Finally.
Finally! FINALLY!!! It's time for the Ring!
Day 3 for me started with a 4 mile run through town at sunrise (gotta take it easy with the driving starting today
).
Then after breakfast it was time to meet the cars!
Then we head over to the Ring for a warm up lap. This M training is done in pairs. Our instructors are Robert Fassl (BMW DE) and Donnie Isley
willwin2day from the US!
Robert walking us through a section:
Each of us got to do a warm up lap. Then it was slalom cones and hard breaking...orienting ourselves to the M2. Then it was back all the way around the ring to the end of the track and the mini carousel or schwalbenschwanz (swan/swallow's tail). We started our training with this section. Walking the corner was insane...you get a real feel of the banking. Unfortunately, I didn't get that photo! However, I did get us going backwards on the mini carousel..which was cool!
After that, we moved on to the start of the track Tiergarten to the American corner (where Nordschleife track meets the GP track) and then on to the Hatzenbach, Hocheichen/quiddelbacher hoehe and Swedish Cross areas!
Video (Other set of drivers in the cars) and two shots from behind the fence in the Swedish Cross area!
I imagine we'll cover the some of the more difficult stuff tomorrow...some shots!
I particularly like this next one of the ducks in a row!
Finally, at the end of the day, it was time for the lead-follow pace laps!!!
We did two back-to-back and then one. Since the BMW-provided USB sticks didn't seem to work after about 10:30 am, the iPhone mount was crucial here. In the two-lap go our times were approximately 9:57 bridge to gantry and 9:35 BTG!!! 20 seconds doesn't seem like a lot over 12 or so miles, but you can feel the difference when driving! The third go-round we had some slow spots for cars to catch up in the back of my pack and so it was 9:45-ish...ARGH!
Working on getting those videos posted for you all!
Update: Day 1 lap videos below: