The Nürburgring Is Finally Getting Fixed

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Few religions entirely abstain from describing a higher, better condition after death. There’s the heaven of Islam or Christianity that meets believers in the afterlife. In the Dharmic faiths, it’s often a nirvana that frees one from constantly respawning in this early realm. I have my own beliefs about what happens next, but for now, I can say with some authority that heaven on this mortal plane looks a lot like the Nürburgring if you’re a car enthusiast. And they’re fixing it!

We’re going to talk about that, we’re also going to talk about Renault-Nissan, and I guess we’re going to talk about Russia.

Fix The ‘Ring!

 

The Nürburgring is an anachronism. It’s a thing that should not exist. It’s a “public road” that’s really a race track and you can race anything there. They do automaker testing which means that, if you’re hanging out, you might see the next-gen 911 Hybrid fly-by followed by a Ford Transit van and a vintage Skoda. The place is bonkers. The Nürburgring 24 is also, in my humble opinion, the most fun of the big endurance races.

It’s also deeply sketch. There’s only so much you can do to make a “public road” with no speed limit, 154 turns, and cars of various capabilities with drivers of various experience levels safe. The video above is a compilation of crashes just from last year! There are tons of these videos and they range from amusing to scary and dangerous.

Perhaps it’s not obvious if you’ve never been there, but the track isn’t wide (it’s more than 20 km long, though) and there are a ton of blind corners, so one accident can become multiple incidents quickly. The great news is that the ‘Ring is finally getting an upgrade. As reported by Motor 1:

The Nurburgring is set to undergo a major digital upgrade. A total of €11 million (£9.7 million) is being invested by the Nurburgring operating company to improve vehicle safety and bring the track into the future.

The comprehensive upgrade will benefit all users of the track, including private drivers during tourist drive sessions, test drivers in the Industry Pool, and racing drivers during various events. The new infrastructure, set to be operational by 2025, will use camera technology and artificial intelligence to monitor the entire 13-mile (21-kilometre) race track.

I talked to racer, Nürburgring 24 class winner, Autopian superfriend, and sometimes track resident Robb Holland about the changes.

He called the upgrades “The most needed upgrade to the track.” Here’s what he said:

“It will make marshaling easier and more efficient, not only for the races like the [racing series] and 24-hour, but really for the tourist sessions. That was always my biggest fear running the tourist sessions: coming across an accident around a blind corner at full throttle, because I didn’t know it was there. And with the Nurburgring corners being so narrow, pretty much every accident blocks the track. Now, with a digital system, the number of big multi car crashes there should go down dramatically.”

Also, this allows me the opportunity to show the video he did where he hunts down and passes Ferraris and the like in a tuned Focus RS:

Awesome.

We’re always, like, one bus full of nuns crashing away from them shutting the place down to the public so I’m glad to see this happening.

Those Crazy Nissan-Renault Kids Are Gonna Be Ok, Maybe

Ghosn

Imagine you’re on a disabled spaceship that’s heading toward a black hole. You’re near the event horizon and you’re about to be pulled into a million pieces and probably die a horrible death. You’re also bleeding from a pretty serious gash on your arm. If you pass out, you’re not gonna make it to the one escape pod that’s left.

The good news is there’s a sentient boa constrictor also stuck on the ship. The problem for the boa constrictor is it can’t operate the escape pod because it doesn’t have arms and therefore it is doomed. (Editor’s note: I feel like The Morning Dump could’ve been published an hour ago without this stuff, but sure, go on, Matt. Tell us more about your magical space snake. –PG)

The boa constrictor makes an offer: She’ll wrap around your arm as a sort of makeshift tourniquet so you don’t die and you’ll pilot the escape pod to safety. This is a weird bargain. The snake’s basically going to have to sit on your bloody arm and you’re going to have to walk around with a snake on your arm for a bit. Still, beats dying. This is, in many ways, how the Nissan-Renault alliance started. Things were good for a while (I guess Carlos Ghosn is the escape pod in this scenario?), but something has to change.

I guess now is better than never. According to Reuters, the revised alliance will be announced on February 6th. They’re short on details, but Bloomberg has some more tidbits in their story:

The partners are set to work on five projects initially, people familiar with the situation said. One of them involves India, where the companies operate a plant in Chennai making small cars, engines and gearboxes, and another joint work on commercial vehicles, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans are not yet public.

The desire to agree on fresh common projects as part of the three-way pact, also including junior partner Mitsubishi Motors, signals the companies see a joint future for the alliance that had to be pieced together again after 2018’s arrest of former leader Carlos Ghosn.

Right! Mitsubishi is… uh… a talking droid that shows up in the middle of space they let hitchhike for a while, I guess?

Ukraine’s Getting Tanks, Russia’s Getting Lada Niva Vans

Lada Niva Legend

It’s no hot take to say the illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia is bad and the Russian state is basically a death cult propping up one increasingly paranoid and careless tyrant who is slowly killing off countless men, women and children for no good reason. But hey, check out these Niva Legends!

With the exodus of carmakers hitting Russia at a time when it’s difficult to import parts due to being a global pariah, the company has been forced to rebuild Soviet-era trucks. Now they’re turning those into vans, at least according to Carscoops.

The most important modification on the LCVs is the stronger frame which allows for greater cargo-carrying capabilities. Lada engineers applied similar reinforcements to those found in Niva-based fire trucks and rescue vehicles. Thus, the load capacity of the commercial vehicles is now ranging between 640 kg (1,411 pounds) and 800 kg (1,764 pounds), representing an increase of up to 185 kg (407 pounds) compared to the previous versions.

I’m not going to lie. These things look awesome. Hopefully, this war ends soon so these don’t just end up carrying the bodies of dead mobilized soldiers back to their grieving families in Buryatia.

Tata Stopped Porsche From Calling The 911 Dakar The 911 Safari

DakarIndia’s Tata Motors is why the 911 Dakar is called the 911 Dakar and not the 911 Safari, at least according to this report from Edmunds:

Porsche first began development in 2012 for the previous-generation 911. At that time, Krickelberg explained, the plan was to call it the 911 Safari, a name that carries its own history. Safari-style vehicles refer to sports cars with beefed up tires, suspension and armor to handle the rigors of off-roading. The company developed a working prototype called the 911 Vision Safari to tease a production model.

But there was a problem. The rights to the name Safari, at least when referring to automobiles, belongs to Tata Motors — parent company of Jaguar and Land Rover, among other marques. The Indian automaker has been building its Safari midsize SUV for select global markets since 1998. And it was not about to lend Porsche a helping hand.

“We talked to them,” Krickelberg said. “But they didn’t give us permission for that. That was Option A. And then we switched to Dakar.”

Dakar is a great name. I have no problems with it. Safari is probably better, but it’s fine. This is deeply amusing to me, though.

The Whatever

Have you ever been to the ‘Ring? Was it awesome? Tell me about it. If you’ve never been, what’s your dream car to drive there?

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70 thoughts on “The Nürburgring Is Finally Getting Fixed”

  1. My FIL lives about 40 miles due east of the ‘Ring, and I pass signs for it every time we visit (bc he has siblings who live 85 miles NNW of it, and the highway goes right past). Somehow I never knew about the open to the public thing until our last trip, and there was no possible day to make it happen. But maybe next time.

    He probably won’t let me use his E-Class, so maybe I’ll rent a GTI (I think it would be much safer to drive something resembling my daily driver Alltrack).

    1. Can’t go on with a regular rental, ring use is specifically forbidden in your contact.. (rental agencies and insurances companies pays spotters to take pictures of every car on the track). but you can probably rent a race car around the track.

      1. When I was there many years ago, I was told that the regular car rental companies would pay pretty good rewards to anyone who brought a photo of their rental on the ring. I’m not sure if they gave you a list of cars and plate numbers to watch for, or if you just brought in your pictures of anything with a company sticker on it. I heard it was a good incentive for people who live nearby to hang out at the track. Like a free lottery ticket in a game that didn’t pay off very often.

        It was early summer when I went, and the track conditions were just good enough to open for a tourist session. I probably would’ve overestimated my capabilities if conditions were better. The fast parts weren’t much different than the autobahn I took to get there, except that instead of keeping up with traffic, I kept right almost the whole time.

        The slower parts and all the blind corners were terrifying. I didn’t expect the track to be so incredibly rough on me and my car in the slower turns. I put a tire on a red and white curb once pretty early, and I’m glad I did. It took most of my overconfidence away in an instant. I had planned to do two or three laps, but I thought better of it as the weather improved and the speeds increased. Once was enough for a first trip.

  2. My grandfather lapped the Nürburgring in his 1952 Volvo PV444 with the 44hp B4B engine (that’s a lot of 4s), fully loaded with the entire family including two kids and a month’s worth of camping gear. It was so slow that my uncle claims it felt like they were going to topple in the dosed curves.
    No matter, grandpa chanted “Targa Florio” and “Caracciola” the entire way around, while my grandmother pressed her imaginary brake pedal through the floor.

  4. “Have you ever been to the ‘Ring? Was it awesome? Tell me about it. If you’ve never been, what’s your dream car to drive there?”

    Are you SURE you want to open this rabbit hole?
    Are you ABSOLUTELY SURE?
    DO YOU EVER WANT ME TO SHUT UP?
    My gosh, Matt, this is a can of worms you do not want to open. I have other things I have to finish today, man. This is a cruel, cruel question and I will not shut up for days about my absolute favorite place on earth.
    …
    MY PUFFALUMP PHOTOBOMBED PORSCHE’S ALL-TIME RECORD LAP RECAP, WHICH WAS ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THINGS I’VE EVER WITNESSED IN PERSON, MATT. I TEARED UP AS A HUGE PORSCHE NERD. IT WAS EVERYTHING I EVER WANTED TO SEE AND MORE. THEY WERE RACING TRUCKS ON THE GP TRACK AT THE SAME TIME—AS IN, RACE-PREPPED EURO-SPEC CABOVERS AND STUFF, WHEEL-TO-WHEEL. MY GOSH. MY GOSH!!!! MY HEAD FELT LIKE IT WAS GOING TO EXPLODE FROM WITNESSING TWO POLAR OPPOSITE FORMS OF ON-TRACK RADNESS AT ONCE. THE TRUE DUALITY OF ON-TRACK HUMANITY. IN THIS 32462532-HOUR TED TALK, I WILL…

    …AND DID I MENTION THE RALLY THAT RUNS PART OF THE NORDSCHLEIFE BACKWARDS?! I need to see this at one point in my life. GAGejdksfljklf;jeiakl;rdja;LS/

    I am going to retire there, somehow, someway. I could even be lured there early with a good enough job offer. It needs to happen. There’s so much good parsh. So much not-parsh that’s awesome. So many weird cars and weird car people. It’s the best place on earth.

  5. The ‘Ring was my very first track day.
    Back in 2012 when there were murmurs that ownership could change and access to run the track could become limited, I decided I had to go. I booked a spot on a private track day, rented a prepped Suzuki Swift track car from one of those operations that lives down the street from the Ring entrance (and also a normal rental car), and then booked travel.

    I was timid about the Ring being my first track day, but I had also logged what is undoubtedly hundreds of hours on Forza on just this circuit in a multitude of vehicles. And having signed up for a private track day meant I had a lot less traffic to contend with than on a normal Touristenfahrten day.

    From the moment I first pulled onto the track surface, I was absolutely giddy (Forza does NOT accurately represent how NARROW the Ring is) and I was laughing in my helmet when I began using braking markers, turn-in points, and gear choices identical to similarly capable vehicles I used in Forza. There were obvious differences for actually being on track, but there were 1 or 2 corners that felt EXACTLY like the game to me. I think I ended up putting in about 9 or so laps.

    As it worked out, my trackday was on a Monday and World Superbike had a race weekend on the GP Circuit that preceding weekend, so I attended that also. Which also was my first.

  10. I’ve never been to this racetrack. I think racing is stupid and wasteful, so I wouldn’t bother. However, I do have a question for those who have been. I assume there are some sort of amenities besides just a road. Are there charging stations? I’m not exactly sure why I’m curious about that, but I am.

      1. I used to be a low level competitive marksman. It doesn’t mean I would ever want to shoot a person or animal. In fact, having handled guns and learned to respect them, I am vehemently against most gun culture.

        I appreciate a high quality well sharpened knife in the kitchen. It doesn’t mean I would ever want to stab someone.

        Car culture can be about appreciating good design, innovative transport solutions and the evolution of engineering. It does not automatically mean driving around in circles going nowhere wasting fuel and tires (also a major source of pollution).

    2. I don’t share this view, but it’s also not entirely uncommon one. Not everyone on staff here loves racing as much as I do. It’s a sport. Most sports are pretty stupid and wasteful, but if they bring more joy than pain or destruction then I think it’s fine if they exist (which doesn’t explain Bills fans, but alas).

      The actual town is cute and there’s a hotel and a restaurant and a mall and some other car-specific stuff. Most of what happens on the track isn’t really racing, it’s just spirited driving in a place where the risks to you are higher but the risks to other people are, generally, lower. I think it would be a good thing for more such places to exist so people don’t think of turning actual public roads into race tracks.

      2. I don’t care for racing as a sport, but I have a hard time equating tracks with wastefulness. I think one of the great joys of the automobile is driving, and where else can you (should you) really learn what a car can do besides the track?

  14. I drove 5 laps on the ring in a rented A3 turbodiesel. It was wild. Pretty sure I broke the all time lap record haha. It’s hard to imagine they still let anyone with a pulse on there to thrash whatever hooptie they want

  15. I ran my first race on the Ring in Gran Turismo 7 yesterday. Even in a video game running it a race speeds was terrifying.

    Also, can we get more Robb Holland please? I have always really enjoyed his writing.

  16. Tata may own the “Safari” name in some parts of the world, but I’m pretty sure GM owns it in the US. In the 60s and 70s, “Safari” was a badge on all manner of Pontiac wagons, and for the next 20 years, “Safari” was GMC’s name for the Astro van twin.

  17. I did once, after a looong day driving the thing, have a very vivid dream about driving my Fowler round the ‘ring. I would rather like to make that dream a reality!

  18. I am late to the party, but this place needs a formulaic

    “Tell us more about your magical space snake. ”

    If I had a dollar for every time I heard that!

    joke inserted here.

  19. Snakes on a Spaceship starring Samuel L Jackson. Directed by Michael Bay with a script by Roland Emmerich. I want these mother forking snakes off my mother forking ship!

  20. Just had an idea for the Morning Dump rename. Not sure if it’s been suggested, or if it’s really any good for that matter, but what about the Morning Tune? The Flush could become The Idle. Just throwing the suggestion out there

  21. Nissan and Mitsubishi should captive import some Renault and Dacia models here

    Mitsubishi Kwid
    Mitsubishi Sandero
    Mitsubishi Logan
    Mitsubishi Megane (though this could be renamed Lancer and even have an Evo)
    Mitsubishi Duster
    Nissan Kangoo
    The Nissan NV vans could be a rebadged Renaults
    NV200 could be the Trafic
    The NV1500 could be a rebadged Master

  22. I, for one, am here for more “magical space snake” stories as I sit at my desk wearing a Pigs In Space tshirt and reading the Autopian instead of figuring out how to migrate ES5 code to ES6 like I should be doing.

  23. “(Editor’s note: I feel like The Morning Dump could’ve been published an hour ago without this stuff, but sure, go on, Matt. Tell us more about your magical space snake. –PG)”

    Maybe it could have, but the question is, “Should it?”

  24. I think I speak for most when I say it would be much more noble to sacrifice oneself to the black hole than to allow a race of experimental sentient boa constrictors to escape the confines of the ship and spread through the galaxy.

    2. I dunno, I propose we give them a chance. Who knows? I can’t see things getting any worse with them at the helm, plus there’s the potential for a really great symbiotic relationship to grow there because, you know, hands…

    3. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. If they’re that close to the event horizon of a black hole they would be experiencing pretty intense time dilation from our perspective. The amount of acceleration needed to maintain or reverse course would mean bajillions of years would pass for us by the time Stumpy and Snakey can escape and return to Earth, by then you and I will be long since past worrying about such problems.
      Besides, I’d think someone with the username v10omous would be pro-serpent.

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