Nürburgring 24 Hours – Thursday Notes
Speechless In The Eifel

Greetings from a sunny Nürburgring…yes, I did say sunny…where the preliminary stages of the 39th running of the 24 Hours are already underway.

The DSC Ed and Deputy Ed arrived at the circuit in good shape, courtesy of the Nissan G370Z that we have borrowed for the weekend, and managed to catch a few minutes of free practice through the fence at Döttinger Höhe after signing on. The sight, sound of smell of race cars at full-pelt is always enough to revive the jaded soul and soon we were heading for the paddock with a light heel.

With the Ed on Radio Le Mans duty this weekend, your scribe found the place reserved for him by DSC’s Ring snapper Sören ‘Zorro’ Herweg and got settled in – helped in no small part by a plate of the sausages and potatoes served hot in the media centre.

Soon afterwards, it was time to have a look at the paddock for the first time (this being my first visit to the circuit). A quarter of an hour later, I returned to my desk, my head spinning at the scale of this event; wondering how on earth I was going to cover it!

An early indication that this was not your run-of-the-mill meeting had come when we passed one of the support paddocks, next to which was a sign which indicated “Nürburgring 2km”.

209 cars in 24 classes squeezed into an area roughly the same as that occupied by Silverstone’s new pit complex. This wasn’t a paddock; this was a military camp on the eve of an invasion! The few square feet of paddock not taken up by trucks and hospitality arenas were occupied by a seemingly endless line of tyre trolleys belonging to the 97 Porsche Carrera World Cup cars which were about to take part in their free practice session. I haven’t yet been round the garages, but a peek inside revealed absolutely no room at all between cars.

How does this event even function!?!

I know one thing – I’m going to enjoy finding out. In the meantime, I will also hopefully work out how to relay to the DSC readership the flavour and pattern of the race in a meaningful fashion. I beg your patience while I get to that point.