October 21, 2017

Nurburgring Costs and What if it All Goes Wrong?

Every car / bike nut has dreamt about a few laps of the Nurburgring. And at 26 Euro a lap it seems like a bargain, right? Germany’s Nurburgring is one of the longest and most challenging race tracks in the world. Its made up of two racetracks – the Nordschleife (Northern Loop), and the Grand ...

By TomBoyNI

Nurburgring Logo

Every car / bike nut has dreamt about a few laps of the Nurburgring. And at 26 Euro a lap it seems like a bargain, right?

Germany’s Nurburgring is one of the longest and most challenging race tracks in the world.

Its made up of two racetracks – the Nordschleife (Northern Loop), and the Grand Prix Circuit which combined cover over 26km. This makes it the worlds current longest permanent racetrack.

It’s a race track, a testing center for new cars, and is open to the public who can zoom round for the entry fee of 26 Euro.

The Nurburgring consists of 40 left-hand bends, 50 right-hand bends and a 300m height difference.

Crashes occur daily and there are endless rumours about the number of public fatalities per year.

Here is what wikipedia has to say about the world’s most famous track :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nürburgring

Nürburgring is a 150,000-capacity motorsports complex located in the town of Nürburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It features a Grand Prix race track built in 1984, and a much longer old “North loop” track which was built in the 1920s around the village and medieval castle of Nürburg in the Eifel mountains. The north loop is 20.8 km (12.9 mi) long and has more than 300 metres (1,000 feet) of elevation change from its lowest to highest points. Jackie Stewart nicknamed the old track “The Green Hell”.^[1]

Originally, the track featured four configurations: the 28.265 km (17.563 mi)-long Gesamtstrecke (“Whole Course”), which in turn consisted of the 22.810 km (14.173 mi) Nordschleife (“North Loop”), and the 7.747 km (4.814 mi) Südschleife (“South Loop”). There also was a 2.281 km (1.417 mi) warm-up loop called Zielschleife (“Finish Loop”) or Betonschleife (“Concrete Loop”), around the pit area.^[2]

Between 1982 and 1983 the start/finish area was demolished to create a new GP-Strecke, and this is used for all major and international racing events. However, the shortened Nordschleife is still in use for racing, testing and public access.

So that all sounds great doesn’t it? It probably makes you want to go and spend your 26 Euros even more, then you’ll be able to say you been there done it, and wont have to worry about getting one of those horrible ‘Neverbeen’ stickers :

But what if it all goes wrong and you come off / crash? Or someone else takes you out? Regardless of fault – that’ll be sorted out at a later date – the costs of the track having to shut down (even for a short period of time) are colossal :

Forgetting damage to the track, you wrecking out, throwing debris all over the track and needing recovered will likely cost you in excess of 2,000 Euro!

Here is a full list of the potential cost of damaging and / or closing the Nurburgring:

BASE FEE FOR ATTENDANCE OF ARMCO TRUCK – €150
REMOVING DAMAGED ARMCO – €10/METRE (X2 OR X3 OR X4 FOR MULTIPLE-HEIGHT SECTIONS)
REPLACEMENT ARMCO – €31/METRE (X2 OR X3 FOR DOUBLE/TRIPLE HEIGHT)
REMOVING DAMAGED ARMCO POSTS – €5.10 EACH
REPLACING ARMCO POST – €39 EACH
SAFETY CAR ATTENDANCE – €82 PER 30 MINS (CAR AND TWO PEOPLE)
CIRCUIT CLOSURE FROM – €1,350 PER HOUR
RECOVERY TRUCK FROM – €600 (INC VAT)