Thanks to everyone for making me feel so welcome at Le Mans this year. The trip from Australia was a tremendous success.
If anyone is interested, the following is a short pictorial story. It was written for my local friends, so please forgive me if it sounds a bit simple.
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First we landed in Paris. Parisians have to be the worst drivers in the western world. Their parking has to be seen to be believed. Have a look at these Smarts.
Can opener anyone?
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Many if not most of the cars have scratches and dents all over the front and rear of the cars. They literally bump each other from side to side until they can extract themselves from their parking position.
Still, we saw some nice motors. I think this is an Aston Martin Vanquish:
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Then we headed south towards Monaco. This is where the cars became really interesting, for example, there was Ferrari's latest incarnation, the Scaglietti:
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In Nice, they have a novel way of making sure people obey the traffic lights. Try running a red light through this intersection.
We asked our concierge which was the best way to get to the GP. He said, "Train, taxi, boat or helicopter. But I recommend a boat." We took his advice.
As we were coming through the harbour, we saw some very nice yachts. This one was owned by a Russian entrepeneur of some description.
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Was delighted to run into Murray Walker.
After a day's racing the cars come out in force:
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After a while my travelling buddy Jason said "Oh look, there's a crappy Porsche turbo." =)
One of these boats at the front belongs to David Coulthard apparently.
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On race day, we had nice seats in a place called high row K. We managed to see the cars as they came around the bend from the straight after the tunnel where Takuma Sato blew his Honda to bits.
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After Monaco it was off to Munich to collect our car.
We got to the agency only to be told that the car we wanted was not available. "Zorry, ve do not haf de auto you ordered. Ve only haf de Carrera 4 convertible."
"Bugger, we'll have to make do with that then, won't we?"
And off we hopped to Nurburgring. At this point, I have to make one thing clear. The rental contract makes express reference to the fact that the car should not be used on a race track, even if it is open to the public. Sounds to me like they had Nurburgring in mind.
Being an obedient citizen, I wouldn't take the car on the track would I? No, but I had a dream in which I did. This is my recollection of that dream.
First of all, it was pretty amazing just to be there. The track was only open for a couple of hours, so we had to get straight out. It was a bit daunting at first, no very daunting.
The first impression you have is of bikers on your tail the whole time. And some of them are moving fast, scarily fast.
I was aware of the adage that you need to drive this track one corner at a time. For those of you who don't know, the northern loop of Nurburgring, which is open to the public, was a GP circuit until Niki Lauda had his fateful accident in which he was badly burned. The track is made up of blind corners, blind crests, off camber corners, fast straights, you name it, Nurburgring has it.
So, I went slowly at first. The locals tell me that as many as one person a month dies on the track, mostly people who hire a performance car and allow the blood to go to their head...
Watching the other traffic is something you need to pay great attention to. As suggested, much of it is really moving. I still have this vivid picture of an M3 CSL getting partially airborne as two wheels hit the curb going over a crest. Needless to say, the sound as it screamed past, was beautiful.
The car we have is pretty good too. Being a convertible carrera 4, it is quite heavy, and not a lot faster than some of our cars, but the traction is something to die for.
Through the carousel, you can pick a line and then literally jump on the throttle. The car just launches forward while maintaining the trajectory you have set for it. It's amazing.
The engine has heaps of torque too. I found that I was changing down into second too often, whereas the trick appears to be to leave it in third and then just allow the grunt of the motor to pull you through the corner slowly. Driving smoothly around this track appears to be the name of the game.
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Spent two or three days driving through the Swiss Alps. It was my turn to drive on this day, and do you think I was a little bit pleased about that?
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By the end of the day we had arrived at a place called Zurmatt at the foot of the Matterhorn. The roads on the way here were without question, the best driving roads I have ever been on. Being in a 911 to enjoy them was an experience I will never forget.
The Swiss clearly take their four wheel drives seriously. Yes, that's a 6.1 Brabus.
We took our obligations to explore the Autobahns seriously too. Hehe.
The best analogy of being on the autobahn I can think of is that scene from Finding Nemo, in which Crush the turtle is teaching Squirt the baby turtle how to ride the East Australian Current.
It's quite calm as you sit in the middle lane, but then when you move over to the fast lane, all hell breaks loose. Suddenly, you are swept up at a great rate of knots.
The car is remarkably stable at speed, but it's still scary. The impact on other drivers when you pass them at this speed is difficult to imagine. But given that you feel the car go "Wump" and move towards the centre lane every time you pass a slower vehicle, it would make sense that the other car feels a reciprocal effect. How unnerving would that be?
Hung out in Venice for a couple of days. If you get the chance to go, do it. In many ways, it is the most interesting city I've ever been to:
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Visited some very impressive castles. Apparently Disney designed their trademark after this:
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Visited Amsterdam, the city of my mispent youth.
