The Glorious Past and Uncertain Future of the Incomparable Nürburgring

Stuck between mythology and reality, the Nürburgring faces an uncertain future. An American living trackside unlocks the gates.
Road, Nature, Green, Road surface, Natural landscape, Infrastructure, Mountainous landforms, Landscape, Highway, Asphalt,
Andreas Hempel & Dom Romney

Over the radio, the young Russian kid, Dmitry, sounded spooked. He was driving an Audi TT RS in no particular hurry along the Nürburgring Nordschleife's Döttinger Höhe straight as 150-odd race cars of various types slammed and jostled around him. A thick cotton candy fog obscured all but headlights, winking through the haze.

Dmitry wanted out of the car. Team owner Robb Holland, 46, an American professional driver with thousands of Ring laps under his belt, shook his head and spoke into his radio. "No."

Holland is tall and lanky, a handsome former professional cyclist with a shaved head and a voluble personality. He lives at the Nürburgring half the year as the managing partner of Rotek Racing, and he writes about the experience for various publications, including this magazine. Holland suggested Road & Track investigate the Ring at a time when it's struggling to remain true to its history and forge a solvent future — all while marketing twits try to whittle nine decades of death and triumph here into a special edition badge they can slap on a Toyota Corolla.

Two laps later, the kid repeated the request, and the Audi was back in the pits. Dmitry climbed out and slid of his helmet. He's slight and angular, with high cheekbones and the kind of impassive eyes common to both Russians and birds of prey. When he ran his hand through his damp brown hair, it was shaking.

All places of worship command respect, but at the Nürburgring, the most formidable of the old speed temples, fear is the most appropriate offering.

Andreas Hempel & Dom Romney

A handful of hallowed racetracks still operate around the world. Some are in Europe — Monza in Italy, Belgium's Spa-Francorchamps, France's Circuit de la Sarthe — but there's also the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Japan's Suzuka Circuit. More notorious and unforgiving than all of these is the Nürburgring, the massive, treacherous track that dips and twists through Germany's Eifel Mountains. The Ring has some 70 corners. Many are blind or off-camber, almost all are fast, and it's no exaggeration to say that even a minor error in any one could destroy a car.

The world's most infamous racetrack was originally proposed as a way to save the lives of German cows. The organized public road racing that flourished in Germany after World War I was a danger to livestock, which often crossed courses to reach grazing fields. Otto Creutz, the track's widely acknowledged father, is reported to have remarked, "I am here in the first place for the farmers and in the second place for the motorists." He had the audacious idea for a purpose-built circuit wending around the farms and fields near Nürburg, a village in the Eifel region south of Cologne.

The plan called for a course of between seven and a half and nine miles, with a price of 1.8 million Reichsmarks. As the size of the proposed track grew, the projected cost ballooned to 5.5 million, then 7 million marks. The German Welfare Ministry, which had agreed to finance the Ring as a make-work program in a country racked by postwar unemployment, became skittish. It was assuaged only when the German auto industry committed, en masse, to renting the track for vehicle testing. All told, construction cost more than 14 million Reichsmarks (a meager $45 million adjusted for inflation) and took 2500 people two years.

In its original form, the finished circuit was a wonder: 17.6 miles, more than 1000 feet of elevation change, and thanks to unpredictable mountain weather, the chance for a driver to face rain, sleet, snow, fog, and sunshine in a single lap. When the Nürburgring opened on June 18, 1927, men began dying there almost immediately. There was no other circuit like it, there still isn't, and it's safe to say there never will be again.

In a few days, Robb Holland would be coaching Dmitry through the 2014 finale of VLN, a Nürburgring-based endurance series, but the morning after I arrived, he was sitting in his kitchen wearing pajama bottoms and an old T-shirt, mainlining car videos from his laptop. Occasionally he perked up at the throaty blaaaat of an engine outside. Then he muttered "NSX" or "AMG GT" or the name of some car that wouldn't debut for months, turning his attention back to an incredible feat of racing skill or maybe a moron crashing a Lamborghini into a convenience store.

Andreas Hempel & Dom Romney

In many ways, this region hasn't changed in the 88 years since the track opened. Holland calls it "the Kansas of Germany." Some tractor-repair shops have a side business servicing high-performance brake systems, and local mechanics knock door-to-door looking for extra work during race season, but it mostly remains a quiet, rural community. The surrounding area is farmland and rolling green hills. A herd of cows occasionally loiters on the Rotek house's back patio. It's a stark contrast to what's beyond the house's front door. Rotek's compound occupies 1–3 Gottlieb-Daimler-Strasse, the first addresses on the long boulevard of garages for the Nürburgring-based development efforts of manufacturers like Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Aston Martin, Cadillac, Kia, and Jaguar Land Rover. Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Bugatti run cars here, too, making Daimler-Strasse the de facto cruising strip for almost every major performance car in development. The rest of the neighborhood is made up of suppliers like Bosch and smaller race shops like Black Falcon.

Rotek set up shop two years ago with an arrive-and-drive program, providing a base of operations for pros or high-level amateurs to race the Nürburgring Nordschleife, the 12.9-mile circuit that survives as the main endurance track. (The Nordschleife, or "North Loop," was shortened from 14.2 miles in 1981, the same year work began on a new grand prix circuit to replace the smaller Südschleife.) Rotek offers clients a race-prepped 2013 Audi TT RS with almost 400 hp or a 2008 wide-body Audi RS4 with 480 hp. There's also a lightly modified BMW Z4 and a tuned Ford Focus RS used mainly for tourist day drives. Other vehicles are in the works. Drivers can opt for a single race or run the whole VLN series, depending on how much they want to spend. For about $15,000, including flights, customers can move into an eight-bedroom house on Daimler-Strasse with private coaching, four mechanics, and an entry to an honest-to-God, internationally sanctioned endurance race.

Andreas Hempel & Dom Romney

"Fifteen grand buys you one race in the lowest Grand-Am class," Holland said. "And guys do it all the time. We figure for the same price, you get to the Ring, there's no language barrier, and all the paperwork and logistics are taken care of. You just get in the car and race the most insane track in the whole world." There are miles of hiking trails in and around the Nordschleife, all navigable by tracing the scent of scorched brake pads and smoked rubber. One morning I followed Holland into them. We clomped around in the late-October mud to watch manufacturer testing, which accounts for the majority of reserved track time and a major source of Ring revenue.

"Manufacturers say they use the Nürburgring to hone the tuning of their performance cars, but that's bullshit," Holland said. "If you set up a street car to perform well at the Nordschleife, it would be terrible for everyday driving. They're really here to put cars under extreme stress, to test component durability, electronics, stability control, NVH, that sort of thing."

Andreas Hempel & Dom Romney

The drivers are part of the so-called Industry Pool of pro wheelmen. During testing season, which runs from March or April until the weather shifts, usually around late October, these drivers are omnipresent. Walk into any restaurant during a lunch buffet, and most diners will be wearing Nomex suits and racing shoes. The previous day, in a local gym, a stocky guy in his early forties struck up a conversation with Holland's business partner, Roland Pritzker, 37. He introduced himself as Gerko, a test driver for AMG, and offhandedly mentioned driving the ultrasecret Mercedes-AMG GT race car, which had yet to be unveiled. Noticing the shocked look on Pritzker's face, Gerko laughed and said, "Driver gym," before pointing at other men around the room. "BMW driver, AMG driver, Jaguar, Audi," he said. He added with a shrug, "Driver town."

If the manufacturer testing going on that week was a safari — glimpses of exotic beasts as they hammered past — the weekend's VLN qualifying was an invasion, a deafening assault of carnage. There were 164 cars on the starting grid for the final race. A high-speed parade past Bergwerk curve showcased racing versions of a Bentley Continental, various Porsches, a Toyota GT 86, a Mercedes SLS AMG, and an achingly beautiful Ford GT. The sheer variety of cars here makes spectating seem like watching antelope running with buffalo running with house cats.

At Brünnchen corner, a popular tailgating spot, we encountered a small city of RVs. On a hill overlooking the track, an inflatable pool had been turned into a makeshift hot tub. The cowboy boots and bare shins of an enthusiastic drinker dangled over the side as a German language version of "Ring of Fire" blasted from a boom box. Two hundred people cracked tall cans of beer and sang and tended to small bonfres. Large white signs reading Caution: Danger to Life! were posted next to unlocked gates. Spectators casually climbed down to the track to snap pictures.

This was the vanguard for the 25,000 people who arrived to watch the season's final VLN race. That number is dwarfed, Holland said, by the 24 Hours of Nürburgring in May, when more than 250,000 people descend on the village of Adenau to buy all the milk, bread, sausages, firewood, and every last available beer in the supermarket, which is not an easy thing to do in Germany.

Andreas Hempel & Dom Romney

There must be tremendous money coming through here, I suggested. Yes, Holland agreed, there is. The problem is, no one knows how to take advantage of it. For example, a disused roller coaster reaches into the sky about a mile from the track's old Formula 1 paddock, a concrete plaza of garages still bearing signs with names like Rindt and Prost and Hunt. The coaster, which opened in 2009, was only operational for a few weeks and ridden mainly by locals who were attracted by the novelty. The Ring Racer, as it's known, was part of an ambitious, decade-old plan to transform the track into a family-friendly theme park. Holland likened it to the secondary economy of a ski town.

"Even if the wife and kids don't ski, they can still enjoy a place like Vail or Aspen. There's shopping, restaurants, movie theaters. They thought the same thing could be built here at the Ring," he said.

Despite substantial investment by the local government — reportedly over $600 million — in a new hotel, restaurants, the coaster, and a sprawling Ring Werk complex meant to showcase other attractions, those families never appeared. Holland says it was due to a misunderstanding of the driving enthusiast mentality, similar to that of golfers and hunters, in that time away from family is often considered a collateral benefit. Now, the cavernous Ring Arena houses a few offices, a Nissan showroom, and some apparel stores. The gift shop sells a 300-piece puzzle of Sebastian Vettel's face and a Nürburgring-logo toaster.

The track's modern mismanagement is a curious shame. Local sentiment suggests the business managers who oversaw the investment were unscrupulous and had no feel for the Ring's culture or its community. Take the Ring Card: In theory, this prepaid debit card could be used to pay for everything from bar tabs to tourist-day drives to lodging at the new Lindner Congress & Motorsport Hotel. In reality, many local businesses don't accept credit cards, let alone a high-tech system of corporate scrip. Those businesses, including the legendary Sport Palace hotel bar, would be efectively shut out of any new tourist revenue the renovations might have attracted.

Andreas Hempel & Dom Romney

In 2012, the Nürburgring's owner declared bankruptcy. "Save the Ring" campaigns began immediately. German auto-parts supplier Capricorn Group bought the track for a reported $107 million in 2014 but defaulted almost immediately. A few months later, Russian pharmaceutical billionaire Viktor Kharitonin reportedly took over Capricorn's majority share. The Ring Card was scrapped as of January. The Ring Racer may be dismantled.

The Nürburgring's uncertain fate hangs over the region like a guillotine, but daily life goes on. Manufacturers test, racers race, tourists line up for Sunday drives, and Rotek prepares to coach its clients. The team hosted two drives that weekend: Pritzker shared the RS4 with Ken Dobson, a pro shoe training for a seat in the 24 Hours. Dmitry and his co-driver, a Russian pro named Roman Rusinov, were in the TT RS. A small TV crew shadowed the pair for a reality TV show.

The night before the race, Rotek's neighbors, Audi Sport Team Phoenix, walked into a cozy Irish restaurant and exchanged nods with Holland and Pritzker. The gesture seemed curt, but Holland told me it was just part of the stoic German culture.

"I'm the only black guy for a thousand kilometers, so I did wonder, at first, if it's a racial thing," he said. "But I realized it's more of an American thing. The more they get to know you, that you live here and you make an effort to be part of the culture, they're nice and very welcoming, very warm." It carries over, he said, to the smaller teams and suppliers. "It's still a bunch of drivers and mechanics. We borrow parts, that sort of thing. The car-guy mentality is the same as anywhere. It's just more of everything."

Andreas Hempel & Dom Romney

Race morning was wet and frigid. I was lucky to have made it into the garage at all, because I failed to secure a press pass before I arrived. At most tracks, these are not hard to come by, but they require advance notice. Getting credentials on a race day typically ranges from impossible to extremely unlikely. But Uli Baumert, Rotek's race manager and an AMG test driver who has lived in the area for decades, made a call. Team manager Rebecca Kessler escorted me to the press office and quickly sorted it out. Afterward, in true German fashion, she was compelled to note that rules had been broken.

A heavy fog rolled across the track, and the VLN finale was delayed after a single lap. Immediately, hundreds of Europeans stepped outside and lit cigarettes. Six cars piled into the tiny garage that Rotek shares with two other teams, and the air filled with the sound of impact wrenches and parts clanging of concrete. Ninety minutes later, with no discernible change in conditions, the race restarted with a savage scrum that saw eight cars off the track within a few corners. An Opel Astra OPC Cup slid backward at Mercedes Arena; a BMW Z4 sat like a lumpy target in the middle of Warsteiner curve. The circuit is so long that there were no laps run under a yellow flag, only sections of track running under caution.

And then the TT RS was back in the garage with a burned clutch. A new one was installed in short order, but Dmitry couldn't get his helmet on. He dug a gloved hand around his temples, fishing for the chin strap. Baumert finally helped him buckle in. The kid, despite being clearly rattled, climbed behind the wheel and gave a thumbs up. Given the murk and the field's speed differential, I wanted to stand up and applaud. Four hours later, someone won the race. It was hard to tell with the fog, which continued rolling in as the checkered flag waved.

Andreas Hempel & Dom Romney

That evening, Holland and Pritzker went to the end-of-season party. It was a typical German club scene, a cavern filled with fog machines and pummeling house music. Holland bought a round of beers for his crew, shook each person's hand, and thanked them personally. Twenty minutes later he was out the door, back to Gottlieb-Daimler-Strasse, and straight to bed. Soon he'd hit the road to manage his responsibilities as a sponsored pro driver. He'd head to SEMA, in Las Vegas; the Macau GP in China; California's 25 Hours of Thunderhill; and the PRI trade show in Indianapolis. Then the Autosport trade show in England, followed by the 24 Hours of Dubai and the 12 Hours of Bathurst in Australia. Holland expected to see his Denver home for maybe two weeks over the next four months. Preseason testing at the Ring begins the first week of March.

Dab the brake, jump, land, dab the brake. This is the basic recipe for not doing cartwheels. I repeated this mantra because, after a quick familiarization lap, Holland tossed me the keys to his Focus RS, yawned, and went in search of caffeine. My first lap behind the wheel at the world's most dangerous racetrack, and the resident pro driver was at a restaurant sipping cappuccino. At least the weather was lovely.

Andreas Hempel & Dom Romney

The Ring opens for public lapping — in everything from caged race cars to tour buses and sidecar motorcycles — most weekends and some weeknights from April through October. As I queued next to a Ferrari 458 and a Citroën C4 Cactus, the sidewalk crowds leaned close and leered at drivers, perhaps willing them to do something stupid. I remembered Holland saying that the Ring's famous track graffti can be slick as ice and changes nightly, so even seasoned professionals are never sure of the grip.

Everything from the weather to the fans conspires to keep this place unknowable. I began thinking of all the ways things could go wrong. Then the gate opened, I squeezed the wheel a few times to calm myself, and I took off.

Tourist laps cut out the track's long main straight, leaving a rollicking, never-ending offensive of blind corners, high-speed kinks, sharp climbs to the sun, and steep, stomach-floating dives into long chasms. The beech forest closes around you, trees packed straight and dark like the bristles of a saddle brush, before you burst through the foliage into an explosion of green and gold. This is a tricky and uncompromising place, and accidents are common. Runoff is nonexistent; trees hug the fencing that hugs the track. Niki Lauda almost died here, and Peter Collins and John Taylor and dozens of others did. As this article was being written, Jann Mardenborough's Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 went vertical over Flûgplatz during the 2015 VLN season opener, tumbling over a catch fence. One spectator was killed and several others were injured. Organizers then took the unprecedented measure of imposing speed limits on sections of track for the Nürburgring 24 Hours. The popular GT3 class may have finally outpaced the narrow, treacherous Ring, just as F1 cars did in the 1970s. That could be a dire blow to the bottom line.

Andreas Hempel & Dom Romney

Mythology doesn't associate with speed limits, and in an increasingly sanitized world, a battle against mortality remains the Nürburgring's stock-in-trade. But that can become self-serious, or even morbid, and it's not the only reason the Nürburgring is worth saving. It's also joyous, vital, and authentically weird. On tourist days, the Ring adheres to the same laws as any other German highway. Passing on the right is forbidden; helmets are optional.

A bright yellow Peugeot 208 with a ludicrous wing slid around me in Kallenhard corner, the driver sawing the wheel with his left hand and casually waving with his right. Later, I came over a blind crest to find a crashed Opel, parts scattered through the grass like a yard sale, its driver leaning on the Armco smoking a cigarette. If this place ever disappears, I thought, one more adventure will have vanished from the world. Children won't believe it existed.

My first lap over, I queued again. Then again, and perhaps once more, and it briefly seemed as if I could do it forever. And when the sun took on the soft, fat slant of late afternoon and it was finally time to leave, I lowered my windows as I passed two long, candy-colored columns of cars at the track entrance. Idling engines tumbled the air in a bebop rhythm. Somewhere in the procession, a driver stabbed a throttle and let loose the thump-crack roar of a small-block V8, setting of a chain reaction. The noise swelled to a shrieking, thunderous symphony of flat-fours and straight-sixes and eights and twelves. The sound shuddered through my bones all the long way back down the mountain.

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