Driving My First Lap Of The Nurburgring Was The Best Experience Of My Life

As many of you will know, I spent last weekend in Germany at the Nurburgring. The reason you probably know this is because I haven’t stopped going on about it. Seriously, I think if I mention the Nurburgring one more time, Matt might physically assault me. Completing a lap of the 12-mile ‘Green Hell’ is probably on the bucket list of every petrolhead, but I wasn’t prepared for quite how addictive the place would be.

I’ve already discussed how the Nurburgring has its own unique atmosphere; it’s like the whole car community, and everything that’s awesome about being a petrolhead, is distilled into one incredible place. What I didn’t talk about was the all important lap…

I met up with long-time CT friend Boosted Boris at Ring Garage to pick up the keys to the Toyota ‘CT86’, and we headed towards the Nordschleife’s entrance. After a pep talk from Boris about how not to kill or injure either of us (and more importantly, the car), I pulled up to that famous ticket barrier. You know, the one we’ve all seen at the start of every on-board Ring lap on YouTube. The one that means this is it.

At this point, I was suffering from equal parts excitement and terror, but as the barrier lifted I knew there was no going back, so I focused my mind as we cruised through the cones that lead you onto the straight… and nearly hit an Audi R8. I’d noticed the brand new R8 parked on the straight to my left begin to pull away, and assumed he’d let me go. Either he didn’t see me, or there’s some kind of mid-cone etiquette I wasn’t aware of, but he accelerated out across the front of me. I think Boris’ heart stopped momentarily.

After a judicious stamp on the brakes, I was accelerating into the upper reaches of the Toyota’s second gear. Keeping right to allow the much faster E92 BMW M3 behind me past, I snatched third gear and carried on accelerating through the first left-hander that drops down the hill. The first section is complex but fast, and as I pushed through into the more sweeping sections I began to relax.

As you can see from the footage above, I was painfully slow (though I’m attributing some of that to the fact I’m not used to changing gear with my right hand - it feels so unnatural I had a hard time being smooth at speed, frustratingly). But here’s the kicker - it didn’t feel slow. I’d already decided I wasn’t going to really try, so there were only a couple of times I even induced tyre squeal, but that didn’t make it any less awesome.

The thing that really got me was the way the elevation changes drastically affect the car and your body. Aside from the multiple quick left-right-left sections, my favourite section involved a fast left-hander that dropped away before rapidly rising again into another left. The car forced itself into the ground and the g-forces pushing my backside down into the tarmac only served to exacerbate the sense of speed. Oh, and yes, the Karussell is as fun as it looks!

One of the things I was most nervous about was getting in the way of people going twice as fast as me, but I really didn’t have a problem with it. For the most part, people would give you space to enjoy the corner before haranguing you to get out of the way, so I didn’t need to be quite so polite about moving out of the way. I’ll know for next time.

And there definitely will be a next time. I’ve got the bug, and it’s all I’ve been able to think about since I got home. Next time I’ll be sure to head over when I don’t have other commitments (I was officially at the track to cover the 6 Hours of Nurburgring WEC round, but slinked out the back door when no one was looking), as one lap just wasn’t enough. Boris, fill the CT86’s tank… I’m on my way!

If this sounds right up your street, check out our competition in which you could win your very own Nurburgring experience, courtesy of Ring Garage!