24-hour race at the Nürburgring: Experience before result

The criticism of the car in general may be getting louder. But at least at the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring, love is undiminished. Almost 300 fans are celebrating what is by far the largest PS party in the country.  

It's Saturday shortly before midnight and there's no sign of tiredness even 36 hours after arrival. In the shadow of the defiant castle ruins, the guests from the USA, Holland, Spain, England and France are sitting in their summer loungers, staring for eight hours at the man-high screen and a few meters behind it at the racetrack, over which the cars race every second and at the same time are so fast that you can hardly tell if there is a Audi R8 drives in Porsche 911, a Mercedes-AMG GT or the fiery red Mini John Cooper Works of the semi-private Bulldog Racing Team, which is why they are all really crossing their fingers at the charming mini-camp. 

Where the real car fans are

More than about the speed, which here on the Döttingerhöhe is often well over 300 km/h, about the motley field of professionals and amateurs, sophisticated racing cars and laboriously doped everyday cars or the fight of British David against the southern Germans Goliaths, they are amazed at a spectacle that only exists in Germany: Welcome to the 24-hour race on the Nurburgring, welcome to what might be the biggest PS party in the world. 

While the love of cars has meanwhile cooled painfully in large parts of society, the IAA is complaining about a drop in spectators and the streams of visitors in the car dealerships are ebbing away, the petrolheads are celebrating a high mass of the automobile here and let themselves be carried away by almost 150 racing cars, which spend 24 hours over perhaps the most famous, but definitely the most challenging circuit in the world and the green hell for just under a week to the sky full throttle fraction . make

There is no sleeping at the 24-hour race

Especially this year. Because as if the 50th birthday of the car race with the most visitors, and possibly the largest individual sports event in the country, wasn't reason enough, in the two-year pandemic break and corona restrictions, a certain amount of pent-up demand has built up - which around 300.000 fans are now working through intensively. No wonder nobody thinks about sleeping in the mini camp.

And it's still comparatively civilized there. If you want to experience a real Ring feeling, you have to stroll across the campsites during the day and march around the track behind the safety fence at night and see how professionally the Ring enthusiasts now organize their speed part: The fans often prepare for this for many weeks Highlight, build huge wagon complexes with a catering tent, pool and party terrace, not only truckloads of beer and food are carted into the Eifel, but even refrigerators, cooling machines and generators. And with all the charcoal and lots of firewood being burned here for at least three nights, a medium-sized city would probably get through a freezing winter. But after all we are in the Eifel, and you never know when the weather is there.

What are we talking about?

This time there will be no hail or snow, and while it's pouring heavily in some corners of the 25-kilometer circuit, it's nighttime Brunnchen relatively dry. But nobody has been interested in the real weather conditions for a long time: Eight hours after the start, the fans have already warmed up, barbecuing and bawling and celebrating at least as intensely as the pros in the cockpits and their mechanics work in the pits. 

The actual meaning of their being here is becoming more and more of a side issue. That there are a couple of racing cars swiping across the field of vision in the background and flat screens flickering with the live broadcast? And how it is now just im sheer eternal four-way battle stands between Audi, BMW, Mercedes and Porsche? Well after midnight, that is only of peripheral interest, and unless another crash slows down the speeding caravan and the noise level suddenly drops, nobody lets the mood here be spoiled by split times and position reports. "Hell, hell, hell, a party like this only happens once a year," the Ballermann medley condenses in an endless loop into a constant roar that drowns out every eight or ten-cylinder engine. 

Crowd favorites and accidents

However, the mood was not so untroubled everywhere. At least in the mini camp the barometer jumped like a toddler in a bouncy castle. Initially on high, because the racer with start number 112, which matches the fire engine red paint, became the crowd favorite from the start and fought its way up to 5th place in its group, a bump on lap 19 caused the first crash. But because the pit crew bravely patched the car back together, the mood was up again when the red Mini stormed through the green hell again just 90 minutes later. Only to then crash even deeper when the car is shot down again in lap 40 and then finally has to quit. 

But a bad mood doesn't fit into what is perhaps the biggest PS party in the country, and a good mood is more contagious than any nasty virus. Especially after the long Corona break. As soon as the Mini is standing next to the track in the middle of the camp with scratched sheet metal but undamaged self-confidence, a smile returns to the faces of the team and the pride that the little bulldog was able to play with the big dogs at least for a few laps. And the confidence to try again someday. Because if you have even a little bit of petrol in your blood, you have to be damn deaf not to hear the call of the Green Hell. 

And as painful as the failure may be for the team, the grief of the guests is kept within limits, says someone who has been on his feet for 18 hours and cheers lap after lap: "The experience is much more important than the result .”