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Reports - Mar 2006


	Gallery of this visit can be found HERE
Thursday Gary, Jonah, Mark and Josh made the trip down to Gillingham to stay at Gary's brother Andy's house for the night. The idea being that this left them only 40 mins from Dover in the morning. Gary set off infront with Jonah following in the M3. ''Ere shag have a look at my front indicator if I pull along side you, I think its fooked'' was Jonah's first phone call. He pulled alongside Gary and low and behold the indicator wasn't working. However not only was it not working, but it wasn't there anymore either, the whole assy had fallen out. Not bad going when you're only 5 miles from home Nice meal in Gillingham with Jonah upsetting the locals with his usual colourful language. Friday 6.15am start for the quick hop down to Dover. Met Pete and boarded the ferry. Ferry was taking its first trip with that number of passengers on-board. They were so well prepared they ran out of cutlery within 30 mins. Its hard to eat a full English breaky with your fingers. More colourful language and some of Jonah's undeniable charm ''Where's the fooking forks, me foods going cold'' and we were sorted. 11am Froggy time and we are on the way out of Dunkirk for the long slog. A couple of hold ups around Brussels and Pete throwing his fuel down the road near St Vith had us arriving at the ring at 4.15pm. The weather on the way had seen torrential rain within 30km of Nurburg but when we got there it was clear and pretty dry. Strange as normally its the other way around Throwing the gear in the apartment and the guys were at the track for 5 o'clock. Jahreskarts bought and it was time to start lapping. Rob sat in behind Gary for his first laps in the M3 and could hold on pretty well. By the second lap he had broken 10 mins. Not hard when you're following someone The rest of the evening saw some nice laps, Gary managing around 6 all in before it was time to retire to the Pig for a beer with Karl. The guys had a nice meal in the Pistenklause and called it a day quite early...... ''The northern Monkey said he was tired so we had to take him home '' Saturday The track wasnt due to open till 5pm after the CHC so there was time for a wander around, watch a little racing and see what was going on with the GP circuit.


It soon became apparent that the GP track was already open for tourist laps so the guys got themselves into the Pits ready for the off. Non of them had driven it before so were interested to see what it was like, especially as it was very very wet. A few nice laps, not quick, but fun watching Rob do what he does best, hang the arse end of the M3 out on every corner. Sometimes a little too much so, seeing him spin, but no-one seemed to mind so he carried on, getting better all the time. Rob decided to leave the M3 in Germany so flights home had to be sorted. Thanks for that Emma. Gary was stopped at the barrier when an oil leak was spotted by a marshal. The guys took the car to RR and a split oil pipe was diagnosed by the filter housing. The worry was that this would stop play for the weekend as replacement parts could not be obtained. Rob had the idea of linking out the filter all together using braided hose and decided he would do the job himself on Sunday morning at RR. Mick, Mark and Al turned up Mark's 1,000 mile MY06STi and the guys went back to the GP circuit. Gary talked Mark into a lap in the Scoob with Jonah following. It was almost the last lap as Mark ran wide when Jonah was overtaking. A close call. Back at the NS Gary helped Mark with a couple of laps in the Scoob, it was so quiet on track it was almost like the place was closed. PK again Saturday night for steak on the stone and beer, lots of beer. Had a chat with Ed and a couple of other Americans before Gary got a call from Euan asking where he was. In the PK was the reply. ''So am I''. They were talking to eachother on the phone from 10ft away from eachother without knowing....Pair of halfwits. Euan was eating and drinking with Jochen, Job and another Dutch VLN driver to be. The evening finished around 2am with Gary feeling very much worse for wear.......


Sunday Gary's oil leak was fixed at RR and the cars went back to the GP track to play. It was still very wet. Gary met Job with the race car and he asked Gary to take the Dutch driver he met the night before out for a couple of laps. Gary did that and sometime later Job approached Gary with the offer to drive the race car in VLN ...... hmmmmmmmm. Maybe sometime in the future, maybe.


A strange feeling coming out of the GP pit lane following a black 355 Ferrari. I had the Dutch driver as a passenger and Job had asked me to go overtake him..........I waited for him to nail it at the end of the pit lane and did the same. The next 400 yards the ferrari howled like hell but the distance from it to the pug remained constant . I passed him two corners later Jonah was getting more excited about his drifting as he began to get more confident and perfect corners. Watching him power slide the whole way round the long GP bends was a good sight. It wasn't without incident though and he had a few spins. It didn't appear to upset any of the other drivers, well no-one mentioned it. Jonah was interviewed and filmed by a German TV crew for a Sky programme which is being aired this week. Might be amusing if Karl could record it? Back to the NS at about 3pm and the track was starting to dry out. Pete and Gary stayed while the other went off to do other stuff. From then till closing time Pete and Gary's cars were hardly ever short of passengers, something they never turn down, but its nice to put in laps on your own too. The list of incident cars was strange with the following crashes. Ferrari x 2 off - Dodge Viper - GT3 - Noble.


The Noble incident happened right behind Jonah and when later talking to the driver the guys found out it wasnt his car . He had borrowed it for the weekend with a 'bend it buy it' agreement. He is now the proud owner of a £40K piece of scrap metal. Gary didn't have the heart to say what he really thought when the guy explained it was his first ever lap, in the wet and having been overtaken by the M3 he wanted to show Jonah what real power was. He certainly did that, both turbo's kicked in on Maddock bend up Kesselchen and he went straight into the Armco By the end of the day Pete and Gary were very tired but also very happy with their days lapping. A meal at the Chinky in Adenau finished the day off nicely. Monday A slow start to the day with Pete leaving and the guys in the Scoob also. Those remaining went to the GP circuit to watch the Megane Trophy race car practise. 3 ltr V6 mid engined, space framed racers which apparently put in DTM type times. Very impressive to watch from the pit wall.

A mid afternoon ride back to the airport had the guys on their 8.45pm flight home and home before 11.30pm. A great weekend loads of great laps on the GP in the wet. Great, stupidly quiet laps on the NS in the dry, good company, and the chance to catch up with old friends. It doesn't get much better.........