We didn't have any of the 2 red Octys Ant, the only Octy was Beryl, my yellow MK1. We did see your cars tho I think, the white Corsa & the Clio's. I was going E-Bay my remaining laps but you could PM me for a sweet deal I guess if you like

Yeah we were a Briskoda ring trip consisting of 2 Skodas (1 of which was out of action after Friday), 1 Leon Cupra R, 1 Mazda3 MPS and a Mazda MX5

I saw the blue Mk2 vRS with Irish plates as well as the two red Mk1 UK ones, there was also a red Mk1 dutch one on the road near the roundabout

Video will be available just as soon as the link lead stops playing hide n seek Col

Have you got yours onto disc yet Phil?

Hmmm work in progress i think, not used the camera for a while and a bit of head scratching is required to transfer the content to DVD......

Well we are now looking at Octavia VRS for our track day car...... Got a few people interested in our Pug to fund a new purchase, and there are a couple of Octys for sale on Pistonheads, which are ex police cars.. Could be ideal.....?

Sounds good!

There was a bloke posted recently had just bought a vRS and was going to fit it up to race in the VAG trophy championship

http://briskoda.net/octavia-i/vag-trophy/156231/

I think they put him down a bit coz of the weight of a 5 door compared to 3 door A4 platform cars like the MkIV Golf but then again if you are just using it for trackdays and not necessarily competing against other cars it could be a right laugh!

What a trip,What a track...that is my blue rs in the car park,must been around the time we went out in the taxi at 13.30 on the saturday,1st car on track:cool:,a must for any one going to the ring.... see how it should be done;). seen the sliver fab pulled over to the left on one of my laps,hope all ok

i always wanted to go in the Ring Taxi originally but never got round to it, however last time out with a mate we overtook the ringtaxi so i doubt the thrill would be the same anymore. there quickish but you will get faster laps from some guys in the car park. Take a helmet and most will take you out if your not rude and offer either laps or a cold drink in exchange.

heres my mates car we were out in at the weekend

i have 3 laps on a card too,pm me if you want them:D

Well we are now looking at Octavia VRS for our track day car...... Got a few people interested in our Pug to fund a new purchase, and there are a couple of Octys for sale on Pistonheads, which are ex police cars.. Could be ideal.....?

Beryl says she's honoured that you have chosen one of her cousins as your track day car Phil. :thumbup:

But she thinks the lights and sirens might give you an unfair advantage? :rofl:

i always wanted to go in the Ring Taxi originally but never got round to it, however last time out with a mate we overtook the ringtaxi so i doubt the thrill would be the same anymore.

you overtook the ring taxi Ant? :hooray::clapclap: WOW!! :jawbig: :bowdown1::bowdown1::bowdown1::bowdown1:

i always wanted to go in the Ring Taxi originally but never got round to it, however last time out with a mate we overtook the ringtaxi so i doubt the thrill would be the same anymore. there quickish but you will get faster laps from some guys in the car park. Take a helmet and most will take you out if your not rude and offer either laps or a cold drink in exchange.

heres my mates car we were out in at the weekend

I was thinking that, seeing cars with just a single driver. Do you ask politely for a passenger ride, do you engage in pointless conversation and over eagerness about their car, hoping they will say, do u fancy sitting in, or do you just grab the door , rush in when they are waiting to go in, with a banana in your pocket and hold them to ransome.

basically, it can be as sad and geeky as that, MY brother is the worlds worst, we call him a car slag purely because he so nice to people to go in their cars. Luckily our mate has the GT2 above.

Back in June we took a Focus Tdci over as a rental car, i went out for a lap in it it with the boys and some guy asked as as we were queuing at the barriers to jump in. Seeing as we only had 95bhp i declined his request, but thats what they do.

My mate in the GT2 says he prefers to take somebody as he gets bored on his own, plus he does 4 laps on a trot as a minumum.

ps not me overtaking the ring taxi, my mate in the GT2 ( but then they are massively faster than an M5 anyway and he is a VLN driver too)

Question for this then- are we going to make this a annuel event along with the National meet as well?

I think the chances of me organising another trip for September 2010 range from "good" to "certain"

I have already found a more conveniently located "new" holiday park setup which looks the same price per person roughly, as the sunparks one. But with what look like better facilities and mod-cons.

Edited 26 September, 200916 yr by devonutopia

In the words of Mr Burns- Excellent

I can defo say that I will be there- and in a vrs.

Well the video is ready, titled, " Colin Do The Porsche "

Apologies for:

1. Slow Lap ( Before anyone says it, Simon ! )

2. Poor Sound Quality , girls in the back needed the window open.

3. Insane commentary

Do the Porsche Colin, Do The Porsche on Vimeo

I have already found a more conveniently located "new" holiday park setup

Is it a bit closer to the Ring then?

I quite enjoyed the half hour drive along the hairpins in the morning to get to Nurburg, good excuse to test out the RARB and coilovers

Although being closer to the Ring is better for getting an early traffic-free lap as soon as TF opens. The guys I went with last year camped again this year and it's literally 5 minutes from the campsite to the Ring carpark. Campsite doesn't have proper chalets though :thumbdwn:

Have since found the "Ferienpark" is actually quite a bit more money than the Sunparks, but there will be lots of research done before any 2010 trip is finalised.

Do the Porsche Colin, Do The Porsche on Vimeo

There's me worrying a relatviely tame Fabia would be out of place on the 'Ring but the first car despatched appears to be a Citreon C1!! :eek:

Citreon C1- The arch enemy of the Fabia 2.0?

Pasty ya coming next year? I've already said im a definat and sent Jason all the backgroud work ive been doing for the past year or so

N/B- Jason did ya get that?

Can't watch the vid as the work PC won't let it run, but the C1 was a shocker! There were two C1's on that lap, the first one is red but then we got stuck behind a 2nd one later on around Bergwerk which was grey, well he was an absolute pig to get round (bearing in mind we were in a 280bhp Leon Cupra :eek:) and then on the 2nd to last corner, who comes flying past us, yes you've guessed it the grey C1!!!

There was no VTS badge on it or anything so I guess he really knew the track well and had stripped everything out

Edited 29 September, 200916 yr by chicken_eyebrow

Those citrons are light weights anyway- there missing aa cylinder to reduce weight

Apologies for the length of this post but here's my trip journal type thing. I hardly took any photos so have a look at the earlier posts for the pictures and you'll just have to imagine the steak on the stone LOL

Gives you a bit of an idea of the trials and tribulations of taking a car to the Ring!

Briskoda Nurburgring Trip 2009 - Trip Diary

Chicken_Eyebrow (Jamie) and Beryl's Chief Pilot (Simon) travelling in "Beryl" (yellow Mk1 Octavia vRS)

Thursday 17th September

After a bit of a drama earlier in the week when Simon lost the only key for Beryl and ended up paying a fortune for another one to be cut and coded to the car, I arrived on Thursday night to help with the final checks before we went. The car had been prepared by having new Mintex brake discs and pads all round as well as 5.1 brake fluid and a throttle body clean and reset. It had also recently had a Whiteline RARB fitted at Balance Motorsport in Sussex.

We spent half an hour checking fluid levels, tyre pressures, all the lights and wipers etc. and looking for any leaks (none found). Then it was off to the local chinese for an all you can eat buffet. To our horror we got half a mile down the road and there was an almighty "CLONG" noise, after pulling over and checking all sorts of things we found the front offside coil spring had snapped near the top of the spring, only by a couple of inches though. This really put a dampener on things and we considered taking Simons other car (diesel Mk1 Octavia) but in the end decided as it was only a small bit of spring snapped near the top and not near the tyre

and he had just had a set of Weitec coilovers arrive that morning, to drive carefully out there with the Weitecs in the boot and try and find somewhere to fit them. If we couldn't get them fitted in time to use the car on the Ring we would passenger in some of the other cars. We had a big fill up at the chinese and annoyed the staff by ordering more than (they thought) we could eat. We filled the fuel tank and packed when we got back then I passed out on the sofa ready to get up at 3:50 :(

Friday 18th September

I woke up feeling like crap and slept in the car all the way to Dover, we made pretty good time and arrived just after five. The Norfolkline queues were full of other cars that were obviously going to the Ring for the weekend, we had 3 Clio V6's behind us and saw a couple of Renault Alpines as well. The boat loaded early and got underway just before 6. After a quick snooze on the sofas in the lounge we had a quick breakfast of steak slices and coffee.

Navigating out of Dunkirk was a doddle - we just followed the Renaults who seemed to know where they were going! We spotted the white Corsa VXR and M3 of AntFR and his mates on the E40 then before we knew it we were over the Belgian border and pulling into the services

at 9:40 continental time to meet the rest of our group. Jason in the Mongrel Fabia, Colin in his white Mazda3 MPS, two guys called Keith and Phil from SCN in Keiths red Leon Cupra R and Jason's friends Alex and Abi who were braving the cold with the top down in a Eunos Roadster. After a quick chat and fuel fill up for some, during which I managed to stick a Massey Ferguson sticker on the Mongrel, we continued on towards Brussels.

The motorway journey was busy in places, involving a quick detour through some random Belgian town, but we got to the Eifel area around 1:30 and made a stop for fuel, we also swapped over driving as I'd been put on the insurance. The Eifel scenery is stunning, loads of rolling hills and pine forests. Jason led the way to the Sunparks where we were staying, through little German villages that looked like chocolate box pictures.

We arrived at Sunparks at about 2:00 but unfortunately weren't allowed to leave all the cars outside the chalet so had to unload then move them to the carpark. We spent an hour or so settling in, then debated about whether to go to the local Lidl for food or just head to the Ring. We settled on meeting at Lidl at 7:00 to all chip in for BBQ charcoals and sausages, then made our various ways up to Nurburg to check out Touristenfahren. We stopped off at the overflow carpark to have a look at the exotic machinery waiting to do laps, exchanged our Redline vouchers for laps, and got some expensive chips in the Devils Diner. Then we headed up the hill to RSR to see if they could help us with the coilovers. John was very helpful - although RSR were fully booked for the weekend he suggested trying Car Service Nurburg in the village and asking for Oli. We went down there about 5:00 and luckily he was just packing up for the day but spoke good English and said he would be able to fit and set up the coilies at 10am the next day for 280 euros. He reckoned it would take about 4 hours. So in good spirits we popped along to Brunchen to see if we could see any of the other guys going round, but no joy. We headed back towards Lidl for 7:00. Simon phoned Jason to check about dinner and there was bad news... On his second lap Jason's turbo had blown up halfway through Kesselchen and his car had been dragged off to a garage in Adenau. Keith and Phil had already been to Lidl for us and sorted out the BBQ so we drove back to Centerparcs to find Alex adjusting the MX5 fuel tank, Jason on the phone to his breakdown people and Phil and Keith stoking up the BBQ and enjoying some 30p Lidl beers :-)

Over a BBQ of sausages, lamb steaks and some random porky stuff we discussed Jasons options. Unfortunately as the turbo was an Allard Hybrid with a special manifold and downpipe the VW garages in the area wouldn't be able to just repair it over the weekend. It was looking distinctly like recovery to the UK on the back of a flatbed. Phil and Keith kindly agreed to follow us to the garage the next morning with the Leon in case Beryls coil spring got worse.

Saturday 19th September

We headed up to Nurburg just before ten with Keith and Phil in tow and were pleased as punch when Oli said he could have Beryl done by about 12:30 if we wanted to come back then. The SCN taxi then gave us a lift down to Adenau where we planned to watch the local car club doing their morning rally on the Nordschleife. The four of us enjoyed some really tasty waffles with cherries and cream (late brekky) at the cafe near Breidscheid bridge then spent an hour or so watching the rally. It turned out not to be vintage cars (unless you consider a 4 week old Clio to be vintage) but was good to see some cars actually on the track as we hadn't seen much on Friday. We returned to the garage about 12:30 but Oli still had some adjustments to make on the coilies, he was going to lower the car by the maximum amount allowed by German TUV which was something like 35mm. We decided to go get our eat on again so went up the hill to the cafe in front of the Castle. It was packed with people from the morning rally and seemed to be doing a special discount menu for the rally so we just blended in with the local and had some amazing currywurst mit pommes (sausage and chips in a fruity curry sauce) for 4 euros and a refreshing pint or two of Bitburger.

At about 1:30 we picked the car up, and Simon let me drive it back to Sunparks to get our cameras. The combination of the RARB and coilovers made it so planted through the corners that it was a joy to drive, I confess that I did rag it a bit through the hairpins down to the park.

After collecting our stuff it was back to the Ring carpark for Simons first lap. Keith and Phil followed us on for their first lap too, but we lost them in the queue. We took it easy at first but it wasn't easy out there, with a lot of traffic and between me calling out the corners and Simon checking the mirror for rapidly approaching Porsches and M3s we got around in one piece. Then it was straight into the left hand filter lane to go through and do another lap. This time we were going a bit faster but still had to contend with traffic and a yellow flag for an Evo that had slid onto the grass at SwedenKreuz. Going into Adenaur Forst we had a faster car come up in the inside of us pushing us off the line and Simon was carrying a bit too much speed so with a nasty "bang" we hit the kerb and went straight across the grass, luckily he didn't panic and we rolled on and re-joined the track seconds later. After this lap we decided to come off and took the car for a leisurely drive down to the petrol station on the main road where we had a drink and watched the approaching rainclouds. The girl in the currywurst stall next to the garage was an absolute stunner :-) After having a good look round the model car selection in the garage shop we returned to Sunparks and spent an anxious half an hour checking for damage under the car from our trip over the kerb - luckily there didn't appear to be any, although the car seemed to be clonking a little through the footwells.

Saturday night was the big trip to the Pistenklause, and we were all looking forward to it. Colin taxi'd Alex and Jason while we gave Phil and Keith a lift (only fair as they'd been driving us around all day!). They were on a high from their laps that day, and were suitably impressed by Beryl, saying how the Mk1 Octy vRS could make a decent track car :-). The Pistenklause didn't fail to disappoint - the streets outside lined with Porsches and Scoobys and dozens of

punters inside huddled round laptops looking at photos of their car on track or comparing their sector times. We had a table booked amongst all the racing memorabilia and as we sat down to a few pints of Bitburger served by a couple of attractive Frauleins we decided to all go for the legendary "steak on a hot stone". This is basically a chunky slab of steak served on a superheated bit of granite with some fries and sauces, which you cut and cook to your taste. Combined with the German lager this makes for a very memorable meal! We didn't drink too much at PK due to having lots of 30p beers back at the cabin.

Sunday 20th September

As TF opened bright and early at 8:00 we grabbed a quick bit of toast and popped up to get an early, "slow" sighting lap in before breakfast. This proved to be quite a quick sighting lap, but as there was heavy traffic even at that time of the morning Simon decided that was going to be it for the weekend. We hadn't paid for any laps anyway as they were all free ones from Redline. We met up with Phil and Keith again and went down to the Cafe at Breidscheid to try

their 6 euro big breakfast offer, which turned out to be not as big as we thought (roll, cold meat and salad, cheese, croisant and coffee and juice). The SCN guys took off to do some more laps while me and Simon wandered up the hill around part of the track to take photos and I realised my camera had run out of batteries :-( The guys were delayed by a parade of Renaults (it seemed like every RenaultSport owner in Western Europe was visiting the Ring that weekend as there was a Renault Single Seater championship race on the GP track). We finally got some photos of the Cupra and Colin in his Mazda then rendezvous'd with all three of them at the Cafe near the castle. We were still too full for lunch but managed a few beers while Colin was attacked by wasps and I tried to take some sneaky photos of the waitress :-)

We went back to the GruneHolle carpark and persuaded Phil and Keith to take us out for a "family day out" (4 up lap in the Cupra). Phil was first to drive and went round at a fairly cautious pace (it's Keiths car). During the lap we "did" a Porsche, got overtaken repeatedly by a "f**king" Citroen C1 and also had the pleasure of seeing Colin going hell for leather chasing a Porsche 911 in his Mazda (and almost keeping up with it!). Phil then swapped places with Keith for the final lap of their weekend (again 4 up). Keith was a lot quicker but we still got caught in some traffic due to all the weight in the car (too much steak in the Pistenklause LOL). Back at Sunparks we wandered over to the restaurants at around 5:00 and had a few beers and some pizzas - quite amusing trying to explain in pidgin German that we wanted to take the pizza leftovers home in a box! We continued drinking at the chalet and Jason seemed to have solved the problems of breakdown recovery - the RAC were going to send someone out to take the car back to Devon and he would get a lift back to Heathrow with Colin then get a train down to Devon.

Monday 21st September

We had planned to visit the castle on the Monday morning but when we considered the time it had taken us to get from Dunkirk to Sunparks (almost 5 hours) we were going to have to leave at 11:30ish to get to Dunkirk for 5 for the 6pm ferry. We had a cooked breakfast courtesy of Abi, which used up everything cookable in the fridge, then packed the cars and cleaned up the chalet (at least I hope we did!). The group went up to the Nurburgring first to take some photos of our cars in front of the large Nurburgring sign at the new development next to the GP circuit, then we got on the road, with Beryl leading the way and me on sat-nav, trying to find a route that went on some unrestricted autobahn. We managed to find some short stretches of autobahn where Simon desperately tried to get Beryl up to 140+ despite the bootfull of luggage (including the old suspension), but the group got split up several times, with only us and the Cupra sticking together. We spotted Alex and Abi not far from Brussels though, they had taken a different route. After just a couple of short stops to change drivers (I was really enjoying driving Beryl) we were making great time and arrived at Dunkirk at 3:30 so had time for a trip to Carrefour. Phil and Keith went in the bar next door while me and Simon loaded up on wine and cheese (which stank the car out). When we were coming out Phil and Keith re-appeared with Colin and Jason, who had by chance arrived at the Carrefour and spotted our cars! Alex and Abi had gone on ahead to the docks so we joined them at about 5:00 and got on the ferry.

I bumped into the group of guys I went with last year on the ferry, I'd seen them over the weekend a couple of times but not had a chance to chat. They'd only taken three cars this year and one of the GT4s had only managed one lap as the gearbox had problems, but the other two cars (Evo IV and BMW Z3) had done about 20 laps between them.

Got off the ferry at about 7:30 English time and I drove the last leg back to Longfield to pick up my car. We were pretty tired (especially Simon, who'd been driving for about 4 hours solid that day). Exhausted but happy. Great holiday, great time and great company.

Bring on next year!

Think Im going to have to bring the Passat next year finances allowing, meant to do it with the vRS but had too much on with work last year :(

Those C1's where no doubt running either the supercharger or turbo kit, meaning 130bhp, 700KG's or less... = pretty decent bhp per ton figure

Well, I hope so for your sake!

Edited 8 October, 200916 yr by T. Spark