A quick tour of the Nürburgring Nordschleife

....and what game might you use for virtual sex?!

 

I love that video of Stuck. I go to the Ring around three times a year in my M3 and also have GT4. The game will indeed allow you to learn the layout but in reality it cannot convey (IMHO) even remotely closely the real thing. The off camber corners, the high speed corners, trickier corners such as Adenau Forst (this is the corner where you see people tipping out of beetles in the 70's vid), the violence of Karrussell and the gut wrenching drop from a high speed high braking entry in Pflantgarten. The different tarmacs can play a big part and quite often you will go from a bone dry part of the track into a damp one which when trying to scrub off speeds of in excess of 140-150mph is a little interesting. More importantly you can't press reset if you hit the armco. I have a true love afair with the Ring and am due to go back there on 12th april for my first trip there this year. Also got a seat booked in the Ring Taxi so that should be amusing. So, in short, I think that GT4 is a good learning tool but as I go there a fair few times a year I have kind of lost interest in it now.

Any of you petrol heads coming over to europe should try and get a day there. Even if you don't drive the northloop there are plenty of friendly people who would be only too happy to give you a pax lap around there.

 

Grand Prix 3 for the PC had a somewhat open architecture and people developed tools to build tracks and environments for it. I used to develop a few tracks (Fiorano, Paris, Le Luc) for it myself and made them avail as downloads. But it is an arduous process and my know how got rusty.

Also there is an active track developer community out there for Grand Prix Legends.

 

This weekend I got the Nordschleife in my GTR2 PC-game. Connected with the Forcefeedback steering wheel, it is just a blast. The sensation of speed is amazing and the track never ceases to present a challenge. In the Porsche 996 RSR I got down to 8:38m.

 

+1000: perhaps these new video game things cqn replicate a normal flat track but never the Ring or the old Spa and if you risk nothing then it can't compare in the least to driving comittment.

The Fuchsrohre foxhole is the most awe inspiring piece of track there is anywhere and once you video gamers tackle it the first time you will understand: trust me!

 

The foxhole is damn scary if you don't lift through the compression. I have felt the car get very squirmy through there but keep my foot in and trust that those engineers in the ///M division did the maths. It is breathtaking, particularly as you have just tried to calm down from the run down to schwedenkruez at 150ish mph and Aremburg and then the adrenaline just builds to insane levels again and you have to get the exit of foxhole just right for Adenau. Love the place so much, one month to go and it all starts again!!!