4 Hours on "Green Hell"......Nurburgring Enduro

[Buffalo Six]

So over the holiday weekend I decided I was going to do the 4 hour (real time) enduro on the Nurbrugring. Only a Japanese company would have a 4 hour race on Green Hell with a 90% Japanese field and 1 or at most 2 Euro cars (an hopped up Audi TT or a RUF 911ish turbo thingy). Mostly Nissan Skylines (Hot Mines and Drift Mods.....good fast cars) and Honda S-2000R's that rev to about 10 grand and are pretty fast. All of this on the Nurburgring plus some of the GP track.....you know just to break up the tension over 4 hours.

So, I started by dusting off my '63 Corvette Grand Sport to give it a bit of a challenge. Well it was too much of a challenge as I could not keep from shredding the rear tires, as in needing a new set about every lap. Its not like I was tail drifting like a crappy car movie series (Fast and Fracking Stupid 1 thru 5.....I'm looking at you) but on the vette, the back end just moves, and slides and with something like 130ish corners on this track.....the rears were.....done.

Ok, back to the garage......

Tried a few different cars and couldnt find something I wanted to drive for 4 hours that wasnt a full bore race car. They have a performance points system (PP#) to rate how hot a car is, so I was looking for something in the range. I settled on a Corvette C6-R, and de-tuned the power to get it back in line with the PP#'s of the competition.

So....I set down for a long race, Chips.....check!, Drinks......Check!, Skoal.....Check!

Rolling start....and here we go! I'm 1st to the hair pin and on my way.......

Funny thing is that the 1st lap was the fastest (8m 44secs) for a long time (22 laps) because of the rolling start and fresh tires. I was making about 3 or 4 (if I was really good) laps a set (and a 1/2 tank of fuel) and have to pit. Pitting in GT5 sucks as it takes a long assed time to gas the car (its almost as if they are using 1 gal. cans.....lots of them) so whatever 50 liters equates to is about a 38 second stop. This combined with my seemingly frequent "offs" meant that I maintained about a 20 second lead most of the 1st 2 hours. My biggest problem was hanging a rear out in the grass somewhere and having the ass come around, usually in a breaking zone.....which sucks for your lap times and your lead. I have never driven the real (or any real for that matter) track but from what I understand they digitally mapped this thing down to every bump and groove...and trust me there are a LOT of them. If you miss the racing line by a foot or more in some places this track will just fracking launch you into something, that something is usually an ARMCO barrier. My car was set up well but god help me if I was late or Fenway decided to hit me with the wet nose or licking my ear or start humping his dog bed LOL. Its almost as if a lap at Nurburgring becomes a exorcise in crisis management. Sometimes I had good laps, other times I was behind the car and just trying to keep it wheels down. 2H 24M in I hit pause while in the pits and went to bed as I had to work the next day. I was in the lead with about a 30 sec lead on a Honda S-2000 GT1 bullet. Arms and hands were sore. Good thing my chair is really comfy or my ass would be sore also.

The next day I got ready for the final push to the finish, hunkered down and got ready to work. I then had to get up to take Fenway outside.....and when that was done, gave him a rawhide bone to keep him occupied. Back in my seat.....here we go!

The second "stint" went pretty good. I found a rhythm and the lap times started coming down and the lead increased, 1st to a minute then 2 and eventually 5 mins (partly due to other cars pitting with me on the fast section of the track.....or they had horrific accidents. Best lap came down to 8 min, 14 secs on lap 24. I still had a few offs, and some "aw shit" moments, but I was really in a groove. The race ended with the field turning 26 laps and me 27 laps. My 27th lap began with 3 mins left on the clock and almost thread bare rear tires which made that last lap entertaining. 27 laps doesnt sound like much in 4 hours but the track is 24.4 km long with the GP part in the mix. My hands are sore, the inside of my thumb knuckle is raw but I'm pretty proud of myself for getting thru that.

If I can figure out how to transfer pics or a vid off the PS3 I'll post them.

Now...back to work!

[Tach Deneva]

I don't know what most of that means, but cool!