop are fine, the sound syncs fine with the video, but on youtube it's out? Should I try a re-upload? (Please no, not again!)

[andlid]

Something strange is going on here. My original files on my laptop are fine, the sound syncs fine with the video, but on youtube it's out? Should I try a re-upload? (Please no, not again!)

you can upload them to my lappy and I'll look at them if you wish? shouldnt be after upload, is it youtube or photobuckpuke?

[Wasso]

It's on youtube.... and how would I load them to your laptop? It would still take an age for sure being 1g.

 

I will try another upload again tomorrow to see if that fixes the issue.

 

Cheers

[Greekman]

very very m8!

[Wasso]

Cheers fella - I actually keep looking back at the video's it's quite funny because I kind of commentate to myself and ah yes, that's the bend with the right hander after it. Then the video displays a left hander.... I'm like Geewhiz - learning this track is a nightmare!!

 

I want to go faster!!

 

I believe I could hit the 10min mark with a bit more experience of driving on a track, along with improving my brakes (which is a must with Wales coming up). Tighten the suspension up and practice I think under 10mins could be achieved, although I'm sure that's a looooooong way off!

[Greekman]

Cheers fella - I actually keep looking back at the video's it's quite funny because I kind of commentate to myself and ah yes, that's the bend with the right hander after it. Then the video displays a left hander.... I'm like Geewhiz - learning this track is a nightmare!!

 

I want to go faster!!

 

I believe I could hit the 10min mark with a bit more experience of driving on a track, along with improving my brakes (which is a must with Wales coming up). Tighten the suspension up and practice I think under 10mins could be achieved, although I'm sure that's a looooooong way off!

 

M8 i did 10 mins with a passenger, overfilled boot and totally wrong cambers. the understeer was epic!!! haha

couldnt do more than 2 laps at a time as the brakes were getting cooked and they were upgraded ones as well.

Best thing to do get granturismo for the psp like i did.

me and my nurse have been watching the vidoes at work and i was telling her the corners in advance lmao

she thought i was a ring legend or smth hahaha

thats after 200-300 laps of the ring on the psp.

i bet you can easily do 10min with the car as it is if you get to know the track and improve the lines.

 

btw last time i went there it was exactly a year ago. i only got the granturismo a few months ago

 

awesome trip nevertheless. sooooooooooooooooo jealous

[Wasso]

Cheers fella - I actually keep looking back at the video's it's quite funny because I kind of commentate to myself and ah yes, that's the bend with the right hander after it. Then the video displays a left hander.... I'm like Geewhiz - learning this track is a nightmare!!

 

I want to go faster!!

 

I believe I could hit the 10min mark with a bit more experience of driving on a track, along with improving my brakes (which is a must with Wales coming up). Tighten the suspension up and practice I think under 10mins could be achieved, although I'm sure that's a looooooong way off!

 

M8 i did 10 mins with a passenger, overfilled boot and totally wrong cambers. the understeer was epic!!! haha

couldnt do more than 2 laps at a time as the brakes were getting cooked and they were upgraded ones as well.

Best thing to do get granturismo for the psp like i did.

me and my nurse have been watching the vidoes at work and i was telling her the corners in advance lmao

she thought i was a ring legend or smth hahaha

thats after 200-300 laps of the ring on the psp.

i bet you can easily do 10min with the car as it is if you get to know the track and improve the lines.

 

btw last time i went there it was exactly a year ago. i only got the granturismo a few months ago

 

awesome trip nevertheless. sooooooooooooooooo jealous

 

I probably could achieve 10mins if I tried a little harder. I had issues though with cooking my brake fluid. This meant for most corners, or any crests that I came upon, I would have to pre-brake and then brake again, due to the fact I only had 40% brakes by the time I had gone halfway round the track.

 

I am going to try and do some UK tracks to get the right control, direction and understand "how much" I can give the Zed on the corners. I was probably only driving at about 90% capability, due to the fact I didn't want to crash and fork out loads for closing the track!

 

With the new fluid and lines I would hope - with a bit more practice the 10min mark is achievable. I also played GT4 on the PS3 to understand the length and corners of the track, but it doesn't prepare you for the size of the hills on the track, or the adverse camber you experience on a number of corners. On the video (Once I get the sound sorted) you will see that I have a bit of tyre squeal on an adverse corner, I correct the car, but then for some reason the car twitches and I lose the front slightly which was a bit odd.

 

So future is - a good old practice on the UK tracks with correct braking mods installed and maybe a little guidance or tuition from a pro!!

[Greekman]

Cheers fella - I actually keep looking back at the video's it's quite funny because I kind of commentate to myself and ah yes, that's the bend with the right hander after it. Then the video displays a left hander.... I'm like Geewhiz - learning this track is a nightmare!!

 

I want to go faster!!

 

I believe I could hit the 10min mark with a bit more experience of driving on a track, along with improving my brakes (which is a must with Wales coming up). Tighten the suspension up and practice I think under 10mins could be achieved, although I'm sure that's a looooooong way off!

 

M8 i did 10 mins with a passenger, overfilled boot and totally wrong cambers. the understeer was epic!!! haha

couldnt do more than 2 laps at a time as the brakes were getting cooked and they were upgraded ones as well.

Best thing to do get granturismo for the psp like i did.

me and my nurse have been watching the vidoes at work and i was telling her the corners in advance lmao

she thought i was a ring legend or smth hahaha

thats after 200-300 laps of the ring on the psp.

i bet you can easily do 10min with the car as it is if you get to know the track and improve the lines.

 

btw last time i went there it was exactly a year ago. i only got the granturismo a few months ago

 

awesome trip nevertheless. sooooooooooooooooo jealous

 

I probably could achieve 10mins if I tried a little harder. I had issues though with cooking my brake fluid. This meant for most corners, or any crests that I came upon, I would have to pre-brake and then brake again, due to the fact I only had 40% brakes by the time I had gone halfway round the track.

 

I am going to try and do some UK tracks to get the right control, direction and understand "how much" I can give the Zed on the corners. I was probably only driving at about 90% capability, due to the fact I didn't want to crash and fork out loads for closing the track!

 

With the new fluid and lines I would hope - with a bit more practice the 10min mark is achievable. I also played GT4 on the PS3 to understand the length and corners of the track, but it doesn't prepare you for the size of the hills on the track, or the adverse camber you experience on a number of corners. On the video (Once I get the sound sorted) you will see that I have a bit of tyre squeal on an adverse corner, I correct the car, but then for some reason the car twitches and I lose the front slightly which was a bit odd.

 

So future is - a good old practice on the UK tracks with correct braking mods installed and maybe a little guidance or tuition from a pro!!

 

You just described the "ring in the zed" experience haha

if you fancy a joined track day let me know